[A proposed El Paso City Charter amendment—put forward by
grassroots organizers—would create green economic growth,
investments in conservation and infrastructure, and democratic control
over special interests.]
[[link removed]]

CLIMATE JUSTICE ON THE BALLOT IN EL PASO  
[[link removed]]


 

Crystal Moran , Eddie Wong , and Mike Siegel
April 21, 2023
Convergence
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ A proposed El Paso City Charter amendment—put forward by
grassroots organizers—would create green economic growth,
investments in conservation and infrastructure, and democratic control
over special interests. _

Sunrise El Paso posing for a group photo after turning in almost
40,000 signatures to the City Clerk and were accepted., Photo courtesy
of Sunrise El Paso.

 

_On May 6, voters in El Paso, TX will decide on Prop K, the Climate
Charter amendment that would pave the way for a Green New Deal in this
metropolitan area of 985,000 residents, 81% of whom are
Latinx.  __The Prop K campaign has placed environmental racism and
local control over powerful corporate interests squarely before the
public. It grows out of decades of organizing and resistance in El
Paso and the frontera communities—from El Paso and Doña Ana
Counties to Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua, Mexico._

_Eddie Wong interviewed Crystal Moran and Mike Siegel
for _Convergence_. Moran is __a local Chicanx, Indigenous community
organizer working in environmental, immigration, and social justice.
She was born and raised in El Paso. She is a co-founder of __Frontera
Water Protectors_
[[link removed]]_ and __Sunrise
El Paso_ [[link removed]]_. Siegel, one of the co-founders
of __Ground Game Texas_
[[link removed]]_, was the former
City Attorney of Austin, TX and ran for the US Congress in 2018 and
2020. They were interviewed separately, and their comments have been
edited for this article._

EDDIE WONG: HOW DID SUNRISE MOVEMENT EL PASO START?

CRYSTAL MORAN: Sunrise El Paso was co-founded in September 2019 with
its first rally being for the Global Climate Strike. Soon after that
the fight to stop the sale of El Paso Electric
[[link removed]] to JP Morgan became our main
focus. With the sale of El Paso Electric in 2020, came the fight
against the expansion of the Newman 6 gas plant in Chaparral, NM.
After El Paso Electric was sued in 2021, the Chaparral Community
Coalition
[[link removed]] decided
that they wanted to direct funds for a community-led initiative for
climate justice, which came to be known as the Climate Charter.

The Climate Charter will amend the city charter to include a climate
policy that will:

* conserve and protect our water;
* create climate jobs;
* prepare our city for extreme weather events;
* install rooftop solar on City infrastructure;
* study the feasibility of municipalizing El Paso Electric;
* create a climate department within City government with a Climate
Director to ensure that the climate charter is advanced and reports
annually to city council its progress and provide an annual report on
emissions generated in the city for transparency among residents of El
Paso; and
* create a climate commission made up of residents of El Paso to
oversee and ensure implementation of the climate charter and to hold
the Climate Director accountable.

EDDIE WONG: TELL US ABOUT THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN SUNRISE MOVEMENT
EL PASO AND GROUND GAME TEXAS. HOW DID YOU MAP OUT STRATEGIES TO
QUALIFY THE BALLOT MEASURES?

CRYSTAL MORAN: We (Sunrise El Paso) partnered with Ground Game Texas
in 2021 after they reached out to us, impressed with our work against
the Newman 6 gas plant, wanting to create a campaign with us to pass
local legislation. We began brainstorming and strategizing ways that
direct democracy could intersect climate justice with the input of
local movement leaders, activists, and organizations. The result was
the Climate Charter amendment. Ground Game TX is serving as a legal
counsel and guide, while Sunrise El Paso is on the ground running this
campaign.

MIKE SIEGEL: What I first noticed is they got a sign-on letter of 40
to 60 environmental and indigenous and other groups.  I could tell
they were doing real organizing and they fought so hard that El Paso
Electric, in order to build the Newman 6 plant, agreed to shut three
other fossil fuel-powered electric plants within a certain amount of
time and also agreed to pay a community benefits agreement to the
neighbors of the new fracked gas plant.  So, I started speaking with
them almost two years ago. We spent six to eight months drafting a
policy.  We collected 39,000 signatures. There’s never been a
grassroots campaign in El Paso that gathered this many signatures.
But we had to survive multiple roadblocks put in place by the city
bureaucracy. After they admitted we had enough signatures, they tried
to break up our proposition into eight different propositions to
basically divide and conquer, and we had to successfully lobby against
that. And so now we’re on the ballot on May 6.

EDDIE WONG: DID THE FACT THAT EL PASO WEATHER HAS STEADILY BECOME
HOTTER—with temperatures well into the 90s to over 100 in the spring
to summer months, compounded with flooding FROM TORRENTIAL
RAINS—make people more willing to sign the petition for the Charter
amendment?

CRYSTAL MORAN: The weather in El Paso, especially the heat and flash
floods, have absolutely gotten worse over the years, but what is also
just as or even more concerning was the fact that El Paso has severe
air pollution—ranking 12th in the nation for ozone—and the fact
that our electricity is generated by dirty natural gas via the Permian
Basin.  The Permian Basin is also known as the “climate bomb” and
is one of the largest oil fields in the world. (Note: the Permian
Basin is roughly the size of Great Britain and El Paso sits on the
edge of it.)

El Paso Electric also seeks to worsen air pollution by its plans to
expand old gas plants without any concern for the high respiratory
health risks that poses for low income Chicanx/Latinx and
working-class communities. They also intend to continue business in
the Permian Basin, and do not have any real plan or goals for
transitioning to renewable energies anytime soon, as their records
show several gas plants to be open way beyond 2045.

EDDIE WONG: WHAT PROVISIONS IN PROP K RESONATE MOST WITH EL PASOANS?

CRYSTAL MORAN: El Pasoans want the “Sun City” to generate energy
using solar energy. We are the tenth sunniest city in the world, yet
our electric utility utilizes less than 5% of solar energy.

Our water resources are sacred and scarce, and we need to protect them
and especially prevent our water from being sold to fossil fuel
activities outside of our city. Fracking in the Permian Basin is
projected to double by 2030 and uses up to 16 million gallons 
[[link removed]]of
water to frack one well. We need and want our water for our community
plain and simple. El Pasoans also want to see climate jobs being
created and align with creating prosperity in El Paso.

EDDIE WONG: HOW HAVE CORPORATE INTERESTS RESPONDED TO THIS GRASSROOTS
INITIATIVE?

MIKE SIEGEL: We are facing a full-on assault in both paid
communications and media against our campaign. The Chamber of Commerce
has taken this as a direct attack on them. They commissioned a firm
from Boise, ID to produce an economic impact report that alleged
we’d basically be killing hundreds of thousands of jobs and costing
the city billions of dollars.  Total junk science. They’ve been
really effectively manipulating the communications landscape against
us and at the same time doing mail five to six weeks before the
election to try to pollute the electorate. We even did a poll recently
where we found that if voters hear the negative messages from El Paso
Electric versus our message—that the climate crisis is real, let’s
create solutions here in El Paso—if they hear both messages, we win.
But we just have to make sure we’re communicating with as many
people as possible by Election Day. 

CRYSTAL MORAN: El Paso’s fossil fuel industry and corporate private
interests are attacking the Climate Charter and spreading
disinformation because the Charter will certainly hurt their quarterly
revenues and deep pockets. It is clear that their slogan is “profit
over people.” They care more about making profit off the
cancer-causing, extremely harmful oil and gas industry than they do
about the severe air pollution and smog, increasing respiratory
illnesses, scarce water supply, and our future generations in El Paso.

MIKE SIEGEL: What’s so threatening about our proposition is that it
says you will have a position called Climate Director and that person
will be responsible before every major decision to produce a climate
impact report, i.e., how does city action influence emissions, promote
renewables and impact climate justice? And it’s that third prong of
the climate policy which is probably most threatening because so much
of industry and pollution in El Paso is centered on the most
disadvantaged and voiceless communities, i.e., the Borderlands
neighborhood/the Chamizal where they located a bus depot, the area
around the International Bridge/Segundo Barrio, and the community in
Central El Paso where there’s a refinery owned by Marathon Petroleum
Corporation. Those are the communities that we want to protect with
the Charter so that future city decisions that impact air quality or
water quality in those communities will be subject to new review. That
doesn’t exist under their current city framework. 

EDDIE WONG: HOW IS THE CAMPAIGN BUILDING SUPPORT NOW THAT YOU’RE A
FEW WEEKS OUT FROM THE ELECTION?

CRYSTAL MORAN: The Climate Charter is very popular in El Paso; almost
40,000 El Pasoans signed onto the petition putting the Charter on the
ballot. This was by far more than any turnout for an El Paso election.
In addition, we are door-knocking like crazy, and we have accomplished
our goal of collecting 10% of voter pledges to go vote yes for the
Climate Charter on May 6. But we aren’t stopping there. Our goal is
to collect 20% of voter pledges so that it is not such a close vote.

These goals are definitely including early voting, as we know that
more people over 30 tend to vote during early voting and is a larger
voter base. We are sending mailers, phoning, and text banking and
working tirelessly every day to send the message to our early voting
population of the importance of the Climate Charter. We are also
definitely working just as hard every day to reach those under the age
of 30 and get them out to vote through social media posts and
community events.

Other Sunrise hubs are helping us out by volunteering to phone and
text banking for us. People outside of our community can help in a big
way by funding the movement
[[link removed]]  and volunteering
[[link removed]] to phone and
text bank.

MIKE SIEGEL: I really love this campaign. You can judge the merits of
the campaign by your adversaries. And in this case, not only is the
Chamber of Commerce fighting us, not only are statewide elected
officials writing Op Eds in the _El Paso Times_, the Texas
Legislature is currently considering a bill to ban any other city from
adopting a climate charter.  You know, we’re onto something when
they’re fighting this hard, so I’m really glad to be working with
the folks in El Paso on Prop. K.

_CRYSTAL MORAN is a Chicanx, Indigenous community organizer working in
environmental, immigration, and social justice. Born and raised in El
Paso, she is a co-founder of Frontera Water Protectors
[[link removed]] and Sunrise El
Paso [[link removed]]._

_EDDIE WONG is a longtime political activist and cultural worker
(photography, film and writing) in the Asian American Movement.  He
edits and publishes East Wind [[link removed]] ezine and
helped coordinate UnityNews2022 [[link removed]]._

_MIKE SIEGEL is a civil rights attorney and political director
for Ground Game Texas [[link removed]]. He lives
with his wife and two kids in Austin, Texas._

_CONVERGENCE [[link removed]] is a magazine for radical
insights. We work with organizers and activists on the frontlines of
today’s most pressing struggles to produce articles, videos and
podcasts that sharpen our collective practice, lift up stories from
the grassroots, and promote strategic debate. Our goal is to create
the shared strategy needed to change our society and the world. Our
community of readers, viewers, and content producers are united in our
purpose: winning multi-racial democracy and a radically democratic
economy._

_Today, our movements continue to grow, but so too does the threat
from the racist, authoritarian right. We believe we can defeat them,
dismantle racial capitalism, and win the change we need by building a
new governing majority that is driven by a convergence of grassroots
social movements, labor movements, socialists, and progressives._

_Join us._

* climate justice
[[link removed]]
* El Paso
[[link removed]]
* Sunrise
[[link removed]]
* Ground Game Texas
[[link removed]]
* elections
[[link removed]]
* organizing
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]