Houston, TX—On November 29 the Green Party launched a special election campaign for Texas Senate District 6 and to mobilize voters behind Maria Selva, a strong working class Latina candidate who staunchly opposes the completion of the TransCanada XL Keystone Pipeline. Stopping the pipeline is now a primary focus for environmentalists nationwide and worldwide. It is an ecological catastrophe in-the-making, a potential “game-over” factor that would pour so much C02 and other hydro-carbons into air, water, and soil that it would make the earth uninhabitable for human beings and other living things.
Texas Senate District 6 is at the terminal end of the pipeline. The XL would bring toxic tar sands oil and corrosive fluids from Alberta, Canada to Texas petro-chemical plants situated on the Gulf of Mexico. The pipeline would pass down through the ecologically sensitive mid-section of the U.S.—whose people and agriculture depend on underground aquifers for life-giving clean water—and then across Texas to Houston’s petro-chemical plants located in District 6. It would terminate in the severely polluted Latino neighborhood of Manchester in Houston’s east end near the petro-chemical plants along Houston’s ship channel.
This is a monumental struggle and the Texas Greens need your help with media, campaign leafleting, funding, phone-banking, internet bloggers, block-walkers, and voter car-poolers during January, 2013.
Maria Selva has lived near Manchester for many years. “I want Texas to stay as an energy mecca, but through new, clean renewable energy technologies. Innovation will increase jobs. We need to be on the leading edge of the future of energy instead of the worst of the regressive, toxic methods of production.”
The Democratic Party-backed contenders in the Senate 6 race justify their support for TransCanada by claiming it will create many new jobs in Houston’s plants. Not true! The petro-chemical plants that process fossil hydrocarbons have already been largely taken over by computerized, electronic technology which continues to displace thousands of human workers in the fossil-fuel driven energy industries. Giant campaign donations from oil supporters tie both Democrats and Republicans to TransCanada’s lies about more jobs, American energy independence, and safety.
“Our task is first to find and rally the oppressed that don’t benefit from the pipeline, and expose the lies about job creation,” said Texas Green Party leader Alan Apurim. “Second, it is to build an organization on the ground and on the web that will show how Maria Selva is addressing the people’s demands for a clean, safe environment, and how she would be a true people’s Senator. The largely Latino votes will be divided between several Hispanic-named candidates, splitting votes and giving us a good chance at a run-off. Regardless of the outcome, this campaign will give the Green Party big-time publicity as the ONLY party whose Senate 6 candidate staunchly opposes TransCanada’s land-grabbing pollution.”
Contact the Green Senate 6 campaign through Don Cook at: zenblews@hotmail.com. Donations may be sent to the Green Senate 6 campaign’s registered treasurer, David Courtney at: david@chandrakantha.com.
