Mr. Walden, at your recent town halls in the Gorge, we (your constituents) were loud and clear about our anger at the GOP’s attack on the environment, and our demand that you consider the importance of the health of the people.
We ask you to make a clean break with the Republican Party's overwhelming policies of favoring financial gain for the few and become an important part of a new "third way" of conservatives who promote economic growth while working to protect and improve the gains we have made in the safety of the environment.
Since November, there have been nonstop assaults on water quality, climate protection, air quality, iconic public lands, and endangered species protections. There have been drastic, crippling budget cuts, and legislative giveaways to polluting industries. Now, with 2017 government spending legislation speeding through Congress, further public health threats are being attached as riders to must-pass legislation.
Congress may think that this backdoor assault-by-rider will help avoid public scrutiny of these colossal health threats, but we do not intend to let that happen. At the town halls, you called out and were dismissive of those constituents who supported Sanders and Clinton, and noted many times that the voters in your district voted for you and Trump.
Do you somehow think that those people voted in favor of drinking dangerous, polluted water? Of permanently damaging their grandchildren’s brains with mercury ingestion? Of saddling their children with the immense tax bill for the cleanup of toxic industry messes?
I call on you to break with the party line, break from being a silent Trump/Ryan minion, and speak up in favor of your constituents’ health.
Speak out against health-sacrificing and environment-damaging riders.
Work “in the room” AND “outside the room” to protect ALL of your constituents. No one voted to be poisoned by water, air, or soil. We have spoken clearly as your constituents, and will hold you personally responsible for doing the right thing on behalf of our health and planet.
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