Letter to Congress: No Drilling in the Arctic Refuge

Dear Senators and Representatives,

 

On behalf of our millions of members in your district and across the country, we write to ask you to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, and ensure that drilling for oil in this sensitive landscape is not included in the budget process. We represent a broad and diverse constituency voice that proves that folks across this country deeply appreciate our nation’s wild spaces. We urge you to continue to do all you can to enact the strongest possible protections for the Arctic landscape, its wildlife and its people.

 

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of our nation’s most iconic wild areas and it deserves our most enduring legal protections. An immense wilderness, bursting with biodiversity and framed by the awe-inspiring Brooks Mountain Range, the Arctic Refuge is pristine, it is spectacular, and it belongs to all Americans. For more than 50 years, our country has remained committed to protecting this unparalleled landscape, particularly its sensitive Coastal Plain, and we want to make sure that it remains off-limits to exploration and development for future generations to experience.

 

Since 1980, Congress has successfully protected the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from backdoor attempts to drill for oil and gas in this sensitive ecosystem. We believe that controversial Arctic Refuge drilling language does not belong in the budget process, and, in fact, threatens any must-pass legislation. Recent polling by the Center on American Progress shows that two-thirds of Americans are opposed to drilling in the Refuge, with a majority “strongly opposed.”

 

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a national treasure. We thank you and your staff for recognizing this by doing all you can to protect the Arctic Refuge and ensuring that it avoids any backdoor attempts to develop it, including the national budget process.