1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I’m writing to you not as a policy expert, but as someone who loves this country’s wild places and is watching them be sold out from under us. I need you to fight for our public lands, because right now, almost no one else in power is. On July 13, 2026, President Trump signed orders gutting Bears Ears National Monument by 91% and Grand Staircase-Escalante by more than 90%. That amounts to nearly 3 million acres of red rock canyons, ancient dwellings, sacred tribal sites, and irreplaceable fossil beds, thrown open to mining and drilling almost overnight. These are places that took millions of years to form and generations of advocacy to protect, and they were erased with the stroke of a pen. Tribal leaders who have fought for decades to protect Bears Ears called it heartbreaking. I feel that same heartbreak. This isn’t abstract policy to me, it’s the loss of something that belongs to every one of us, forever, unless we stop it. And it doesn’t end there. I’ve watched, with growing anger, as this administration quietly lays the groundwork to privatize our entire National Park System, floating plans to cut thousands of ranger positions, hand beloved parks over to states that don’t want the financial burden, and pave the way for a system where corporations decide which trails stay open and which forests get logged. Meanwhile, at least $60 million meant for park maintenance, money that came from the pockets of families like mine who paid entrance fees to visit these places, was funneled into a no-bid contract to beautify Washington, D.C., while trails crumble and campgrounds go unmanaged. That is not stewardship. That is betrayal. It goes even deeper, in ways most people haven’t noticed yet. On June 30, the Forest Service quietly proposed a rule that would let officials waive their own procedures and strip the public’s right to comment when they rescind protections across 193 million acres of national forest. The public comment period closes July 31, and I am terrified that by the time people realize what happened, it will be too late to stop it. On top of that, I’m deeply disturbed to learn the Forest Service is spraying a probable carcinogen, glyphosate, across tens of thousands of acres of our forests, land that’s supposed to be a sanctuary for wildlife, not a chemical testing ground. I am asking you, urgently and personally, to: 1. Speak out, loudly and publicly, against the destruction of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, and fight for legislation that restores and permanently protects their original boundaries. 2. Demand hearings and real transparency on every plan to defund, downsize, or transfer national parks to state control or private hands. 3. Investigate why park entrance fees are being diverted to D.C. beautification projects instead of the maintenance our parks desperately need. 4. Formally oppose the Forest Service’s rule stripping public comment rights before the July 31 deadline. 5. Push for an independent, publicly funded review of glyphosate spraying on our national forests, and support mandatory pesticide-use reporting nationwide. These lands are not this administration’s to sell, and they are not yours to stay silent about. They belong to my children, and to every American who has ever stood in a canyon or a forest and felt something larger than themselves. I am watching what you do next, and so are the people you represent. Please tell me, specifically, what you intend to do to stop this.