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| Friend – America's national parks, monuments, and other pristinely preserved public lands and waters are national treasures.
(Few more so, in my opinion, than the iconic Mount Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades National Parks in Washington state.)
As such, I'd hate to someday have to tell future generations: |
| "See that river of sludge? It used to be clear and chock-full of salmon."
"See that charred mountainside? It used to be an old-growth forest with campgrounds and hiking trails."
"See that smokestack? It used to be a national park." |
| And that's why the Department of the Interior (DOI) exists in the first place. Per its founding statute, the agency is legally obligated to conserve our national parks and public lands for the next generation so we don't have to tell them how it used to be. But since Trump picked Doug Burgum as the department's secretary, things have been headed in the wrong direction.
Because one of the first things on his to-do list was to illegally freeze grants and lay off thousands of national park rangers and staff – including Mount Rainier's only plumber – shortchanging our public lands while Trump fights to make sure billionaires like him and Doug Burgum get even more tax breaks |
| So at Burgum's Senate Appropriation Committee hearing, I asked how many more workers were on the chopping block and how the cuts would ever improve efficiency, protect our natural resources, or keep visitors safe. |
| It was no surprise when he dodged them all – so while I had his ear, I made sure he got the message loud and clear: |
| 1. Our public lands are NOT for sale. |
| 2. Protecting our wilderness, supporting tribal nations, and keeping our communities safe is nonnegotiable. |
| 3. Pushing out critical staff will leave our parks, visitors, rangers, firefighters, EMTs, and other critical staff in dire jeopardy. |
| 4. Our national parks are too vast and too wild to be safely managed by a skeleton crew. The job literally cannot be done without the people. |
| 5. We MUST keep our public lands in the public's hands – so I say NO WAY to Trump's budget cuts. |
| And NOW, Republicans have slipped a provision into their Big, Ugly Betrayal of a bill that would allow them to SELL OFF public lands. NO WAY. One of the best ways we can try to stop billionaires like Trump and his millionaire cronies like Burgum from destroying America the Beautiful is to show my Senate Republican colleagues that if they back budget cuts to our public lands or try to sell off our public lands, then the public will wash our hands of them at the ballot box. |
| Friend, you can help me prove it by making my fundraising numbers the cold, hard proof that MAGA Republicans are on thin ice. Will you please help me build a SURGE of grassroots support toward saving America's natural wonders by rushing $5 or more today? |
| If you've saved payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately: |
| Thank you for fighting alongside me,
Patty |
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