PA Environment Digest Blog: PA Marcellus Shale Gas Coalition Applauds President For Overturning Basis For Greenhouse Gas Reduction Programs-- Including Methane From Oil & Gas Operations

On July 29, Marcellus Shale Coalition president Jim Welty issued the following statement in response to the U.S. EPA’s proposal to rescind the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding:

“Thanks to clean and abundant American natural gas, our nation’s air quality and environment continues to dramatically improve, creating important health benefits and economic growth.

“Our industry’s relentless focus on innovation, emissions reduction, and regulatory compliance continues to drive positive environmental and public health improvements, particularly in Pennsylvania, where greenhouse gas emissions in the power sector have dropped 46% in the last two decades.

“The original federal endangerment finding was deeply flawed and based on overreaching political agendas.

“As a result of that action taken more than a decade and a half ago, legal red tape placed on American consumers and workers, especially in the energy sector, created unnecessary disadvantages in the global economy.

“We appreciate the Trump Administration’s bold action to repeal burdensome regulations that harm hardworking American families and job creators while also prioritizing commonsense policies that benefit the nation’s environment and our economy.”

Click Here for the MSC announcement.

EPA Rescission Proposal

On July 29, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin released the agency’s proposal to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which has been used to justify over $1 trillion in regulations, including the Biden-Harris Administration’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate.

EPA intends to reconsider all of its prior regulations and actions that rely on the Endangerment Finding, although this announcement focused on vehicle standards.

“With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” said EPA Administrator Zeldin. “In our work so far, many stakeholders have told me that the Obama and Biden EPAs twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year. We heard loud and clear the concern that EPA's GHG emissions standards themselves, not carbon dioxide which the Finding never assessed independently, was the real threat to Americans’ livelihoods. If finalized, rescinding the Endangerment Finding and resulting regulations would end $1 trillion or more in hidden taxes on American businesses and families.”

Administrator Zeldin was joined by U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Indiana Governor Mike Braun, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, U.S. Representative Jim Baird (R-IN-04), Indiana Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources Suzanne Jaworowski, and the Indiana Motor Truck Association.

Click Here for the proposed rule rescinding the endangerment finding.

Click Here for the EPA announcement.

Previous EPA comments

"After 16 years, EPA will formally reconsider the Endangerment Finding,” said Administrator Zeldin. “The Trump Administration will not sacrifice national prosperity, energy security, and the freedom of our people for an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas. We will follow the science, the law, and common sense wherever it leads, and we will do so while advancing our commitment towards helping to deliver cleaner, healthier, and safer air, land, and water.”

“EPA’s regulation of the climate affects the entire national economy—jobs, wages, and family budgets. It’s long overdue to look at the impacts on our people of the underlying Obama endangerment finding,” said White House OMB Director Russ Vought.

“The United States produces energy smarter, cleaner, and safer than anywhere else in the world,” said Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. “To achieve President Trump’s vision for energy dominance, we are prioritizing innovation over regulation to attain an affordable, reliable, clean, and secure energy future for all Americans.”

“The 2009 Endangerment finding has had an enormously negative impact on the lives of the American people. For more than 15 years, the U.S. government used the finding to pursue an onslaught of costly regulations – raising prices and reducing reliability and choice on everything from vehicles to electricity and more. It’s past time the United States ensures the basis for issuing environmental regulations follows the science and betters human lives,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

Visit EPA's Endangerment Finding Reconsideration webpage to learn more.

Reactions

York County-based Evangelical Environmental Network President & CEO Rev. Dr. Jessica Moerman released the following statement on the EPA proposal--

“Generations will look back at this announcement and see it as a dereliction of duty. At a crucial moment, the Environmental Protection Agency is dropping the ball on its mission to protect human life and the environment.

“From Asheville, to Los Angeles, to Camp Mystic, God’s creation is clearly groaning under the weight of excessive climate-warming greenhouse gas pollution, putting lives and livelihoods squarely in harm's way.

“While good faith discussions are always welcome on how to make reasonable changes to improve pollution reduction, the current proposal goes far beyond that and abandons responsibility entirely for reducing the pollution that is causing climate-fueled extreme weather.

“This move will not make American communities safer or more prosperous and will ultimately be a setback for both human health and American leadership in the next generation of clean, abundant energy innovation.”

The Evangelical Environmental Network is a ministry whose mission is to inspire, equip, educate, and mobilize evangelical Christians to love God and others by rediscovering and reclaiming the Biblical mandate to care for creation and working toward a stable climate and a healthy, pollution-free world.

Moms Clean Air Force Director and Co-Founder Dominique Browning released the following statement:

“If your house catches fire, you call the fire department. Our planet is burning. EPA’s response? Do nothing. This is a shameful, reckless, and immoral move—all so wealthy, well-connected insiders can benefit.

“With President Trump’s encouragement, Lee Zeldin’s pollution spree is making it far easier for Americans to get sick, while the Trump administration is making it far harder and more expensive to get healthy.

“Families across the U.S. and across the world are already feeling the dangers of a hotter planet every single day as heat waves become more intense and deadly, floodwaters rise more rapidly, and harrowing wildfires burn across every season.

“We know that greenhouse gases from U.S. gas-fueled vehicles, fossil fuel power plants, and other sources are contributing to the global warming that is putting our weather on steroids and threatening the stability of life as we know it.

“Zeldin is trying to roll back 15 years of progress towards cleaning up climate pollution-- progress that Americans across the political spectrum strongly support.

“The solutions are pragmatic and have created new jobs and new industries—while our economy has grown. Moms Clean Air Force will oppose this rollback every step of the way. Loving our children requires fighting for their world.”

“Last year, the Biden Administration finalized commonsense safeguards that would have resulted in less dangerous, planet-heating tailpipe pollution while also reducing children’s exposure to harmful soot and smog.

“Zeldin’s attempt to undo these protections flies in the face of what we know to be true: that the transportation sector contributes enormously to global warming.

“Greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle tailpipes account for the vast majority of the transportation sector’s climate impact.

“These emissions are driving climate chaos and endangering our children’s health, both today and for generations into the future.

“We cannot afford to put the brakes on clean air and climate progress now."

Environmental Health Project Executive Director Alison L. Steele issued this statement the EPA action--

“Repealing the endangerment finding and delaying industry compliance of the federal methane rule are policy actions that directly threaten the health and welfare of people across the globe.

“Limits on industrial pollutants the oil and gas industry emits can lessen the impact of climate change, reducing chronic illness, hospitalizations, and deaths.

“Reasonable pollution regulations can also lower the risk of health impacts experienced by residents who live as far as ten miles from polluting facilities, such as the vast network of shale gas wells, pipelines, compressor stations, and power plants in many states.

“It’s time for agencies to listen to the experts and promote smart pollution regulations that protect public health.

“Repealing the endangerment finding and delaying compliance of the federal methane rule does the opposite.”

The Environmental Health Project is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that defends public health in the face of shale gas development.

Resource Links:

-- Shale Gas Industry VP Attacks Credibility Of A Mom And Allegheny County Resident For Comments She Submitted In Support Of DEP Plan To Reduce Methane Emissions From The Oil & Gas Industry [PaEN]

-- Appalachian Voices: EPA Proposed Repeal Of Endangerment An Attack On Environmental Regulations That Hold Polluters Accountable For The Damage They’ve Caused To Our Region

-- Inquirer Guest Essay: Federal EPA Rollbacks Mean Pennsylvania Must Take The Lead On Cutting Methane Pollution From Oil & Gas Operations - By Melissa Ostroff, Earthworks [PDF of Article]

-- Bloomberg Opinion: Would You Set Fire To $87 Trillion To Save $1 Trillion By Denying Climate Damage Realities?

PA Oil & Gas Industry Public Notice Dashboards:

-- PA Oil & Gas Weekly Compliance Dashboard - July 26 to August 1- Coterra Contaminates 13 More Water Wells; Shale Driller Fails To Restore 16 Well Sites; Dewatering Abandoned Impoundment Halted; Another Pipeline Construction Spill [PaEN]

-- Coterra Energy Fined $299,000 For Contaminating 13 Private Water Supplies In Lenox Twp., Susquehanna County - Just A Few Miles From Dimock [PaEN]

-- Pin Oak Energy Partners Signs Consent Order With DEP To Address Its Failure To Restore 16 Shale Gas Well Sites And An Impoundment In Beaver County Since 2023 [PaEN]