To the Outdoor State: We Will Never Stop Fighting For You

We are reaching out to you now with a determined and somber tone. Last week, Congress passed legislation that ranks among the most dangerous in history, and we didn’t convince our elected leaders to stop it. Against a horrific backdrop of deadly floods in Texas and record heat waves around the world, President Trump and his allies cheered on legislation that will create more extreme weather, further weaken our ability to respond, and endanger more precious lives.

We’ve been calling the Congressional budget bill the “One Big Bullsh*t Bill.” Because that’s what the OBBB actually is. It reverses our hard-won climate progress. It deepens our dependence on more expensive, less diverse sources of energy. And it signals to the world that the United States is choosing cronyism over innovation and short-term gain over long-term viability. While China races ahead to build modern, clean energy, America is being driven backward by a party paid for by fossil fuel companies. We have worked with Republicans for decades, even giving some of them awards in the past for environmentalism. But there was no reciprocal collaboration or bipartisanship on this bill. Most Americans don’t even like it. This was a Republican party-line vote, strong-armed by a President who has repeatedly chosen his own financial interests over the betterment of our country and people.

At POW, we typically stay focused on our lane in climate. It’s our core mission and area of expertise. But this moment demands more. No organization, company, or cause is safe from a government that is more authoritarian and less democratic with each passing day. When cruelty becomes policy and truth becomes optional, we all have a stake in speaking up. Silence may feel safe, but if we choose comfort over courage, we will not be spared. We will simply be next. 

At POW we have always stood for humanity, decency, and supporting vulnerable people. This bill strips food assistance from the hungry. It eliminates health care for 12 million people. It gives ICE and its nefarious methods inappropriate new funding. It creates a massive budget deficit for our children to inherit. And for what? $1 trillion in tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. We do not believe in someone going sick or hungry so that anyone (let alone billionaires) can get more money. The America we believe in does better than that for everyone.

In our work, we have noticed another alarming trend: outdoor-focused movements are showing up in force for conservation but not climate. This was on full display as an organized outdoor movement (including POW) successfully prevented up to 1.2 million acres of proposed public land selloffs. The narrative (including ours) has focused on this “win,” but we have come to believe we’re missing the forest for the trees. We will not be able to hike, fish, hunt, or ride in places that are too burned, flooded, or hot to access. We all clearly have advocacy skills. What we need now is to apply them to clean energy and other policies that rapidly scale down our greenhouse gas emissions. If we don’t, there won’t be a point to any of this.

The only thing more dangerous than this bill is apathy. Many people feel exhausted, hopeless, and furious. Like you, we are parents, community members, teammates, pet owners, outdoor enthusiasts, and humans just trying to make sense of this often baffling but still beautiful world. We are deeply fallible, but we are always trying to do the next right thing and leave things a little better than how we found them. Know that there are a lot of people out there like us. We just need to unite and organize. 

In one of our hardest moments ever, here is our promise: POW will never stop fighting for you. No matter how crazy it gets, how much our elected leaders trade off on our future, and how much our world hurts. POW will continue to lobby for better policies, educate on climate, train our ambassadors, shift culture through film and art, protect lands from fossil fuel development, drive voter turnout in elections, and get more clean energy onto the grid, among other real climate actions.

We are going to do everything in our power to hold our elected leaders accountable to this vote and its consequences for America and Americans. Today, we keep building this movement. Tomorrow, we get clean energy on the grid in our communities. And next November, we show up and vote.

Here with you and for you every step of the way,

—Jeremy Jones, Founder, POW, Tahoe community member

—Erin Sprague, CEO, POW, Boulder community member