Later this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to finalize its much-anticipated rules limiting climate-changing methane and asthma-causing volatile organic compound (VOC) pollution from new and existing oil and gas facilities.
We need the EPA to propose the strongest rules possible in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, reduce carcinogens like benzene, and reduce VOC pollution that reacts in heat to form dangerous ground-level-ozone (smog). Methane pollution has 87 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year time period and, according to the EPA, is responsible for 30% of the increased temperatures and precipitation we are currently experiencing.
