Here is a form-letter that I wrote this past year and was used in a massive grassroots mailing that flooded our local senator’s office with the same message over and over. Eventually he got the point. It is open for use, feel free to send it on to your own if you wish and are that motivated. Any comments welcome, as always:

Dear Senator:

President Bush and his administration are going too far. The federal deficit is currently under scrutiny and because of that Senator Domenici and President Bush have decided to sell off America’s lands to companies that will tear it from tree limb to tree limb. There are plenty of better ways to fund the federal government without auctioning off our heritage and the heritage of our children.

America’s national forests and public lands are home to some of the most striking beauty on earth. These areas provide clean drinking water for millions of Americans across the country as well as providing a much needed respite from the urban environment. These forests and lands are also a very critical habitat for many of the World’s endangered species. These species include America’s grizzly bear, wolf, and salmon.

Many Americans believe that national forests and other federally protected lands are completely safe from logging, mining, road-building and other destructive development. Unfortunately, they’re not and this ignorance is anything but their fault. The Bush administration fosters ignorance as a way of controlling the populace. But what is important is that more than half of our national forests no longer qualify as wilderness because of logging, mining, road-building and other activities. There are approximately 400,000 miles of roads crisscrossing our national forests (this is enough to circle the planet 16 times). One has to ask why? The simple answer is to help logging companies gain access to even more remote areas of our national forests. More than 95 percent of our old-growth trees have been logged. Road-building and logging cause erosion, and fragment important wildlife habitat. Without this wildlife and the species that live within it, American will become nothing but a large cement slab on the planet.

The Bush administration has long held the belief that quick fixes are the answer. But I ask that you take into consideration the billions of lives, human and non-human alike that will be destroyed or affected by the decimation of these lands. Last year alone the President managed to through out protection for over 60 million acres of national forest—land the American people set aside for generations to come. The president has also engineered a massive expansion of oil and gas drilling on public land in the American West, exacerbating the American dependence on petroleum products instead of spending money on alternative energy options.

Please consider all of the problems that will arise from the sale of these lands. Consider the children and families that will no longer have the ability to experience true nature. Think of the millions of animals, endangered and not, that will no longer have a habitat. The deficit is a problem, but making America a massive parking lot is more so. Please stop President Bush and Chairman Domenici before they cause irreconcilable destruction.

Sincerely,

(name here)