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Take Action today to help protect America's Arctic!

More than a quarter of a million people asked the DOI not to remove protections from the Western Arctic (NPR-A). The DOI started dismantling protections before the public comment period was even closed. That's not how America works. 

Let your Senators and Representative know that America is a Representative Democracy. Our voices matter, on Arctic public lands and beyond.

Copy the letter below, then click the button to visit Democracy.io where you can enter your address to find YOUR officials, paste this email, and send!

To My Elected Officials,

Recently, the Department of the Interior hosted a public comment period to gather input on rolling back protections in America’s Arctic, including Special Areas in the NPR-A. 

The Department rolled forward with their agenda - including signaling plans to open up 82% of the Reserve to oil and gas development, and rescinding three documents charting protections for the region - before the public comment period had even closed. 

That’s not democracy. That’s theater. 

In an increasingly polarized political landscape, Americans remain surprisingly united on keeping extractive industries out of America’s Arctic. Pew Research Center shows that 78% of Republicans 45 and younger want the government to prioritize clean, renewable energy over fossil fuels. 52% of the same cohort feel the government isn’t doing enough to combat climate change. 

Fast-tracking oil and gas expansion in America’s Arctic is only popular with one group - corporations profiting off public lands. 

The American government is supposed to work for the American people. Advancing an exploitive energy agenda before a public comment has even closed is deeply unacceptable and un-American. 

As your constituent, I urge you to heed the voices that have elected you. America’s Arctic is not for sale.

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America's Arctic is at risk of being sold off to the highest bidder. DOI has signaled it plans to open more than 80% of the Western Arctic to oil and gas development, including rescinding protections for Special Areas. Meanwhile, the Arctic Refuge and Western Arctic face at least 9 mandated oil and gas lease sales over the next decade.

This is a real moment of crisis for American public lands in the Arctic. The budget bill signed into law on July 4, 2025 guts protections for the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Western Arctic (NPR-A). The law mandates extensive leasing for resource extraction while Secretary Burgum has announced his plans to strip Special Areas protections from the Western Arctic (NPR-A).

Why? The same reason the Administration is trying to slash programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and education grants - so they can "afford" to fund massive tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and fast-track corporate interests.  

But the numbers don’t add up. A recent congressionally mandated Arctic lease sale raised zero dollars and added $1 billion to the deficit. In addition, it can take up to a decade before new projects in the Arctic produce even a drop of oil. At that point, the vast majority of revenues from new Arctic oil projects required under this proposal wouldn't even go to the US Treasury. In fact, after 2035, the bill creates a new revenue split that sends 70% of all revenues from fossil fuel development on federal lands in America's Arctic to the State of Alaska.

The Administration's willful disregard for common-sense economics and pandering to Big Oil corporate donors is an all-out assault on one of America’s wildest and most fragile ecosystems - millions of acres of public land that impact every single person on Earth


WHAT'S GOING ON? | America's Arctic is at risk in multiple ways. Take action to let your legislators know that public input on the fate of the Arctic matters to their constituents. 

American taxpayers are already $1 BILLION in the hole on President Trump’s previous attempt to sell off the Arctic Refuge (ANWR) to the highest bidder. In Trump’s 2017 Tax Act - which gave nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts to the country’s wealthiest individuals  - Congress mandated two lease sales in the Arctic Refuge which they claimed would help taxpayers recoup $1 billion of the massive handout in corporate welfare and billionaire tax cuts. Instead, the two lease sales have earned exactly $0, and the most recent lease sale - held in January 2025 - received ZERO bids.

Despite this record of economic failures, Congress passed a new budget bill - signed into law on July 4, 2025, to further expand and deregulate Arctic drilling as a way to purportedly raise money to fund the Administration's policy priorities. 

Except if you look closely, they are actually directing 70% of any future revenues from new oil and gas drilling to the State of Alaska’s coffers, with just 30% flowing to benefit the country as a whole after 2035, which is when any new production facilities are likely to come on-line. 

WHO IS DOING IT? | Currently, the Secretary Doug Burgum and the Department of the Interior

It's critical that your legislators hear from people like YOU so they know America's Arctic matters to their constituents.

WHY DOES IT MATTER? | America's Arctic is too important to Planet Earth to be gifted to corporate interests.

FIRST, oil and gas profits are already at record highs. The administration's push to drill the American Arctic while derailing renewable energy projects and removing solar and wind power from federal energy programs is a blatant corporate handout at the expense of everyday Americans. Our federal agencies have a responsibility to ensure the government works FOR its citizens. instead, it's actively helping one of the wealthiest and most polluting industries in the world at the expense of the American people...

SECOND, the Arctic is warming 4x faster than the rest of the planet. A healthy Arctic stabilizes the jet stream, reducing extreme weather events like the recent fires in California and catastrophic storms in South Carolina. It's an enormous carbon sink for the entire planet, mitigating the worst impacts of climate change all around the globe. It is the ancestral homeland of Indigenous Peoples who depend upon access to clean water and unpolluted resources for traditional livelihoods and food security. And it is vital habitat for American wildlife like polar bears, bowhead whales, caribou, and wolves. 

Watch the video below to learn more on how America's Arctic impacts everyone on Earth, and and explore the entire 5-part series of 1 minute videos for how the Arctic impacts global biodiversity, economies, climate and food webs. 

 

OK! WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT IT? | Use our tool above to quickly and easily email all your elected officials at once! 

Use the form above to contact your Senators and Representative! FOLLOW up on social media at @ProTheArctic and help spread the word.