The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced its intent to overturn and undo decades of bipartisan consensus on critical pollution safeguards that have resulted in cleaner air and water and significant health improvements. The announcements cover 31 health protections, including standards on mercury, soot, and traffic pollution as well as the reconsideration of a decade-old, evidence-based conclusion that carbon dioxide, methane, and four other climate-warming pollutants endanger human health and welfare. In response to these announcements, EEN President & CEO Rev. Dr. Jessica Moerman issued the following statement.

This week, U.S. Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) announced the reintroduction of the Abandoned Well Remediation Research and Development Act (AWRRDA) to identify and plug orphaned gas and oil wells, which can leak harmful pollution, contaminate groundwater, and threaten public health and safety. Representative Summer Lee (D-PA-12) leads companion legislation in the House of Representatives. In response to the reintroduced legislation, EEN President & CEO Rev. Dr. Jessica Moerman released the following statement.

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to rescind a market-based methane pollution fee designed to incentivize large oil and gas operations to install readily-available and cost-effective innovations to plug natural gas leaks and end unnecessary practices that waste our natural resources and emit health-harming pollution. In response, EEN President & CEO Rev. Dr. Jessica Moerman issued the following statement.