During its last few months in power, the Trump administration has accelerated its multiyear effort to let oil companies destroy our country’s sacred places. This month, the administration solicited the oil industry’s input about which lands in the Arctic Refuge should be leased for destructive fossil fuel extraction. The administration is trying to rush this lease sale through in an attempt to make it more difficult for the incoming Biden administration to protect the Refuge. Tell the Bureau of Land Management not to move forward with the midnight lease sale in the Arctic Refuge!

The Arctic Refuge is one of the last fully intact ecosystems in North America. The land is sacred to the Gwich’in people, who have been stewarding the region and vigorously oppose selling off the Refuge to the oil industry for extraction and destruction. The oil industry’s gain cannot come close to matching the cultural and ecological value of an intact and healthy ecosystem.

The Trump administration’s rush to lease the Arctic Refuge for fossil fuel extraction is shortsighted and takes us backwards in the fight to address climate change. The Arctic climate is rapidly warming, banks are refusing to finance drilling in the Arctic, and the American people overwhelmingly elected a President who ran on a platform that included permanently protecting the Arctic Refuge and phasing out fossil fuel extraction on public lands. Yet, the Trump administration is still doing its best to tie up protection efforts with midnight leases aimed at keeping the Refuge in jeopardy for years to come.

We have less than a decade to dramatically cut our greenhouse gas emissions if we hope to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Destroying one of our few intact ecosystems for the sake of oil profits and increased emissions is not something we can do if we want this planet to remain inhabitable. Please join us in urging the Trump administration not to go forward with a last-minute lease sale in the Arctic Refuge.