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U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta: EPA’s rule muddies water for farmers and home builders

Lottery Summary for the week of Jan. 17

The Aliso Canyon leak in California is being called &#8220;the BP oil spill on land,&#8221; and it&#8217;s easy to understand why. Like the BP oil spill, this leak has been flowing for months because the industry isn&#8217;t prepared to stop leaks when things go catastrophically wrong.Unfortunately, the news media and public officials have been slow to draw attention to this ongoing tragedy because unlike the Gulf disaster, this spill is invisible to the naked eye.This massive methane leak has been going on for almost four months and is reportedly likely to continue for another few months.Methane is a strong greenhouse gas that carries 84 times the warming power of carbon dioxide in the initial decades after it is released.Since Oct. 23, 2015, a natural gas storage facility in Aliso Canyon, near Los Angeles, has been spewing enormous quantities of methane into the air. The plume from this leak is reported to be about 1,000 feet high and several miles long. The Los Angeles Times reported that in early January, California air quality regulators estimated the leak had released more than 77 million kilograms of methane, the environmental equivalent of putting 1.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in the air.Thousands of area residents have been sickened and displaced from their homes. Two school have been closed and 1,800 students relocated due to health hazards from the escaping methane. A state of emergency has been declared by the governor.The seventh attempt to plug the leak has made the site more unstable and increased the risk of a blowout, according to the Los Angeles Times. A plan to burn off at least some of the escaping methane has been put on hold due to safety concerns. It is expected that the leak will take months to fix.&#8220;Events of this size are rare, but major leakage across the oil and gas supply chain is not,&#8221; said Tim O&#8217;Connor, director of the Environmental Defense Fund&#8217;s California Oil and Gas Program. &#8220;There are plenty of mini-Aliso Canyons that add up to a big climate problem &#8211; not just in California but across the country.&#8221;It is well past time for our elected officials to create and implement energy policies that will transition our state and our country from the polluting fossil fuels of the past to the cleaner renewable and sustainable energies of the future.Carol CulverHarveys Lake

Letter to the Editor: California’s ‘BP oil spill on land’ spotlights need to embrace renewable energy