An Open Letter to the Nebraska Congressional Delegation. This letter was run as a Letter to Editor in the June 29, 2025, Lincoln Journal Star. Unfortunately, since then Congress has remained mute as the Trump Administration continues tearing down any aspect of sound climate change policy and denying the global economic transformation toward renewable energy. Reverting to Trump’s Beautiful Clean Coal and the passage of his Beautiful Big Bill we are selling our future—environmental, economic, and societal—with total disregard for the long-run future of this nation and humanity. As elders we know better and thus we speak.
Dear Senator’s Fischer and Ricketts and Congressmen Flood, Bacon, and Smith,
Speaking for myself and many other Nebraska seniors, we urge you to uphold your pledge to defend the U.S. Constitution. That means truthfully speaking forth for the well-being of the people you represent in Nebraska and the nation.
We are very troubled by these recent months of chaotic disruption at the federal level, and the sinister strategy behind it all. Long-standing federal programs and policies, national and international alike, are being gutted while others are seriously weakened by massive employee layoffs and the withholding of previously congressionally allocated funds. Calling it ‘a hoax’ the current administration is literally disinvesting in any aspect remotely addressing our rapidly changing climate while the rest of the global community looks on in utter disbelief. Immigration policy is being reframed as “getting tough” with greater restrictions and deportations; even though nearly all of us descend from 250 years of immigrants who came and built this nation. Meanwhile, its tariff wars are rattling our own economy while seriously eroding the trust America once held in the international economy.
Through all of this, you remain complicit. We see you, who supposedly represent us, quietly accepting these extreme disruptions by the current administration and voting affirmatively at every turn--the most recent House passage of the budget on 5/22/2025 a case in point. When we, and countless other Nebraskans, share our concerns, your response is tepid at best—non-committal form letters. In short, you are part of a spineless Congress! Where is the healthy balance of the legislative alongside the executive and judicial branches of government so critical to a functional democracy? Can you not see, as we do, where our country is headed?
From our decades of life experiences coupled with seeing the future through the eyes of our children and grandchildren, we hold firmly to the basic values of investing in and responsibly caring for the long term while seeking the common good for all. Values that we believe still resonate across our Nebraska culture, irrespective of political affiliation.
We call on you to courageously embrace these values and represent us accordingly in today’s perilous times.
Bruce Johnson
Retired UNL Professor of Agricultural Economics and member of the Elder Climate Legacy Initiative.
