Members of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network protest the proposed Rio Grande Liquid Natural Gas Terminal near Brownsville, Texas. (Photo courtesy of Rebekah Hinojosa)
Members of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas and activists from a financial watchdog group arrived in Portland this week to ask the Oregon State Treasury to divest from a controversial gas terminal proposed along the Gulf of Mexico.
For more than eight years, tribal members and environmental and social justice activists from Brownsville, Texas, have fought the proposed Rio Grande Liquified Natural Gas terminal at the Port of Brownsville, arguing that it’s a risk to the climate, to public health and to the fishing and tourism industries that people along the Gulf Coast depend on.
They arrived ahead of a Wednesday meeting of the Oregon Investment Council, which includes State Treasurer Tobias Read. Read and the other five members of the council decide where to invest money from Oregon’s Public Employees Retirement System, or PERS. The Carrizo/Comecrudo tribal leaders and activists plan to speak at the meeting and submit written comments from activists who have been fighting the proposed terminal since 2015.