Make a Call Now to Protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge NOW

Imagine the view! 

Early Saturday morning, the Senate voted to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as they rushed to pass a tax bill last week. Congress has never been closer to opening the Arctic Refuge to drilling. But we have one more chance to stop them. The House still needs to vote on a final bill, and that vote could be as soon as this week.

Please call your U.S. Representative right now and demand that they oppose a final tax bill that opens the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling. It only takes two minutes to make your call through our Action Center.

The Senate vote was a shameful act to sell out this vital bird nursery, one of America’s last wild places. Millions of birds depend on the Arctic Refuge. They undertake miraculous journeys year after year, migrating through every state in the nation to nest on its coastal plain. But some short-sighted members of Congress want to turn their nesting ground into an oilfield.

Audubon and citizens like you have fought to protect the Arctic Refuge habitat for more than 50 years. We are now at the most critical moment in this battle. Right now, Audubon is fighting in the halls of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, and across the country, but we need your voice to speak for the birds, caribou, polar bears, and people that depend on this Refuge for survival.

Please call your U.S. Representatives right now and tell them keep the Arctic Refuge out of the final tax bill, so that it remains a sanctuary for birds forever.

By filling out the form on the link (above) you should receive a call to connect your Representative.

Tell the person who answers the phone your name and town so they know you are a constituent, and then your message: "I'm calling to ask the representative to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Please keep it out of the tax bill."

- Audubon

Using that link, I got a hold of Rep. McSally's staffer who is tallying calls.

For even more impact share this blog.

The U.S. Senate is set to vote — this week — on a dangerous tax bill that opens up the Arctic Refuge to drilling

It's crunch time in our fight to save the magnificent Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil companies and their fossil fuel backers in Congress.

The U.S. Senate is set to vote — this week — on a dangerous tax bill that opens up the Arctic Refuge to drilling while giving a massive tax break to corporate polluters and the super-rich.

Oil companies have been chomping at the bit for decades to get access to the oil under the Arctic Refuge, and some pro-polluter members of Congress — with full backing of President Trump — are working overtime to give it to them ... unless we can put a stop to it.

Before the Senate votes this week, the NRDC Action Fund and our friends across the environmental movement are targeting a handful of senators whom we might be able to sway to vote NO on this terrible tax bill. These include Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), John McCain (Arizona), Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Bob Corker (Tennessee), Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), Rob Portman (Ohio), Cory Gardner (Colorado), and Dean Heller (Nevada).

That's where Arizona residents like you come in. Please call Senator John McCain today (and again tomorrow) in his Capitol office at (202) 224-2235 and ask him to oppose this egregious tax bill.

Tell the senator's staff person your name and where you live.

Then tell them that you urge the senator to vote NO on any tax bill that tries to pay for corporate tax breaks by opening the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Why the Arctic Refuge Must be Protected:

Turning the Arctic Refuge over to oil companies would jeopardize our nation's largest denning site for pregnant polar bears ... the last home of 350 shaggy muskoxen ... the birthing ground for the 197,000-member Porcupine caribou herd ... and the culture and survival of the region's Gwich'in people.

The refuge is one of the last unspoiled ecosystems on earth — and it's too important to sell off to oil giants so Congress can pay for tax cuts for the people and polluting companies that need them the least.

What's Next:

The House of Representatives already passed its own version of this terrible tax bill (the House version also eliminates the electric vehicle tax credit and undermines support for wind and solar power). If we fail to stop the Senate's tax bill, a compromise will need to be hammered out between the two versions. We'll be in touch with you again in the critical days ahead with next steps in our fight.

We have been fighting to keep the oil companies at bay in Alaska's Arctic Refuge for decades. We can't give up now.

So, please call Senator John McCain at (202) 224-2235 and urge him to vote NO on a tax bill that opens the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling.

- Rhea Suh
President, NRDC Action Fund

You can also leave a message on Sen. McCain's website HERE. 

Tell your senators: Reject any budget that endangers the Arctic Refuge!

It’s no secret that the Trump administration will stop at nothing—not even the law—to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

A leaked memo reveals that the Trump administration wants to change existing law to allow the use of seismic blasts and underground shock waves to explore for oil in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—its biological heart—and now it is trying to get Congress to open the Refuge to drilling.

The single time that oil exploration was allowed in the past, seismic equipment scarred the beautiful landscape of the Coastal Plain for decades. If allowed again, this activity could also be harmful to wildlife such as denning polar bears.

The Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is home to hundreds of iconic species, including caribou, polar bears, Arctic foxes, and migratory birds from all 50 states. The indigenous Gwich’in people—whose way of life has for millennia depended on the caribou that calve there each summer—call the 1.5 million acre Coastal Plain the “sacred place where life begins.”

For decades, the Arctic Refuge has been at the center of a political tug-of-war between those who want it protected permanently and others pushing to open it for fossil fuel development. Yet each time drilling proponents have tried to open up the Coastal Plain, they’ve failed. That’s because the majority of Americans want this special place permanently protected as wilderness.

The Refuge now faces another threat from President Trump: in a backdoor attempt to subvert the will of the American public, he has proposed a budget that calls on Congress to raise revenue by drilling on the Coastal Plain—and now some members of Congress have added a provision in this year’s budget to make this happen. Write your members of Congress now to urge them to keep the Arctic Refuge out of the budget process.

Drilling in the Arctic Refuge should be excluded from any budget proposal. It is irresponsible to put such a dangerous provision in legislation that should be used to fund the agencies and programs that protect our air, water, health and climate. We cannot and should not play politics with our national heritage, just to line the pockets of the oil and gas industry.

Please send a clear message to Congress: Reject any budget that recklessly endangers the Arctic Refuge!

THIS WEEK: New vote set on Arctic oil drilling CALL SEN. MCCAIN NOW

Congress is continuing its tragic push to hand over America's coasts and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to the world's biggest oil companies.

This week, the U.S. Senate is set to vote on an all-important budget resolution that contains an outrageous provision aimed at opening the Arctic Refuge and our protected coastlines to oil drilling, ostensibly to raise federal revenue that helps fund a tax break for the wealthy.

And NRDC Action Fund's legislative experts believe that Arizona Senator John McCain is a key vote that could stop these provisions. So we need thousands of supporters in Arizona to call Senator McCain now, urging him to vote against efforts to use the budget resolution to open America's coasts and the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling.

Will you please make an urgent phone call to Senator McCain's office today?

Call his Washington, D.C., office at: (202) 224-2235
If you can't get through to D.C., call his Phoenix, AZ, office: (602) 952-2410
or Tucson, AZ (520) 670-6334

Or leave a comment on his website.

When you call, here are a few tips and talking points:

Tell the senator's staff your name and where in Arizona you live
Express your opposition to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and along America's coasts.

Urge the senator to vote to strip all provisions that could open the Arctic and our coasts to oil companies from the budget resolution the Senate will vote on this week

If you've already called or emailed your senators opposing Arctic oil drilling, thank you. But with a vote set this week on the Senate floor, we need you to weigh in one more time.

Of course, this dangerous budget resolution is just the latest in an outrageously long list of assaults from President Trump and his Republican allies in Congress on our environment and our clean energy future. Just last week, the Trump administration formally kicked off its cynical campaign to kill the Clean Power Plan. And Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt continue filling key White House and EPA posts with climate deniers and fossil fuel lobbyists.

Enough is enough. We must draw a line in the sand ... and in the Arctic tundra ... to stop these latest anti-environment assaults.

-Rhea Suh
President, NRDC Action Fund

TAKE ACTION: ASK THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT (BLM) NOT TO ELIMINATE PROTECTIONS FOR IMPORTANT ARCTIC WILDLIFE HABITAT!

At more than 22.5 million acres, the National Petroleum Reserve—Alaska (NPR-A) is the largest contiguous block of public land in the United States. The Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976 mandated that the BLM manage Alaska's western Arctic and recognized that the reserve contained a number of important values—subsistence, recreational, fish, wildlife, historical, and scenic—that should be conserved through balanced management. This mandate later resulted in the designation of five special areas—Kasegaluk Lagoon, Utukok River Uplands, Peard Bay, Teshekpuk Lake, and Colville River—where most parcels were made “unavailable for leasing.” But now the BLM is asking for comments on whether to open these areas to oil and gas development.

ACT NOW: URGE THE BLM TO KEEP SPECIAL AREAS IN PROTECTED!

The NPR-A is North America’s "duck factory" and is relied upon by millions of migratory birds for habitat, including large concentrations of waterfowl. It includes two caribou herds harvested by more than 40 communities for subsistence; supports grizzly bears, arctic wolves, arctic foxes, and wolverines; and hosts internationally recognized densities of nesting raptors.

In 2013, the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the BLM approved a land management plan for the NPR-A after conducting an extensive public process that spanned more than three years and involved 17 formal public meetings, consultation with Alaska Natives, and deliberations with four cooperating agencies. The final science-based plan met the mandate for balanced management of the NPR-A to protect globally important wildlife habitat while providing certainty for industry by allowing areas for extraction of oil and gas.

Now, the BLM is using a process allowing the public to comment only by hard-copy mailed-in remarks on whether to allow future development in and around special areas.

That's why we are here to help. We will collect your online comments and physically hand-deliver them to the BLM office in Anchorage, Alaska. Please ask the agency to expand opportunities for public comment and to leave the NPR-A's "unavailable for leasing" areas free from development.

- The Pew Charitable Trust