Dear President Obama, 4-20-11

I’m sending you pictures of Iowa’s children who have written to you asking you to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. These pictures came from two Earth Day events in Des Moines, Iowa. These children represent only a fraction of all the people in Iowa who want wilderness, wildlife, recreational opportunities on public land, and clean air and water protected in the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon.

You came to Iowa with promises of change and hope—that you would not lift bans on offshore drilling. You have broken your promises to protect our health with clean air and water, and to protect our public lands from destructive drilling and mining operations.

You’ve failed us in protecting our last pristine wilderness—the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

This is an excerpt from today’s Des Moines Register: The head of the Environmental “Protection Agency ruled out for now regulating runoff from farms in the Mississippi River basin, saying voluntary measures should be given time to work.

Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, who visited two Iowa farms Tuesday with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, said she assured a gathering of agricultural leaders that the agency had no plans to impose pollution regulations like those being used to clean up Chesapeake Bay.

"I am ruling out the need for us to move directly to a regulatory mechanism when we have folks stepping up and are willing to do the conservation measures," she told reporters after the visits”

Please listen to the people of Iowa, not Farm Bureau, or those who would give Iowa’s public land in Alaska to big oil for huge profits and a few jobs for Alaskans. Please protect our hunting, fishing, trapping, boating and hiking opportunities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and our wilderness for our grandchildren. Please do a better job protecting Iowa’s water.

Happy Earth Day,

Phyllis Mains, Enclosure