PA Mulls Stronger Rules on Methane Pollution

Activist: Current regulations are ‘worthless’ when not enforced

By Danielle M. Smith - Public News Service
The Tube City Almanac
July 18, 2025
Posted in: State & Region

A gas-drilling site in Penn Twp., Westmoreland County, shown in October 2022. (Ted Auch photo for FracTracker Alliance, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic)

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is asking the public to weigh in on a federal Environmental Protection Agency proposal to curb methane emissions from oil and gas sites.

Methane is a greenhouse gas more than 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide and is thought to be a driver of climate change.

Barbara Jarmoska, former director of the Responsible Decarbonization Alliance who lives in Lycoming County, said the EPA plan is built on Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act efforts. Its federal funding has been cut but people can still review the plan and share their feedback during the public comment period. She noted the EPA proposal would decrease pollution, improve air quality and create jobs.

“My testimony was about climate change, the dire need to curb methane,” Jarmoska said. “Pennsylvania is the second-largest gas producing state in America and we release thousands of cubic feet of ‘fugitive’ methane annually.”

She said leaking methane is often accompanied by other volatile organic compounds which pose serious health risks.

Jarmoska lives next to the Loyalsock State Forest, in the heart of Pennsylvania General Energy’s large fracking operations. So close, she said, Pennsylvania General Energy tested her drinking water before drilling began.

The public comment period ends July 30.

Jarmoska said she is concerned regulations are necessary and written to protect people and the environment but when they’re not enforced, they are worthless.

“Reducing methane from gas operations, to me, the fact that it is one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to solve climate change right now, in the near term, is the most important thing,” Jarmoska said. “There will be additional benefits to public health and safety, to the economy and jobs.”

At a public hearing in Washington County, Vanessa Lynch, Pennsylvania campaign coordinator for the advocacy group Moms Clean Air Force, urged state leaders to adopt the EPA plan. She lives near a fracked well pad in a residential area close to day care and senior centers, and a park, and said she is concerned about health risks from methane and toxic air pollution.

Lynch said her group recently marked five years since a grand jury report found Pennsylvania failed to protect communities from the harms of fracking.

“I think Pennsylvania has an outsized responsibility to make sure that leaks are repaired,” Lynch said. “And that the oil and gas industry is accountable to the communities that are near it.”

She said safeguards can protect families and be cost-effective, too. Without them, she argued, frontline communities will keep suffering the consequences of oil and gas leaks worsening asthma, cancer and climate-related health risks.

Next meeting to be held virtually

The next public hearing will be held in a virtual format at 6:30 p.m. July 22:

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Persons wishing to present testimony should contact Amanda Rodriguez at P.O. Box 8468, Harrisburg, PA 17105, (717) 787-7677 or amarodrigu@pa.gov, at least one week in advance of the hearing to reserve a time to present testimony. Witnesses will be limited to five minutes each and should provide two written copies of their comments.

Danielle M. Smith is a producer for Public News Service, where this story first appeared. An award-winning radio journalist/personality with more than a decade of experience in broadcast media, she is a former audio journalist with American Urban Radio Networks and Sheridan Broadcasting Networks who also hosts a weekly community affairs show “Good News” on WGBN (1360 AM/98.9 FM).

Originally published July 18, 2025.

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