Dear Senator,

Climate change poses an immediate and profound threat to our nation, our economy and our natural world. As one of your constituents, a wildlife enthusiast and an American concerned with the future of my country, I urge you to pass a strong climate change bill that includes science based emissions targets, preserves environmental protections and safeguards species in a warming world. The emissions of global warming pollution must be dramatically and quickly reduced. Emission reduction targets in climate change legislation must be based on what the best available science indicates is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change to humans and wildlife alike. For even a fifty percent chance of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2° C from pre-industrial levels, the IPCC states a need to reduce emissions from 1990 levels 25 to 40 percent by 2020. More recent recommendations go further and state that we should stabilize global CO2 levels to 350 ppm, which is below our present day level of 389. In addition to setting the strongest targets possible, the legislation should contain provisions to respond to emerging climate science and any identified need to set deeper and more accelerated emission reduction targets. The legislation also needs to protect the wildlife and wild places that will be most effected by the impacts of our changing climate. The House-passed legislation contains important provisions instructing federal and state agencies to create adaptation plans to benefit our nation's natural resources and lessen the impacts of global warming. In addition to this framework, the legislation needs to ensure that adequate funding will be dedicated to implementing these plans. I urge you to make every effort to increase the allowance proceeds that are dedicated to safeguarding wildlife and ecosystems. As new legislative measures are developed to combat global warming, they should not preempt or curtail existing laws but rather supplement them in a mutually reinforcing manner. The House-passed legislation eliminates the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to crack down on global warming pollution from new sources and from the nation’s oldest, dirty power plants and other existing industrial sources. The Senate must ensure that neither new plants nor the oldest, dirtiest coal plants have a lifetime license to pollute, especially if plants substantially increase CO2 emissions. Thank you for working to protect our nation and natural world from climate change. Sincerely,

[Your name here]