Speak Out: Tell your members of Congress not to sacrifice our wildlife and public lands!

Congress is taking steps to gut our most foundational environmental protections, leaving animals like polar bears, gray wolves, migratory birds, whales and many more in danger.

They’re considering bills like the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 that would let the energy industry run rampant without environmental reviews – and it would shut down many of the channels we can use to speak out against them!

We can’t allow Congress to slash the safety net that wildlife depend on for survival. We won’t be silenced – it’s up to all of us to raise our voices today on behalf of wildlife!

Sign a message to your representative and senators urging them to vote against upcoming bills that would wreak havoc on our environment and the wildlife we love!

Message

Dear {contact_data~title} {contact_data~lastName},

As your constituent, I write to urge you to oppose any efforts to rush through a last-minute permitting deal during the lame duck session of Congress. I am very concerned about S. 4753, the Energy Permitting Reform Act (EPRA), proposed by Senators Manchin and Barrasso. This bill would remove obligations for environmental review, mitigation requirements, and permitting requirements across a broad spectrum of energy and transmission projects, making it easier to sacrifice public lands and the wildlife they support in the name of energy development. Also, the NEPA Discussion Draft proposed by Representative Westerman would go even further, allowing projects of all types to avoid environmental review and forcing courts and agencies to ignore the best available science.

These bills would block countless environmental reviews of projects and would be disastrous for judicial review. The statute of limitations changes made by these permitting bills would make it impossible to file some Endangered Species Act claims and prevent communities from protecting threatened and endangered species. In many circumstances, this legislation would allow projects to avoid doing environmental analysis and block the best available science from consideration.

For example, the EPRA requires new offshore oil and gas drilling and locks in past lease stipulations that fail to adequately protect the critically endangered Rice’s whale, even while the administration is actively updating species protections based on updated science. We should not disregard scientific research that protects wildlife. Without the most recent scientific information, agencies would approve projects that harm countless species. Because of the biodiversity and climate change crises, now is precisely the time that we should be increasing efforts to protect wildlife, not ignoring threats to wilderness and key habitat.

This legislation would remove protections and require energy projects on millions of acres of public and private lands. These provisions would allow extractive and mining industries to operate with impunity on public lands and ties the renewable energy buildout to fossil fuel development. Allowing toxic industries and energy projects to proceed without care and consideration for wildlife is destructive to our natural environment. We should reject these efforts to weaken siting and permitting requirements and remove protections for wildlife from destructive projects.

For these reasons, I urge you to vote against any of these permitting bills that might be considered during the lame duck session at the end of Congress. Please reject these attempts to dismantle bedrock environmental laws and block communities from challenging projects that harm wildlife.

Sincerely,
{user_data~First Name} {user_data~Last Name}

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