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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Stronger Federal Methane Rules Would Benefit NM Residents, But When?

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Friday, January 27, 2023   

New Mexico residents have two weeks to submit written comments to the Environmental Protection Agency about its proposal to implement stronger standards aimed at reducing methane emissions from oil and gas wells.

Sister Joan Brown, executive director of New Mexico's Interfaith Power and Light, has been advocating for tougher rules for decades. Along with others, she spoke at this month's EPA hearings, and said many speakers were confused by the government's inaction.

"It gets difficult when you're working with ordinary people, and ordinary people of faith, and they say, 'Well, we already did this - isn't that done yet? Why does this take so long?' We need to move on this and quickly," she said, "and we can't have any more delays."

The world's largest methane cloud hangs above Farmington and the Four Corners area of northwest New Mexico in the San Juan Basin. The state also is affected by methane from the Permian Basin, an oil-and-gas-producing area in the state's southeastern corner, on the border of West Texas.

Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson said he thinks it's important for the EPA to do more to fight climate change as a national-security issue. He said the country's reliance on oil and carbon-based fuels could be reduced if more states turned to renewable forms of energy "that provide opportunities to develop a truly 'green' economy that'll put a lot of the people that are presently working in coal mines and in the oil industry, put them to work installing solar panels and wind turbines."

Brown said flaring - the process of burning, rather than capturing methane - is always a major concern, along with aging equipment.

"We go to the Southeast, the Permian Basin a lot, and we see storage tanks that are just corroding and tanks that had huge gaping holes in the top," he said, "and as we have more and more storage, and also older infrastructure, that's a huge problem."

Brown said her faith community would like to see approved monitoring technologies and subsequent data made available to the public, so more people know what's going on and can better engage.


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The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

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Environment

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