Write a Letter to the Editor:
Let Them Know Drilling is Not the Answer
We need your help. With talk about opening more areas to drilling, and gas prices at record highs, it is more important than ever to get the message out that drilling will not lower gas prices or solve our energy crisis. Everyday thousands of people read letters to the editor, which makes them a quick and effective means of communicating to a wide audience. Use your voice to call on Congress to stop giveaways to Big Oil, start investing in real energy solutions, and protect our coasts and other special places.
Sample Letters
Copy a sample letter below, paste it into a word document, print and sign. Personalizing your letter helps get them printed. Then send it to your local newspaper.
 Coastal Economies too Valuable to Risk (211 words)
To the Editor:
While industry lobbyists tout the economic benefits of offshore drilling, the fact is that drilling and its polluting infrastructure would jeopardize the booming coastal tourism economy we already have. Only a handful of companies stand to profit from drilling our coasts, but all Americans stand to profit from keeping our beaches clean, healthy and pristine.
Our coasts and marine waters provide the economic lifeblood for thousands of tourism and fishing communities, generating billions of dollars and supporting millions of jobs. Protecting beaches helps increase sales, income and employment from tourism. Clean, unfettered beaches enhance property values and expand federal, state and local tax bases through tourist dollars. The risk to our coastal economy from offshore drilling is just too great-we can't gamble with our beaches.
I hope that instead of a future of oil, the United States enjoys a future of clean, homegrown renewable energy, and a future of aggressive energy efficiency. It is time to embrace the clean energy solutions that will put America back to work, help end our dangerous dependence on fossil fuels, and fight global warming, as well as protect our beaches and vulnerable coastal communities. That is the future our nation should pursue.
Sincerely,
[Your name, address, daytime phone, email]
 Drilling is not the solution
To the Editor:
Sacrificing our coasts will not bring down - and keep down - energy prices.
Drilling our coasts will not solve the problem of high natural gas prices. It simply takes too long to develop a natural gas field to impact prices in the short term. The estimated long-term drop in natural gas prices from drilling new sites is so small that the average American would likely not notice it at all.
The honest answer to our oil problem is to use less of it, and that means better fuel economy faster and a shift toward renewable energy. Instead of the failed policies of the past, it's time to break our addiction to fossil fuels by shifting our priorities-and our policies-toward creating a clean energy economy.
Instead of offering real solutions on energy, global warming and transportation, we are being given false solutions and empty promises. Congress should continue to raise the fuel economy of our cars, encourage the use of renewable energy like wind and solar power, and adopt other, existing energy-saving technologies that cut pollution, curb global warming and create good jobs. These solutions do not require us to put our beaches and our favorite vacation spots on the chopping block.
Sincerely,
[Your name, address, daytime phone, email]
 Record Oil Prices, Record Profits: (244 words)
To the Editor:
The ever-rising price of gas is continuing to affect all Americans. President Bush and the Republican leadership in Congress have again called for drilling in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and America's Polar Bear Seas.
However, at the same time that we as Americans are paying record prices at the pump, multinational oil companies are raking in record profits. Since 2001, the major oil companies have amassed close to $600 billion in profits and they have used those excessive profits to purchase approximately $185 billion on stock buybacks rather than making serious and significant investments in clean alternative fuels, new refinery capacity and utilization, and renewable forms of electricity.
Four multinational oil corporations that are big players in Alaska posted record profits exceeding $100 billion in 2007: ExxonMobil -- $40.6 billion; Chevron -- $18.7 billion; Shell -- $31.3 billion; ConocoPhillips -- 11.9; BP $28.05 billion. In the first quarter of 2008, oil companies have posted massive profits: five of the big players in Alaska had profits totaling $36.9 billion, up 25% since last year: Chevron - $5.2 billion; BP - $7.6 billion; Shell - $9.1 billion; ConocoPhillips - $4.1 billion; ExxonMobil - $10.9 billion.
President Bush and Republicans should focus their sights on the real problem here. Instead, they are making false claims about how drilling in some of America's most beautiful public lands, that belong to all of us, will miraculously solve our problems at the pump.
Sincerely,
[Your name, address, daytime phone, email]
 No Such Thing As "Environmentally Sensitive" Oil Development: (239 words)
To the Editor:
The ever-rising price of gas is continuing to affect all Americans. President Bush and the Republican leadership in Congress have again called for drilling in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and America's Polar Bear Seas.
Proponents of oil drilling in the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge, the biological heart of the Refuge, like to state that any development would be done in "an environmentally sensitive way." It's misleading and untrue to say oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge can be done in an environmentally sensitive manner. Arctic Refuge oil production would come from many small oil fields and would result in a sprawling industrial complex of drilling sites spread across 1.5 million acres of critical wildlife habitat.
Furthermore, the oil industry has a dismal track record in Alaska. Just two years ago, British Petroleum's corrosion problems at Prudhoe Bay caused the largest oil spill in North Slope history - over 200,000 gallons of crude oil - as well as a temporary, but massive shutdown of the nation's largest oil field. Worse yet, BP couldn't guarantee that corrosion in their negligently managed oil field will not cause further environmental devastation. BP was subsequently fined for criminal negligence.
Drilling would turn a wildlife sanctuary into an industrial park, while providing no relief at the pump. The STATE delegation should oppose these efforts to open up America's natural treasures.
Sincerely,
[Your name, address, daytime phone, email]
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