By Bekah Hinojosa
I’m an organizer from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, a community on the frontlines of the U.S. Mexico border militarization and the threat of rising seas of the Gulf Coast caused by climate change. My family is like many others here. We have deep roots in this region, and for generations, we have enjoyed our pristine coastline and South Padre Island beach. For years, I’ve been part of a movement to stop three proposed fracked gas export terminals (Rio Grande LNG, Texas LNG, and Annova LNG) that threaten this area with explosive pipelines, tanker ships, and flare stacks. These export terminals would also bulldoze native wildlife habitats, threaten sacred Indigenous historical sites, hurt our local eco-tourism economy, release toxic air pollution into our Latinx communities, and contribute to the threat of climate change.
I traveled across Europe in December to confront the banks and decision-makers behind these fracked gas projects alongside our partners who are also working to stop the global buildout of oil and gas. We must take the threat of these fracked gas projects seriously. If we don’t keep coming together in Texas, the people of the Rio Grande Valley could be facing the construction of the fracked gas projects and border wall expansion at the same time.
Fracked gas exports in the Valley would spark a carbon bomb
Every year, the Conference of Parties (COP) holds formal meetings convened by the United Nations to address climate change issues and to establish the legal obligations of developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This year COP25 was held in Madrid, Spain, during the first two weeks of December 2019.
I was part of the Permian Basin Delegation made up of community leaders, Indigenous people, and people of color. supported and organized by environmental groups, such as: EarthWorks, Society of Native Nations, and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services. Our goal was to raise awareness on a global platform about the over-drilling for oil and gas in West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico and the impact on our communities and the global environment. If left unchecked, corporate drilling in the Permian Basin could soon surpass oil production in Saudi Arabia, unleashing an explosive amount of greenhouse gas emissions and causing a “carbon bomb” of irreversible climate change effects. More drilling would force communities to live near new toxic fossil fuel infrastructure, such as plastics manufacturing, fracked gas & oil export terminals, and pipelines all of which would drive the climate crisis if we don’t take action now.
Pressuring European banks to drop fracked gas exports
Fossil fuel companies need a lot of capital from big banks to build these massive facilities. If our national and local decision makers don’t step up to stop them, we can keep them from being built if we go straight to the money sources they need to move forward. The Rio Grande LNG and Rio Bravo Pipeline projects rely on support from French bank Société Générale to launch, and activists from the Valley have been working with French activist group, Friends of the Earth France, for years to pressure Société Générale to drop the project.
To support the momentum, I traveled from Spain to France, to join a demonstration inside a Société Générale bank branch located in downtown Paris. Dozens of people filled the inside of the office bringing their own chairs, banners, microphone, and loudspeaker, and banners to create a seating area with a stage and hear from an all women-speaker line-up. We educated the staff office members about the destructive Rio Grande LNG project that their bank is supporting and the dangers of fracked gas operations on communities, the climate, and Indigenous peoples. The demonstration inspired people to take action at bank branches in 11 other cities in France that weekend.
Ireland communities are resisting U.S. fracked gas imports
Fracked gas export terminals need buyers to import the gas, and Rio Grande LNG currently has a deal with Ireland to import a portion of the gas to a new proposed terminal called Cork LNG. The Irish grassroots group Not Here, Not Anywhere has been fighting Cork LNG and Shannon LNG fracked gas import terminals at their ports. Not Here, Not Anywhere launched an online petition that gathered over 3,000 signatures and a sign-on letter including 50 environmental organizations from Ireland and the US calling on the Port of Cork to drop the deal with Rio Grande LNG.
I traveled to Cork to meet with community members and visit the proposed site of Cork LNG. Joined by two councilors for the City of Cork, I had an opportunity to directly confront the Port of Cork officials and present them with the petition and sign-on letter. I educated the officials about the tremendous opposition to Rio Grande LNG in the Valley and reminded them of their hypocrisy to import fracked gas from Texas while Ireland has banned fracking in their own country. Ireland’s communities don’t want to be locked into more decades of fracked gas energy, so resolutions have been passed by the City of Cork and Cork County calling on the Port to break the deal with Rio Grande LNG and stop Cork LNG.
To remind the Port that opposition will continue beyond our meeting, we joined Irish youth, Extinction Rebellion, and Not Here, Not Anywhere for a banner drop action at the Port of Cork.
Stopping fracked gas exports in the Valley in 2020
Rio Grande LNG, Texas LNG, and Annova LNG are very close to receiving all their permits to build their terminals. Rio Grande LNG is awaiting approval from the Army Corps of Engineers. Texas LNG and Annova LNG are waiting for air permits from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and Texas LNG is pending a biological review from the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Sierra Club, community members represented by Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, and the cities that would be directly impacted in the Rio Grande Valley are doing their part to challenge the projects by demanding rehearings on the permit decisions by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe and Valley residents are working hard to protect sacred sites, wildlife habitat, and their communities that would be destroyed by the project’s operations and to remind their local public officials to stay away from any involvement with the companies or face outrage at their meetings.
Regardless if the LNG companies’ permits are granted, we will continue to use creative campaigning to make sure the fracked gas projects are never built. It is now critical to pressure banks like Societe Generale and all companies involved with these projects, like the Port of Cork, to pull out and prevent them from ever being built. We can do more to stop these three projects because they will impact many more communities -- along the pipeline paths, wherever else companies plan to export gas, and where drilling would increase.