Resolution to maintain National Methane Leak Inspection/Repair standards, improve Particulate pollution standards and allow California-led vehicle fuel-efficiency standards to be maintained
Dr. Steven Ferber, PhD, Arlington Democrats
Regarding Methane Leakage:
Given the Trump Administration’s proposal to allow oil and gas operators to largely police themselves regarding Methane Leak Inspection and Repair at their facilities.46
Given that Methane (CH4) gas is 80 times as potent a greenhouse gas pollutant as carbon dioxide in its ability to cause Climatic Instability (“Global Warming” as the media call it) and that Scientists have projected that the world needs to cut its overall greenhouse gas emissions nearly in half by mid-century to avert catastrophic effects therefrom. In fact, according to the EPA, methane accounted for more than 10 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities as recently as 2017 and that nearly a third of those emissions were generated by the natural gas and petroleum industry
And, given that there is even a mixed reaction from the oil and gas industries meant to benefit from loosening such requirements. Several of the world’s biggest fossil-fuel companies, including Exxon, Shell and BP, have opposed the rollback. For example, BP President Susan Dio said “The more gas we keep in our pipes and equipment, the more we can provide to the market — and the faster we can all move toward a lower-carbon future.”
The current EPA even acknowledged that its rollback will release more volatile organic compounds which “will degrade air quality and are likely to adversely affect health and welfare”
And, given that Jody Freeman, a climate adviser to President Barack Obama who now teaches at Harvard Law School, said the Trump administration’s rollback will slow down any future administration that wants to aggressively rein in methane emissions. And that Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group, called the proposal reckless, saying it shows “complete contempt for our climate.”
Regarding Fine Particulates:
As the nation struggles to control a lung-related pandemic, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to merely stay the course on its standards for fine particulates, produced in significant amounts by vehicles and power plants. Breathing in fine particulate matter is linked to heart attacks, decreased lung function, asthma attacks, and premature death in people with heart or lung problems.47
Given that Health Groups48 and environmental activists decry the EPA’s April 14 proposal to merely keep the standard, set back in 2012. They say scientific evidence shows the fine particulate matter limit needs tightening. The agency’s staff last fall recommended the EPA lower the fine particulate standard to between 9 and 11 μg/m3 . In practice, retaining the current standard of 12 μg/m3 of air for particulates that are 2.5 μm or less in diameter means most chemical plants won’t have to adopt more stringent pollution controls for particulate precursors such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides.
And, that Gretchen Goldman of the Union of Concerned Scientists notes that “It’s especially egregious that EPA is making this announcement in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic,” She points to early results from a study by Harvard researchers49 that found that a small increase in long-term exposure to fine particulate matter leads to an increase in the death rate from COVID-19 of 15% (the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus).
And that the current EPA, led by a former coal lobbyist, last year moved to affect changes to its modeling method50 used to count deaths from particulate-matter emissions, such as those from coal and diesel, and drafted recommendations via an internal committee to limit what kinds of studies of health effects can be used51 to determine standards. And that, in 2018, the EPA dissolved two scientific review boards52, including the Particulate Matter Review Panel53.
Regarding Vehicle Fuel-Efficiency Standards:
Given that the Trump administration is on track to roll back standards on vehicle fuel-efficiency standards set by President Barack Obama which are followed by California and 19 other states54, being more stringent than the federal standards, which the courts have upheld their right to implement for the past half-century,
And that said standards are intended to reduce oil imports, slash carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change, improve public health and save consumers money without compromising safety, and given that the freeze of such standards would reduce the CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standard from 36 to 29 mpg,
And given that Margo Oge, a former director of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality who helped set auto regulations under Obama, called the Trump administration’s fuel-standards proposals “a horrible deal for the planet, U.S. consumers and the U.S. economy.” She also opined that “Selling gas-guzzling cars and trucks might continue to drive short-term profit, but abandoning the standards now in place would run counter to the longer arc of consumer demand, state regulations and international market forces. Looser standards now, when consumers and many states are demanding cleaner cars, would spell trouble for the auto industry. Almost everyone loses except the oil industry.”
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED the 8th Congressional District Democratic Convention encourages our Senators and all Virginia Democratic Representatives to take all action possible to require appropriate Methane leak inspections and repairs, to reduce the fine particulate matter limits required by the EPA and to allow the maintenance of the Obama-Biden administration standards as regarding California vehicle fuel-efficiency regulation.
44 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763/cosponsors?searchResultViewType=expanded 45 Harvard C-Change “Carbon Standards Re-examined”, 2019 (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/news/carbon-standards-re-examined/)
46Washington post; 04-21-20
47 Chemical & Engineering News, April 15, 2020; Cheryl Hogue
48 19 “Health and Medical Organizations Strongly Oppose EPA’s Move to Keep Weak Limits on Particle Pollution, Placing Health of Millions at Risk” on American Lung Association website media press release, April 14, 2020
49 “Exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States”. Xiao Wu, Rachel C. Nethery, Benjamin M. Sabath, Danielle Braun, Francesca Dominici. medRxiv 2020.04.05.20054502; doi:
50 Green Car Reports website, May 21, 2019; Bengt Halvorson
51 Ibid, April 1, 2019
52 Ibid, October 24, 2018
53 ibid, April 15, 2020