Maximizing health benefits from reducing oil and gas emissions: novel approaches to health impact assessment

Environmental Defense Fund proposes to advance scientific methodologies that elucidate the connections between methane, co-pollutants, health outcomes and mitigation strategies to inform evidence-based policy interventions in the oil and gas sector. In Colorado, EDF will quantify cumulative health risks from exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), analyze corresponding methane emissions from unconventional oil and gas (UOG) sites, and synthesize analyses to inform implementation of the state’s new regulations to address methane and co-pollutants. Our vision is to help Colorado set a high bar in the U.S. for health protections with its new regulations. In Mexico, where oil and gas methane regulations have drawn significantly from Colorado’s framework but are not being adequately enforced, EDF will use remote sensing data to estimate the health burden from nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions, as a co-pollutant of methane, from the sector. Together, the initiatives are designed to deliver insights and develop data-driven strategies that can maximize health benefits of methane regulatory policy and drive greater accountability for implementation, with relevance to Mexico, the U.S. and other countries.