Maria Selva for Texas Senate:
and other organizations stand behind a Stop the Tarsands Carbon bomb banner while welcoming Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein to Houston’s City Hall on October 5, 2012. Photo/Maria Elena Castellanos
HOUSTON—Maria Selva, the Green Party candidate in the special election for Texas Senate District 6, boycotted the January 11 debate held by the Houston East End Chamber of Commerce because it was sponsored by TransCanada.
“This international corporation is building the XL Keystone Pipeline, for which it is illegally seizing the land of Texans to bring toxic tar sands oil from Canada for refining,” said Selva in a press release. “Tar sands refining will increase toxic air pollution along the Houston Ship Channel, negatively impacting the health of the people in District 6. The whole tar sands operation, from mining to refining, drastically increases carbon dioxide emissions which contribute to global warming and climate change, and is at odds with the push for clean, safe energy that is one of the principal features of my campaign.”
TransCanada’s transparent attempt to influence the election of a State Senator marks a new level in the merger of corporations with the state in our country. It is a deliberate attempt to isolate and intimidate XL opponents like candidate Selva.
Selva’s boycott came on the heels of a new report issued by the Natural Resources Defense Council that exposed the entire campaign for XL as one lie after another. TransCanada claimed XL would reduce American gasoline prices and reduce dependence on overseas oil. In fact it will INCREASE prices and INCREASE dependency. It will divert Canadian tar sand oil from Midwest refineries (for American use) to the Gulf Coast, where it will be refined in tax free Foreign Trade Zones and shipped overseas. TransCanada said it would create jobs, but in fact it will REDUCE jobs. An equivalent investment in clean energy generates four times the jobs created by fossil fuel production.
“The pipeline, with all its hazards, contaminants, and refinery pollution would only use American soil in its way to overseas profits,” said Selva. Because of its high carbon emissions, the tar sands pipeline has been called “game over” for climate change. The national direct action Tar Sands Blockade has targeted Texas in its effort to stop the pipeline, including the Manchester community in District 6 where the Valero plant will be refining much of the tar sands oil.
“I have been to Manchester talking to community members,” said Selva. “They tell me of the overwhelming percentage of disease and deaths in their neighborhood. And now they will have even more toxic fallout from tar sand oil being refined right there….The other candidates no longer represent the people. The Green Party is now stepping up to fill that void.”
In addition to defending air and water quality, and the health and safety of District 6 residents, Maria Selva is campaigning on a platform of clean energy jobs, education, health care, safe food, comprehensive immigration reform, youth and community programs, and a Citizens Review Board to oversee the police.
This campaign represents a turning point in the movement in Manchester and other communities in struggle—a movement that will continue on after the election, until justice is won.
Contact the campaign at http://mariaselva4txsenate.nationbuilder.com/
Sandy Perry is a longtime housing advocate from San Jose, CA.
