Urge President Obama to Protect Our Climate from Methane
The Obama administration just set a goal of cutting methane emissions — a potent greenhouse gas — from the oil and gas sector by 40-45 percent by 2025, and announced it is developing rules to achieve this by limiting methane emissions from new and modified oil and gas fracking.
But it's critical that the Obama administration move quickly to also limit harmful methane emissions from existing oil and gas operations. It is also important that the administration ensures that their Clean Power Plan does not simply substitute one dirty fossil fuel for another, but instead ushers in truly clean, responsible energy.
Urge the Obama administration to do everything within its authority to cut methane emissions from all sources to protect our climate.
Dear President Obama, EPA and DOI,
Thank you for setting important goals to protect our climate and health from methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. It is clear that to attain these goals, the EPA and BLM will also need to move quickly to establish rules regulating existing sources of methane emissions, as well as to ensure that both existing and new source rules cover transmission and distribution activities and infrastructure.
It is also critical that the government adopt the most up-to-date figures for the global warming potential of methane emissions. Current science shows that methane from fossil fuel activities is 86 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, yet your announcement repeated outdated figures that drastically understate the climate damage caused by methane.
I look forward to seeing draft rules and a plan that will achieve the reductions in methane emissions that the administration has committed to. While regulating methane is not enough to make it climate or community-friendly, these standards are an important step to help protect our communities and reduce the climate-disrupting pollution that threatens our future. Ultimately, the most effective way to solve the climate crisis is to keep all fossil fuels in the ground.
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Sincerely,
[Your name]
