The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce today rollbacks to the federal regulation of methane emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas linked to climate change, strongly limiting standards created during the Obama administration.
Janet McCabe, a professor of practice at the Indiana University McKinney School of Law and director of IU’s Environmental Resilience Institute, served as the acting assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation at the EPA from July 2013 through January 2017.
“This is another example of the EPA responding to a subset of companies in a fossil-intensive industry to rollback sensible measures that would reduce emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide and without a doubt contributing to changes in our climate,” said McCabe.
“The rule changes inject more regulatory uncertainty into the system and is a rejection of the vast and increasing body of science that shows that climate change is affecting humans around the globe and right here in Indiana,” she added. “Reductions in methane are absolutely critical for us to be resilient in the face of these changes. In Indiana, we are seeing warmer temperatures, more toxic algae in our lakes, significant economic impacts on our farmers who can’t get the corn into the fields because of spring floods, and other changes that reflect that our climate really is changing.”
McCabe has also served as air director at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, and she has held other environmental policy and management positions in that department and in Massachusetts.
To speak with McCabe, contact Nicole Wilkins, Indiana University, [email protected], 812-856-2119, or Kelsey Cook, Indiana University, [email protected], 317-274-5090.
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