June 10, 2010

Dear friend,

I am a fourth-generation shrimper from the Gulf of Mexico and today I was arrested and charged with unlawful conduct for pouring oil on myself at a Senate Energy Committee. I was protesting Senator Lisa Murkowski's refusal to make BP pay for the disaster that is devastating shrimping communities across the Gulf Coast.

Just imagine this: BP can get away with pouring millions of gallons of oil in our seas and I get arrested for dumping a half-gallon of oil on myself in protest! This is just outrageous.

Please join me and call Senator Murkowski and ask her to:

1. Lift the liability cap so that BP is legally responsible to pay for its mess, making sure NO other oil company, including BP, can get away with this kind of disaster

2. Call for charges against me to be dropped

We also have another beef with Senator Murkowski -- she wants to gut the Clean Air Act as well! She has sponsored an amendment that will be voted on today (S.J. Res 26) to take away the EPA's authority to regulate green house gases. As someone who has been fighting corporate polluters for decades, I'm hopping mad at this Senator Murkowski from Alaska and hope you're fired up too! And for all of you out there who know that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a result of our country's gross obsession with oil (and that Congress is about to shamefully pass more tax dollars for war this week) -- BP sold $2.2 billion in oil to the Pentagon last year, making it No. 1 among all the oil companies in sales to the military. Mad as hell yet?

Please contact Senator Murkowski's office and tell her to stop protecting BP and instead protect the fishermen, the coastal residents and the wildlife!

You can call her too at the DC office (202)-224-6665 and give her hell. Here's a call-in script:

"Hi, my name is _______ and I am from _______. Senator Lisa Murkowski wants to keep oil companies' liability cap at a pitiful $75 million. This is outrageous. How dare she side with BP over the American people who have been so devastated by this manmade disaster? I also think the charges against the Texas shrimper Diane Wilson should be dropped. And by the way, we want clean air! Tell your friends to call, too.

Oh, and one more thing! Please join me and thousands across the United States for the Boycott BP International Day of Action on June 19. You can find and create actions in your area here.

It's time we all take action. I'm just a shrimper with a high school degree, a pile of kids and a broken-down truck. If I can stand up and make waves, so can you.

Diane Wilson
Co-Founder, CODEPINK