October 4, 2017

United States House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515

Re: Oppose FY18 House Budget Resolution

Dear Representative:

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) works to turn environmental values into national priorities.  Each year, LCV publishes the National Environmental Scorecard, which details the voting records of members of Congress on environmental legislation.  The Scorecard is distributed to LCV members, concerned voters nationwide, and the media.

LCV urges you to vote NO on H.Con.Res. 71. This budget resolution includes a huge giveaway to oil and gas companies by paving the way for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of America’s most iconic landscapes. It threatens environmental and public health safeguards, provides tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, and slashes programs and protections that benefit communities across the country, among other harmful provisions.

The House budget resolution puts some of our most iconic landscapes at risk. It contains reconciliation instructions that aim to open up the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and possibly other public lands and waters to drilling. The Arctic Refuge is one of the largest remaining intact ecosystems in the world. It has sustained the Gwich’in people for centuries and is home to an incredible array of wildlife, including caribou, wolves, polar bears, and nearly 200 species of migratory birds.  We have a moral obligation to protect this natural treasure and to transition to a clean energy future.

Following in the footsteps of the Trump administration’s unconscionable budget proposal, the House Republican leadership’s budget resolution would make dangerous cuts to programs that benefit the most vulnerable in our society while benefitting polluters. Included in the resolution are provisions that will lead to trillions of dollars of cuts to health care and programs that provide basic living standards for struggling families, as well as other substantial cuts. Meanwhile, it would account for $1.6 billion of federal funds to pay for a xenophobic and environmentally harmful border wall. Rather than investing in safeguards for clean air and water, protections for our national parks and other public lands that drive our outdoor recreation economy, and growing clean energy industries, this budget sells out those priorities to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and for gifts to corporate special interests.

We urge you to REJECT H.Con.Res. 71 and will strongly consider including the vote on this bill in the 2017 Scorecard.  If you need more information, please call my office at (202) 785-8683 and ask to speak with a member of our government relations team.

Sincerely,

Gene Karpinski

President