John, the answer to the following riddle is the latest target for Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans:

I can be found on every continent, am a diverse ecosystem, have many names, and am a cornerstone habitat for life on Earth…but often thought of as a wasteland. What am I?

The answer: wetlands (aka bogs, marshes, swamps, or bayous).

While they only make up 6% of the Earth’s surface, they have a powerful impact on our planet.

Wetlands are the Earth’s most effective carbon sinks — habitats that take in and store carbon dioxide to keep it out of the atmosphere. They are common stopping points in migratory bird paths, hosting thousands of birds in the U.S. each year. Not only that, they are “transition zones” for waterfronts and act as a barrier against flooding. One acre of wetlands can store over one million gallons of water.

But the threats to this vital habitat have been centuries in the making. Most major cities have been built on top of wetlands (think New York City, Paris, London, etc.), and as a result, 64 million acres of wetlands have been destroyed since the 1700s, and nearly 80,000 are lost in the U.S. every year.

The EPA is working to change that by passing stronger protections for wetlands last year. But climate-denying McCarthy and the ultra-conservative Supreme Court are BOTH moving to strip those environmental protections away this year. Republican retaliation is expected to happen as soon as this week, and our SEEC Members need to be prepared to fight against environmental rollbacks on the House floors. Will you help them get battle-ready with a donation today?

Thanks for standing with us,

SEEC PAC