Subject: Tell Congress not to drill our special places!

Your representative and senators may soon succumb to the unrelenting pressure of the oil companies and their allies - including the president and vice president - to open sensitive and special places to oil drilling.  Their aim is to grab as much as they can before the Bush Administration leaves town.  The sad fact is that this land grab will do nothing to relieve the prices you pay at the pump.
They need to hear from you.  We ask that you call your senators and your member of Congress this week to let them know you see through this ruse by the oil companies and their supporters.  It's an outrageous ploy - because already the oil companies have access to 68 million acres that they're letting sit idle.  On these lands, they're doing nothing to drill for oil and increase supply - which they could do now to bring down gas prices.  But, you know what?  Oil companies profit handsomely from high prices, so have little incentive to see them come down.

A very vociferous minority of disgruntled constituents have bought into this sham.  The phones in Capitol Hill offices are ringing off the hooks.  Members of Congress think they need to respond to their constituents' concerns by lifting the moratorium in critical offshore waters, accelerating leasing in the western Arctic, perhaps even sacrificing the irreplaceable Arctic Refuge and other treasured landscapes around the country.  We can't let them get away with it.

Zogby International conducted a poll last week, which found that 87% of Americans want to protect land as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System despite gas prices averaging $4.10 a gallon nationally at the time of the survey.   You and I are part of the silent majority - and we need to raise our voices now.  I don't like paying $73.80 to fill up my tank.  But I also don't want to see us rush headlong into giving away our precious natural heritage to oil companies when it will do absolutely nothing to bring down that cost.

Call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 today and ask to be connected to your representative's office.  Call again and get connected to one senator, and a third time to speak to the other senator.  (You can find who they are by logging onto www.house.gov or www.senate.gov .)

Tell them:

  a.. Stop the mad rush to give away our public lands to the oil companies 
  b.. Stand up to the president and vice president, who are simply trying to help their friends in the oil industry before they leave office next January 
  c.. Tell them to make the oil companies use the 68 million acres to which they now have access, in order to provide us relief at the pump. 
  d.. Tell them if the oil companies don't, they should lose their development rights, and some other company that will drill should be given those rights. 
  e.. Most importantly, please politely tell them they should keep their hands off our most treasured places. 
It's time now to act.  Congress is an odd body politic, at times.  Panic sometimes sets in, and they just want to do anything to make it appear they are doing something.  Help them act more rationally. 

Please make a quick call today.

Sincerely,

Mike Matz
Executive Director
Campaign for America's Wilderness
www.leaveitwild.org

Forwarded by Jane Clark

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