Dear Friend,

For generations, American leaders have protected the unspoiled rivers and mountains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But in 2017, the Republican-controlled Congress opened the biologically rich coastal plain, the heart of the refuge, to oil and gas drilling that could destroy this wildland forever.

Now a new Congress has the opportunity to correct this egregious mistake before it leads to irreversible harm. A new bipartisan bill called the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act would block the disastrous plan to allow destructive oil leasing and drilling in the Arctic Refuge. We need you to urge your representative to support this critical bill.

The tundra, craggy mountains, and icy seas of the Arctic Refuge are home to caribou, polar bears, migratory birds from all 50 U.S. states and six continents, and are critically important to Indigenous peoples. Drilling would destroy irreplaceable wildlife habitat and directly threaten the cultural identity and food security of the Indigenous peoples who have always depended on the Refuge’s resources.

For example, the Gwich’in people’s ways of life — cultural, subsistence, and spiritual connections — are dependent on the Porcupine caribou herd. The herd migrates to the coastal plain to birth and raise its young each year. Leaders of the Gwich’in community are steadfast in their opposition to oil and gas development, and members of the Inupiat community — who live on the coastal plain — have spoken out against oil and gas drilling in the Refuge.

Increased Arctic oil and gas extraction would greatly exacerbate the unfolding climate catastrophe. The Arctic is already warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and is the first place we need to protect if we are going to achieve our goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Big Oil and the Trump administration are rushing to drill in the Refuge, so we need to work quickly to ensure this special landscape remains unspoiled for future generations to experience and enjoy. Help protect one of America’s last remaining natural places by demanding that Congress reverse the mandate to lease and drill for oil and gas in the Arctic Refuge.

Sincerely,