Dear NRDC Supporter,

We are so heartened by the thousands of NRDC members and supporters who stepped up and made donations last year. We depend on that support to keep up our fight, in and out of court, to protect wildlife, wild places and our health, and to advocate for effective solutions that continue to drive clean energy progress and address the climate crisis.

Let's be honest. We face very challenging times ahead. Donald Trump takes office as our next President on January 20, and we know his administration is planning some of the broadest attacks on environmental protections we've ever seen.

As we prepare for this new landscape, I want to give you a sense of what we here at NRDC are planning for, and how — with your support — we plan to fight back.

• We expect the president and his supporters in Congress to try to repeal or severely weaken the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the historic climate law that made the single largest investment to fight climate change in American history and which has launched a clean energy manufacturing renaissance across the country.
• We expect that they will push to accelerate oil and gas drilling along our coasts and on public lands, especially across Alaska's wild Arctic — including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the most iconic wilderness areas in the world.
• They will try to undermine important environment, energy, and public health protections by defunding the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Interior, and key clean energy and energy efficiency offices at the Department of Energy, just to name a few.
• They will try to repeal critical environmental and public health safeguards that remove toxic lead and PFAS "forever chemicals" from drinking water, reduce air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and expand electric vehicles and reduce pollution from cars and trucks.
• They have plans to weaken the Endangered Species Act, threatening the survival of grizzly bears, gray wolves, beluga whales, and scores of other at-risk wildlife species.
• They will seek to walk back the U.S.'s critical role as an international climate leader by withdrawing (yet again) from the Paris Climate Agreement.
• They plan to raise from the dead the dangerous Keystone XL pipeline that would bring climate-busting tar sands oil from Canada into the U.S.
• They will try to gut safeguards that protect essential pollinators like bees and monarch butterflies, and countless other wildlife, from decimation by toxic pesticides.

While these threats are dire, the good news is that NRDC is ready to fight back against these anti-environmental attacks, and to advocate for innovative solutions to our most pressing environmental problems. Here's how:

• NRDC's powerhouse team of lawyers stand ready to take the Trump administration to court, when necessary, to stop illegal rollbacks, defend strong, durable environmental laws from attack, and make sure our essential pollution safeguards are enforced.
• Our D.C. lobbying team will work on Capitol Hill to defend key environmental programs from fossil fuel allies in Congress. We'll work with lawmakers to protect the historic climate provisions in the IRA and ensure that funding for clean energy and economic growth continues to flow to the communities they represent. We'll also fight to prevent rollbacks of bedrock laws like the Endangered Species Act and efforts to gut the National Environmental Policy Act.
• We will take the fight directly to polluters by building out a new campaign on oil and gas companies, which, for too long, have enjoyed social license to pollute. NRDC will hold the fossil fuel companies accountable for violating environmental laws. We will work to unchain our economy from dirty energy and phase out fossil fuels in a way that is swift, responsible, and affordable.
• NRDC's regional teams will ramp up their work in state capitols and in city halls to defend our hard-fought gains at the state and local levels. And our work internationally will become even more important to safeguard climate, biodiversity, and pollution protections.
• Finally, our science team will be a trusted source of sound scientific information, telling the truth about what's happening to the environment. We'll help make sure the public grasps the stakes every time the Trump administration undermines the environment and public health.

As we embark on this work over the coming year, we recognize that we simply can't do it without you. We depend on your financial support, yes, but we also need your time and energy — writing letters and making phone calls to political leaders, hitting the streets and attending community meetings and rallies, and even just talking to your friends and neighbors to grow this powerful movement one voice at a time.

This is a grassroots fight — and it starts with you. Thank you for standing by our side.

Happy New Year,

Manish Bapna
President, NRDC