An Arctic Loss in Congress – But All Is Not Lost

Moments ago, despite a valiant effort of resistance from across the movement, President Trump signed off on Congress’s Tax Scam, a bill whose malice is only surpassed by its greed. I will not dwell on the specifics of this travesty of democracy. Suffice it to say that it represents a massive transfer of wealth from the people to corporations and the 1% paid for by cutting health care for millions and selling off our natural heritage to the highest bidder.  

On that last point, in a cynical move to buy votes and please major corporate polluters, this bill has opened the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling for the first time. Many of us have fought to protect this amazing place for our whole careers. So this is a particularly painful. Despite winning the battle of the facts and generating hundreds of thousands of calls, letters, emails, tweets, etc., we could not overcome the Republicans’ sense of their desperate need for a legislative win.

Though we lost a battle in Congress, this is no time to get cynical or think that we have lost the fight to save America’s Arctic. Shell bought leases in the Chukchi Sea in 2007, but we kept fighting and won that fight. In the 1980s, there were 197 ACTIVE leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. We fought and won, and to this day Florida is the only Gulf state without any offshore oil drilling.  

We are more committed than ever to fighting tooth and nail in the streets, in the courts, and in Alaska to ensure that drilling never actually happens. Added to this commitment of activists around the country, low oil prices, the remote location, the unknown quantity of oil, and anticipated legal challenges all make the coastal plain unattractive to industry. New majorities in Congress and a new president could lead to legislation halting leasing in the coastal plain before it ever gets to production -- we just have to hold them off with every tool in our tool chest for now.

This is an all-hands-on-deck moment, and it will remain critical to stay vigilant, in partnership with the Gwich’in Steering Committee and our other amazing partners and activists across the country, to prevent industry from ever setting foot in the coastal plain. Together, we can -- and must -- keep up the fight:

• Where industry tries to go, we will be there. At every turn. We will watchdog this day and night, and stand ready to defend the Arctic Refuge against any attempt to lease or drill in the coastal plain.

• We will work with cities, states, and regions to say no to accepting any oil drilled from the Arctic.

• We will explore every legal opportunity to challenge drilling at every step of the way -- at the individual lease sale, at the individual rig, at the pipeline, and beyond.  

• We will pressure the companies and banks behind drilling proposals to drop these misguided bids. A growing movement of indigenous leaders and community organizations are successfully convincing banks, financial institutions, and even companies to say no to dangerous investments in fossil fuels.

• We will continue to stand with and amplify the call to action from Indigenous partners working to defend the coastal plain, including the Gwich’in Steering Committee, whose work to defend the coastal plain from drilling is a matter of survival. We cannot and will not stand by and let them fight alone.

We will hold members of Congress who voted for this terrible tax package that opened the Arctic Refuge to drilling accountable, and we will recognize those in Congress who boldly defended the Refuge, doing everything they could to prevent the tax package from passing. And we will continue our work to pass legislation that would protect the Arctic Refuge’s coastal plain as wilderness.

On this winter solstice, I want to end with what keeps me going in these dark times. Elections have consequences. Obama famously said that to Republicans in Congress early after his first election victory, as he set out on his ambitious agenda to provide health care to the uninsured, reverse climate change, tackle inequality through a massive stimulus package, and prevent the country from falling into an economic collapse. Well, we are now on the other side of that equation and feeling the consequences of the 2016 elections. But what keeps me going is that in fact elections do have consequences, and we have some big ones coming up next November and then again in 2020.  

So it’s on us to keep slowing down this reckless agenda and building our power as a movement. Fight them in the halls of Congress, in the courts, in the streets, community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood. Use those fights to get stronger and to shift the balance of power in this country. To build a movement that is powerful enough not just to win elections but also to elect people whom we can hold accountable for a truly progressive agenda that cuts at the root problems of our current systems that pillage the planet and people in the name of profit for a few.

And while we at the Sierra Club can’t do this alone, we have an important role to play in the months and years ahead. So, take this break to recharge. As my good friend and co-director Sarah Hodgdon has observed, we spend so much of our time here at the Sierra Club in spring and summer -- starting new things and growing them. Let’s spend some time in fall and winter. Let things die. Let things go. And then let’s come back ready to build and ready to win.

Thank you for all you have done this year. It has made a real and significant difference.