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: 

"As pro-life Christians, we are dismayed by House actions today repealing a cost-effective, market-based solution to defend our children from dangerous methane emissions and associated toxic pollution. We thank the bipartisan showing of representatives, including Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R, PA-1), who voted for our children’s health and against this short-sighted rollback of a critical health safeguard. At least 3.2 million children across America live within the half-mile health threat radius of active oil and gas production, where unplugged leaks and other wasteful practices expose them and their families to methane and associated toxic pollutants, which medical research links to cancer, birth defects of the brain and spine, poor birth outcomes, and other health harms. The methane waste emissions fee is a powerful, market-based tool that would help advance the Trump Administration's goals to make America’s air and energy the cleanest in the world and also help reclaim some of the estimated $1 billion in lost commercial value due to preventable gas leaks. In the midst of our national conversation about cutting waste and keeping household costs low, eliminating the waste emissions fee that incentivizes good stewardship of our precious natural gas resources is a step in the wrong direction."