Dear Hillary Clinton,

Congratulations on getting so far on the path to the presidency. I agree with many of your stances regarding the environment., as climate change and wildlife protection are topics that I have been passionate about for my entire life and I’m glad you’re addressing them.

You said that as president you will “protect wildlife in the United States by keeping public lands public—not auctioning them off to the highest bidder”, which I am in full support of. But I’d like to know how exactly you plan to keep these public lands public, because too often large companies and corporations find ways to exploit natural resources on public land despite regulations. I want to know how you plan to prevent this from happening during your term should you be elected.

In terms of domestic animals, I’m thrilled to see that you’re taking puppy mills and other commercial pet production into consideration as a serious problem. I feel that this issue is one that is too commonly swept under the rug and deemed as inferior compared to other, more human related issues. But pets, unfortunately, have become an industry where animals are treated as inventory instead of living things. So while I’m glad you plan to “strengthen regulations” on these activities, I would prefer if you got rid of them altogether. Animal shelters are overflowing with perfectly eligible pets that are getting passed up for a puppy in a pet store. Overpopulation in shelters leads to high kill rates, which pose another issue in animal rights. Eliminating the commercial pet industry like puppy mills will also eliminate the need for kill shelters.

As far as your policies on climate change, I agree with much of what you’re saying but I have some concerns about your methods of producing the clean energy you’re talking about. While clean energy is a wonderful alternative to the fossil fuels that are now being burned excessively, the way that clean energy is produced can be questionable. Fracking, for example, is an extremely deleterious process that does much more harm than good. I think you need to review the way that clean energy is produced and evaluate if those potentially dangerous methods are worth their result. In my opinion, they are not, and I would like to see processes like fracking halted.

Thank you for your time,

Anna Sievers