The York County-based Evangelical Environmental Network released this statement from Rev. Mitchell C. Hescox, President & CEO, on DEP draft final regulation to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations.

The draft final regulation was presented to DEP's in-person and virtual meeting of the Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee on Thursday, December 9 [Read more here].

The statement follows--

“The Evangelical Environmental Network remains extremely disappointed in the final VOC Rule developed by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

“The final standard ignored the comments of 28,596 pro-life Christians who recommended including the major source of methane leaks, low producing wells, and sought better and more frequent well inspections.

“By not including our critical requests, the regulation will do little to defend our children’s health and result in minimal—at best—improvements to our Commonwealth’s already failing air quality.

“Our best hope for defending our kids from increased smog and the associated asthma attacks lies in the new standards already proposed by The Environmental Protection Agency.

“Unfortunately, those rules are at least a year away, another year for dirty air to threaten our children.”

The Environmental Quality Board proposed the regulations in May 2020 for public comment.  [Read more here]

DEP said it received 4,500 comments from approximately 36,000 commentators.  [Read more here.]

For more information, visit the Evangelical Environmental Network website.  Questions should be directed to Lindsay Easter by calling 717-891-1090 or sending email to: lindsay@creationcare.org.

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[Posted: December 8, 2021]

12/13/2021