The Trump administration has made it clear that cutting climate pollution—including the super-potent greenhouse gas methane—is not a priority. On top of repealing the Endangerment Finding, the legal backbone of EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, they’ve put Biden’s pathbreaking methane protections on the backburner, delaying their implementation for 10 months.
Tell Congress: Hold Zeldin Accountable for Corrupting EPA’s Mission
That’s why, this Women’s History Month, we’re uplifting the work of methane scientist Meagan Weisner, a mom and oil and gas epidemiologist (did you know this job is a thing?), who studies how methane pollution impacts the climate and our health. Female climate scientists have a storied past; after all, it was climate science pioneer Eunice Newton Foote who was the first person to study global warming. Meagan joined the Environmental Defense Fund as a senior health scientist in 2023, after spending four years working on a large-scale epidemiological study for the City and County of Broomfield, one of Colorado’s major oil and gas hubs with over 60 wells.
“I really got a taste for what communities go through from the start of oil and gas development until they get into production and onward,” Meagan says. This makes her perfectly positioned to remind us what methane is, why it’s really bad, and what we can do about it. Here are the top 5 things she wants all families to know about methane pollution:
Photo by Meagan Weisner.
1. Methane is the primary component of natural gas.
Let’s start with the basics. Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas and a potent climate pollutant. It has 80 times the climate-warming power of carbon dioxide in the near term and is released throughout the oil and gas supply chain—via accidental leaks and intentional venting and flaring (the industry’s processes for disposing of unusable gas). Methane plays a significant role in driving climate change, and cutting methane pollution from the oil and gas sector is one of the best levers we have to slow global warming.
2. Methane is not the only harmful pollutant released from oil and gas operations.
Although methane warms the climate, it is not toxic in and of itself. It is also not the only pollutant leaking from oil and gas operations. Volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, and hydrogen sulfide are also emitted. These chemicals can be toxic; they increase the risk of certain cancers, lead to preterm birth and low birth weight, and worsen respiratory issues like asthma.
Methane also contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone, or smog, a powerful lung irritant. Smog can aggravate asthma and has been linked to increased risk of heart attacks and complications during pregnancy and childbirth.
3. Children are especially vulnerable to the health impacts of oil and gas pollution.
In Meagan’s research, she found that adults living within a mile of oil and gas development are significantly more likely to experience health impacts associated with methane and its co-pollutants. For children, that radius extends to two miles. “That goes to show how children’s bodies are just so much more vulnerable,” Meagan says. “They breathe faster, they take in more air than we do. So they may be breathing in more chemicals than adults.”
4. Air quality monitoring is an important tool for everyone, but especially for oil and gas communities.
Meagan’s community, Broomfield, has an extensive air quality monitoring system. “We had the most robust monitoring system in the state, if not the country, for a long time,” she says. “And residents were checking the dashboards when they weren’t feeling good to find out what was going on.” They could then make decisions based on that information, whether it was buying a new air purifier or leaving Broomfield for a few days to get relief.
This data is useful not just for worried parents. Meagan and her team cite it in testimony in favor of stronger methane protections, and it has been used to oppose the development of new well pads.
Having easily accessible air quality data can be empowering for communities advocating for clean air. It is also expensive. Yet last year at Trump’s behest, Congress cut millions in community air quality monitoring grants that would’ve gone to Black, Latino, Indigenous, and poor communities overburdened with pollution.
5. We need the strongest possible methane protections.
Broomfield has some of the cleanest oil and gas sites in the country—a rare claim to fame. “They have all the bells and whistles to reduce pollution,” says Meagan. But still, during the development of the wells, residents there saw health problems, from nosebleeds and stomach aches to respiratory problems—all known impacts of methane’s co-pollutants.
“Communities like Broomfield sacrifice a lot through no fault or desire of their own so that we all can have energy,” Meagan points out. “We need to protect our communities living near these types of facilities. Under the best-case scenarios, there’s not enough protections. But now we’re under the worst-case scenarios under Trump. What is going to happen to the health of our communities? What is the quality of life going to look like with even less protection?”
Tell Congress: Hold Zeldin Accountable for Corrupting EPA’s Mission