Dear Friend,

With that kind of cash, you could do some pretty great things -- maybe provide critical medical care to those who can’t afford it, or invest in renewable energy research and development.

Or you could continue to give it to Big Oil and the rest of the fossil fuel industry as a bonus for poisoning our air and water and pushing us ever closer to catastrophic climate change.

The right choice may seem obvious to you and me, but for decades our government has opted to pay off Big Oil. Now we have an opportunity to stop this insanity: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) have introduced the End Polluter Welfare Act.

Now that the bill has been introduced, we are working hard to galvanize support for this effort. Will you make a donation of $5 or more to Friends of the Earth and help us end wasteful handouts for polluters?

This sweeping legislation would save at least $113 billion over the course of just 10 years.  And it is the culmination of work that Friends of the Earth has been doing for decades, including our 2008 report, Big Oil, Bigger Giveaways. Other cuts in the legislation have long been staples of our Green Scissors reports.

We’re working in partnership with other progressive groups to support this bill and, together, the coalition’s already gathered more than 120,000 signatures. Friends of the Earth's next step will be to reach out to you to help pressure members of Congress around the country to co-sponsor the bill.

But it’s going to take more than signatures to match the fossil fuel industry’s arsenal of lobbyists.  Please make a contribution of just $5 or more to Friends of the Earth right now and help us ramp up our campaign to end fossil fuel subsidies.

Since 2010, there have been three major oil spills in the U.S. -- BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the Enbridge tar sands oil spill in the Kalamazoo River and the Exxon pipeline spill in the Yellowstone River -- as well as a spate of spills from the Keystone 1 tar sands oil pipeline. As people suffer the impacts of Big Oil's messes, it is preposterous that the fossil fuel industry continues to milk government subsidies -- including writing off the costs of an oil spill clean up.

Unfortunately, fossil fuel companies are some of the wealthiest and most powerful in Washington. Influence peddling is how they got these subsidies in the first place, and they are willing to use their cash and connections to keep the money flowing.

It’s critical that we stand together and let our politicians know that our voice matters more than Big Oil’s cash. Make a gift of $5 or more today to Friends of the Earth and help us end subsidies for polluters.

Thank you!

Ben Schreiber
Tax policy analyst, Friends of the Earth