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| Dear Friend, |
| In just 9 short days, the U.S. government is planning to auction off 67 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas companies for drilling. The sale could result in over 1 billion barrels of extracted oil, 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 370 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions. |
| This lease sale is a climate and public health catastrophe. So we’re suing to stop it. |
| We know how to win these fights: Just a few weeks ago, we won a major victory to stop the Peregrine oil project in the Arctic, keeping a projected 1.6 billion barrels of oil in the ground. |
| But legal battles against fossil fuel infrastructure take years and sometimes decades to win. We need the reliable support of monthly donations to support our lawsuits. |
| This Climate Week, make a lasting impact in the fight against climate change with a monthly donation. An anonymous donor has challenged us to bring on 300 new monthly donors and will donate $30,000 if we can reach this goal by September 30th. If you’re able to make a monthly gift, will you do your part to save our climate? |
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| The coming oil and gas drilling auction is known as Lease Sale 261. It is mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act — a concession made to Joe Manchin and the fossil fuel industry to secure his vote on the historic climate law. |
| ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron are the largest bidders in these sales, and stand to profit immensely from the leases they are eager to secure. |
| Meanwhile, the people who live on the Gulf Coast will continue to be subjected to poisonous fossil fuel contamination and higher rates of cancer and heart and lung diseases that have resulted from years of fossil fuel development in the Gulf. These communities are also on the front lines of rising sea levels and more intense hurricanes caused by global warming and face the ever-growing risks of devasting oil spills like the infamous Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. |
| Wildlife and biodiversity will also be harmed by new oil and gas drilling, and the potential for another massive oil spill could further endanger the Gulf of Mexico (Rice’s) whale, of which only 51 remain. |
| But despite the clear harm to climate, communities, and wildlife, the administration has bowed to industry pressure and chosen to plow ahead with this reckless lease sale. |
| As I said above, we have won these fights before, and we know with your support we can win them again. So we sued under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to declare the lease sale unlawful. |
| Friend, I’ll ask one more time: Please join our fight against climate change as one of 300 new monthly donors and help us unlock $30,000 to support our lawsuits. |
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In partnership,
George Torgun
Earthjustice Senior Attorney, Oceans Program
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