The industry’s allies in Congress have introduced several proposals to open our coasts and the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas drilling, falsely promising that turning over additional millions of acres of sensitive public lands and our coasts to the oil industry will lower gasoline prices .

Even worse, Big Oil’s friends in Washington also stymied efforts by legislators in the House and Senate to take real action to rein in speculators and to pass tax credits to promote renewable energy, by holding these proposals hostage to their demand to satisfy Big Oil’s appetite for more public land.

When Congress returns, we anticipate that the oil and gas industry will continue to obstruct progress in weaning America away from our dependence on fossil fuels by holding up action on any pending legislation until Congress votes on drilling in protected areas of our coasts and Alaska.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is planning an “energy summit” for early September, and a bi-partisan group of Senators – known as the “Group of Ten” – has introduced a bill that would open some off-shore areas to drilling. Although the bill also includes provisions that The Wilderness Society supports, such as tax incentives to spur investment in renewable energy, we do not support it on the whole because of its unnecessary drilling provisions. That’s why we need your help to tell your representatives that you want real solutions that will break our cycle of dependence on Big Oil, while moving the country and economy in the right direction.

Many Americans don’t realize that our country has been in the midst of a drilling frenzy for years. Our country has more drill rigs in operation than do all the other countries in the world. But no increase in American drilling can meaningfully affect the price at the pump, in part because oil prices are set in a world market, and because, as a nation, we consume nearly a quarter of the world’s oil output but hold less than 3 percent of its proven oil reserves.

The oil and gas industry already has more land than it can drill in the United States – tens of millions of acres of onshore and offshore federal lands that it has acquired the drilling rights to.  But even record drilling and record profits haven’t quenched Big Oil’s voracious thirst for more federal lands.