By: Vanessa Lynch, Pennsylvania Campaigns Coordinator, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: October 1, 2025
About: EPA Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0186-0001, Reconsideration of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program
To: Environmental Protection Agency
My name is Vanessa Lynch and I am the Pennsylvania Campaign Coordinator for Moms Clean Air Force. I oppose the EPA’s proposal to repeal the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.
When my kids were infants, one of their favorite games was peek-a-boo. At that young age, when you cover your eyes, the entire world disappears from existence because your mind does not understand object permanence—the idea that things can exist even when you don’t see them. We cover our eyes to the amount of greenhouse gas that exists at our own peril because, as all adults know, many things exist even though we can’t see them.
We know the Greenhouse Gas Reporting program, established by Congress, is effective. Research suggests that power plants subject to the GHGRP reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 7%, that the program helps to identify high-emitting facilities, and increase corporate accountability.
Just as troubling is the proposal to delay methane safeguards for ten more years. I live in southwestern Pennsylvania with my two children and husband. A well pad has been fracked in a medium density residential area where houses, children, parks, daycare centers, assisted living facilities, and schools are located. At a time when energy consumption is predicted to increase significantly due to data center power needs, the need for protection for frontline communities couldn’t be more critical. The EPA’s final rule to reduce methane and other harmful air pollution from oil and gas operations directly impacts the air my family breathes.
Climate change is real. The science is clear, but our government is choosing to turn its back on what it knows to be true. I’m concerned about is our children and the generations of people who will have lost their trust in the science they were encouraged to ignore.
From Pennsylvania’s ranking as having the highest incidence of Lyme disease in the country, to dangerous flooding across my community, to severe wildfire smoke from Canada reaching my home, the impacts of climate change are all around me. Climate change is making tick-borne illnesses more common, flooding more severe, and wildfires more intense. And, as a pragmatic mother of two, the costs of these impacts on the physical, financial, and mental well-being of my family are far too high.
I strongly oppose EPA’s proposed repeal of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. Collecting accurate climate pollution data is vital for addressing the harmful impacts of global warming on our families. Getting rid of this data collection will only make climate change more expensive, more dangerous, and more difficult to deal with, including the oil and gas sector’s methane and other harmful air pollution, which my family breathes each day.