It’s “the most egregious assault on our nation’s environment in the history of our country.”
That’s what House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Ed Markey said on Monday of the agenda before Congress this week. Just yesterday, the House started debating the rider-laden Interior Appropriations bill and today, the Committee on Natural Resources will hold a hearing on yet another “Great Outdoors Giveaway” bill.
Please take a moment to email or call your Representative and tell him/her to stop the Great Outdoors Giveaway! Use our online action center to send an email message or call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your representative’s office.
Appropriations bills are meant to fund the government, but this Congress Republicans have decided it’s where laws will be written.
Among the programs, policies and authorities coming under fire in the spending bill are the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Lands policy, the President’s authority to designate national monuments under the Antiquities Act, funding for conservation lands, the government’s ability to protect endangered species . . . and the list goes on.
Anti-conservation forces know that this might be the only train leaving the station this year, so they are set on junking it up with every imaginable polluter giveaway.
At the same moment, House Republicans are moving forward with committee action on the “Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act” which would strip protections from over 60 million acres of public lands nationwide – including 1.3 million acres of redrock wilderness in Utah! This includes some of the redrock’s most iconic landscapes like White Canyon, King Top, Desolation Canyon and the Book Cliffs – all of which would be sacrificed to heedless development and new off-road vehicle trails.
This overreaching agenda, coming at a time when Washington has much more important things to consider, must not go unnoticed. It’s up to you to let your Member of Congress know that these bills should not pass into law. Please take action today!
