Dear Friend,

On Tuesday, we filed a lawsuit to protect the Arctic Refuge and the polar bears that call it home.

The Arctic Refuge is the nation's largest wildlife refuge and remains entirely free of fossil fuel drilling. These wild public lands are where polar bears den, caribou raise their young, and migratory birds make their nests. It is land sacred to Indigenous people, with sensitive ecosystems already stressed by a rapidly warming climate.

Yet all the Trump administration sees in these irreplaceable public lands is an opportunity for oil companies to turn a profit. The administration is so bent on drilling there they illegally adopted a drilling plan that puts oil above all other values. Their plan violates bedrock environmental laws and fails to make an honest assessment of the risks of drilling or how to avoid them.

Now, we’re taking them to court.

Our filing reopens our lawsuit from 2020, when Trump first tried to sell the Arctic Refuge for oil. It is part of our broader legal strategy to protect the Arctic from the Trump administration’s reckless agenda for maximum drilling.

Below, I’ve included an email I sent over the holidays. I encourage you to read it to understand the scope of our Arctic work.

I’d also like to thank everyone who donated in response to that email — or has donated any other time. Earthjustice represents our clients free of charge, so your contributions are what allow me to go to work every day and fight for the Arctic and its people. Thank you.

We have our work cut out for us in the months ahead – so if you haven’t donated recently, please consider a gift today. Your support is crucial to protect the Arctic and our planet.

$1:$1 MATCH: DOUBLE MY GIFT

Sincerely,

Erik Grafe

Deputy Managing Attorney

Earthjustice Alaska Office

-----Forwarded Message ------

Dear Friend,

As the deputy managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Alaska office, I’ve fought to protect the Arctic for nearly 20 years. Today, I want to tell you about new threats to the Arctic, how we’re fighting back, and why I’m asking for your help.

Support our lawsuits and protect the planet with a year-end gift today.

$1:$1 MATCH: DOUBLE MY GIFT : [link removed]

The Trump administration and Congress have waged an all-out assault on the Arctic this year, including:

-Opening the entire 1.56 million acres of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling
-Reinstating 370,000 acres of unlawful oil and gas leases in the Arctic Refuge
-Stripping special protections from ecologically sensitive areas in the Western Arctic
-Preparing to adopt an expansive new management plan that would open 82% of the Reserve — the largest tract of public lands in the U.S. — to oil and gas drilling

These plans would make a sustainable future for the Arctic impossible, and Earthjustice supporters have already submitted 74,000 comments opposing these proposals.

With the administration's blessing, fossil fuel companies are ramping up exploratory drilling and seismic work:

The Trump administration has also approved drilling and seismic exploration work this winter that will cause serious and potentially irreparable harm. The 90,000-pound vehicles industry uses to explore the tundra can leave deep scars across the landscape and disrupt critical caribou migration patterns, harming mothers and calves.

Lease sales are on the way, too. Over the next 10 years, the budget Trump’s allies passed in Congress mandates four lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (at least 400,000 acres each) and five lease sales in Western Arctic (at least 4 million acres each).

We are fighting back: Earthjustice has spent decades fighting in court to keep oil and gas interests from destroying the Arctic.

Since our founding 50 years ago, Earthjustice has gone to court to defend the Arctic from environmentally disastrous oil and gas projects. My team has fought dozens of cases to protect the Arctic, and we’ve successfully stopped attacks like this before:
-We stopped the Peregrine drilling project and are still in court fighting the Trump administration’s environmental shortcuts for lease sales.
-We’ve protected countless acres of Alaska wilderness from pipelines, drilling, and other destructive projects.
-We blocked the first Trump administration from opening 128 million acres of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans to offshore drilling.

And we are not slowing down in our work to loosen the fossil fuel industry's destructive grip on our world:

Just this month Earthjustice filed a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s all-out assault on Arctic lands. Representing conservation groups and an Alaska Native organization, we are suing the administration for approving ConocoPhillips’ plans to industrialize some of the most sensitive and important wildlife areas in the Western Arctic.

We can’t win this fight alone.

We are honored to work alongside our clients and partners in Alaska, whom we rely on for their guidance and expertise. In every case, we represent our clients free of charge, so we rely on donors like you to help fund our lawsuits.

Together, we are powerful enough to stand up to the Trump administration. If you can donate today, your support will help us fight back and protect the Arctic. What we raise by December 31 will help us scale up for the fights ahead.

Our planet cannot afford the explosion of new fossil fuel infrastructure Trump envisions. Anything you give today will be doubled to help us scale up and fight back — for the sake of our communities, our planet, and our future.

$1:$1 MATCH: DOUBLE MY GIFT : [link removed]

As always, thank you for your partnership in our fights to protect the arctic.

Sincerely,

Erik Grafe

Deputy Managing Attorney

Earthjustice Alaska Office

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