Media Contact:
Justin Wasser, (202) 753-7016, jwasser@earthworks.org
“As with its COVID response, the Trump administration is ignoring reality about the climate crisis by weakening protections that cut oil and gas methane pollution.
“That EPA Secretary Wheeler chose Pittsburgh to make his announcement highlights the parallel problems with how the Wolf Administration has proposed to address oil and gas air pollution. Wolf continues to support expansion of the oil and gas industry and downplay the growth in methane pollution–similar to what the EPA has asserted in its quest to practically eliminate Obama-era federal methane safeguards.
“To protect Pennsylvanians and the climate, Governor Wolf must adopt science-based methane policy, as he has with his COVID policy, and strengthen his oil and gas pollution proposal to include all wells, not just those the industry agrees to. Without strong safeguards as part of a managed transition away from fossil fuels we will not avoid climate catastrophe. State leadership has never been more critical.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
- Earthworks op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Governor Wolf’s failure to do enough on climate.
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Pittsburgh-area optical gas imaging of methane pollution: EQT Mad Dog 2020 well site; Dominion Energy Compressor Station (venting flare); MarkWest Compressor Station
- EQT (one of PA’s largest producers, whose pollution is documented in one of above links) opposes this rollback
- Statements of opposition to Trump methane rollbacks from Shell, BP, ExxonMobil & Equinor
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UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Summary for Policymakers 2018 laying out stakes of failing to halve carbon pollution by 2030.
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National optical gas imaging of (normally invisible) oil and gas climate & health pollution documented by Earthworks’ Certified Thermographers.
