I am deeply disturbed by the current draft of the reconciliation bill developing in the Senate Energy Committee and urge you to do everything in your power to prevent passage in its current form.
The giveaways of our public lands in the current Energy Committee bill are outrageous. Perhaps most notably, the bill would mandate the “disposal” of between 2 million and 3 million acres of public lands. Due to the limited restrictions laid out in the text, more than 250 million acres of public lands would be eligible for sale across 11 states—including in the Western Arctic. Incredibly significant places including roadless forests, Wilderness Study Areas and critical habitats are all eligible to be sold off to the highest bidder.
Our public lands simply cannot be made available for sale to “any interested party.” These places are shared by the American people and Tribal Nations with attention towards benefitting current and future generations alike. Selling off our public lands to raise money for tax cuts for the rich will do nothing to benefit the public and leave nothing for our generations to come.
I am similarly disturbed by provisions in the bill that would mandate oil lease sales in the Arctic Refuge, force construction of a mining road through Gates of the Arctic National Park and more than double the amount of logging in western national forests. These efforts are not what we want and will do nothing to make a substantial change in the government’s budget.
Don’t sell out our shared public lands to fund a short-sighted agenda—vote no on this bill.
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