Media Contact:
Camila Ruiz Gallardo, camilarg@earthworks.org
(Washington, D.C.) As the Senate deliberates over the GOP budget bill, Earthworks is urging lawmakers to reject legislative provisions that represent an unprecedented giveaway to the fossil fuel and mining industries, sacrifices community health, and rigs the rules for polluters, all while blowing a multi-trillion dollar hole in the federal deficit and gutting critical safety net programs.
If adopted, the bill would allow more pollution and undermine basic safeguards and frontline voices in the process.
This bill would eliminate funding for key clean air protections, including the Methane Emissions Reduction Program, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and Environmental Justice Block Grants. These programs are crucial for communities with the most contaminated air.
Among the most dangerous provisions in this bill are profound changes to the Mineral Leasing Act to force quarterly lease sales of public lands, without Tribal and public participation. This includes rubberstamping drilling permits underneath private property.
It’s now clear that some of the most harmful provisions that open up protected lands to destructive mining and drilling violate the Byrd Rule, which limits what can be considered in budget reconciliation. Those provisions dropped from the bill would have sold off public lands, greenlit the industrial Ambler Road mining project through hundreds of miles of Alaska’s Brooks Range, and deemed liquefied natural gas export pipelines “in the public interest.” They would threaten clean water, ecosystems and Indigenous rights.
“The legislation represents a wholesale attack on clean energy progress, stripping tax credits for renewables and electric vehicles, while protecting polluters and slashing support for working families. The end result is a budget that prioritizes the profits of fossil fuel and mining companies over people, climate and our shared future,” said Jennifer Krill, Executive Director at Earthworks.
“This bill is a giveaway to the very industries driving the climate crisis. The Senate must not pass a package that sacrifices frontline communities so that oil, gas and mining corporations can pollute with impunity. We urge the Senate to reject this bill and stand with the communities who elected them to help protect their land, air and water.”