Kelcy Warren has backed out of his promise to meet with the Society of Native Nations. He made a promise to Pete Hefflin, Mescalero Apache and SNN Board Member, at the most recent meeting of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission earlier this month to discuss the destruction of burial grounds due to the Trans-Pecos and Dakota Access pipelines.
Warren is the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the company attempting to build these two pipelines. He also sits on the Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission, but has not yet been confirmed by the Senate Nominations Committee.
The promise he made was recorded live and can be seen here around the 2:50 mark.
It is clear that both men agreed to sit down with one another with the SNN organization. However, SNN issued a press release yesterday announcing that Mr. Warren will not meet with them. According to SNN, Warren put conditions on the meeting - it would have to be between the two of them only and in private (read the SNN release here). A few bits from the release shed light on how meeting negotiations unfolded:
"[Mr. Warren's] request to meet with only one member in a secretive, closed door meeting without proper public transparency with media or recording present as required by a public agency in order to serve the citizens of Texas under a free and fair democracy is unacceptable."
"Instead of honoring his word Mr. Warren now wants to dictate terms to our organization in a unilateral way to benefit only himself. It was our hope and his promise as a public official of TX Parks and Wildlife to begin to engage in a worthwhile, fair and unbiased dialogue to work on these issues in a positive manner as they affect all citizens and taxpayers in the state of Texas."
This is a huge disappointment and must be an embarrassment to the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department that does good work and deserves better leadership than Kelcy Warren.
If you haven't already done so, please sign this petition to demand Governor Abbott remove Warren from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission.
Video courtesy of V&M Productions.