To: Governor J.B. Pritzker
J.B. Pritzker: Keep Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Out of Political Influence and Renounce Your Ties to En...
Back in 2017, then Democratic candidate for Illinois Governor, J.B. Pritzker, promised organizers and activists with Sierra Club that "the idea of profits over people, we've got to do away with". However, the Chicago Sun-Times later investigated Pritzker's financial ties and found that the then-candidate for Governor had partnership interests in Energy Transfer Partners LP. This corporation is a part owner of and responsible for the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (Source: https://www.rga.org/profiles-hypocrisy-democrat-j-b-pritzker-profits-off-fossil-fuel-industry-regularly-attacks/).
Governor-elect Pritzker, you're pledging to set Illinois on the right track to become an environmentally-progressive, green state during your governorship. But behind the curtain of your campaign, you're partially responsible for environmentally hazardous infrastructure that has stripped the Standing Rock Sioux of their domestic rights.
We ask that you renounce your ties to Energy Transfer Partners LP and your many other fossil fuel interests to show that you will keep your promise to keep people above profits, for the benefit of all Illinoisans and our posterity.
Governor-elect Pritzker, you're pledging to set Illinois on the right track to become an environmentally-progressive, green state during your governorship. But behind the curtain of your campaign, you're partially responsible for environmentally hazardous infrastructure that has stripped the Standing Rock Sioux of their domestic rights.
We ask that you renounce your ties to Energy Transfer Partners LP and your many other fossil fuel interests to show that you will keep your promise to keep people above profits, for the benefit of all Illinoisans and our posterity.
Why is this important?
Illinois has an incoming Governor who has promised to heed the research conclusions accepted universally by the entire scientific community and bring our state into the Paris Climate Agreement. But for years he has cuddled up to the fossil fuel industries responsible for environmental damage and human rights violations throughout the United States. As a 22-year old, who has grown up witnessing the increasing severity of human-caused climate change over the last two decades, I will not sit back and watch the only planet our species calls home be snuffed out by moneyed interests that only care for profit. You wouldn't be able to bear the thought of finding the right answer to the question of "What was the air like when it was breathable?" that your future children shall ask many decades from now.