We apologize for not getting this out to you sooner, but we have a good excuse. We’ve been working night and day to bring the issues that unify urban and rural Texas out to the public with a big bang and this dude, Tex, VERY SOON! We’ll be reporting about it on this Saturday’s conference call at 9 am. (Remember, we now hold these calls every other Saturday at 9 am). If you do not yet have the call-in instructions, just reply to this message or call us. Here’s a quick report from last week and leading up to this Saturday’s call: We are working on a total makeover of our website, and planning crowdfunding (reaching large numbers of people for small donations), to get Texas independents on the map, in the media and on the radar of legislators. We are working on a statewide petition drive to unite urban and rural Texans to protect our property rights, water, air and political rights. We’ll share this on Saturday before we launch it, to get your feedback. We are tracking important interim legislative hearings on groundwater – a full day of hearings yesterday and another today. We’re going to give you a 15-minute report by League board member and water rights ace, Michele Gangnes! (Note that the ‘hide the ball’ tactics of the oil and gas industry were there too.) We are setting up forums in S. Ft. Worth (August 16th) geared towards younger urban voters and picking up chapters in E. Texas! What about you? We’re looking for you to help us set up more in July, August and September. We are planning a statewide meeting to hammer out our plan for the 2015 legislative session. We will discuss the date and place this Saturday and how our by-laws are set up for chapter development and election to our statewide board. Here’s how you can help right now! Get your friends to sign up for FREE to receive our emails right here. Give us your beefs! Go here to Tell TEX — he will explain it. The more original content (your folksy comments) we have, the more we’re easily were more to be found on the internet. See Tex be bowled over by the brilliance of your comments! If you have already paid your dues, get a friend to join us! Those dues fuel our efforts to beat the big money! Join here . That’s it for now. Hope to “see” ya on Saturday. Ride ’em high (the lobbies that is) Texans! PS Do you know how to do a 1-2 minute video? Let’s talk!

For Immediate Release                                                                            June 19, 2014 Former Mayor of the small north Texas town of DISH, Calvin Tillman, filed an open records request today asking the Railroad Commission to provide all correspondence between Railroad Commission officials and staff, the Office of the Governor, other public officials, lobbyists and private enterprises doing business before the RRC, related to “the decision by the RRC to ban staff from doing media interviews.” Click here for the open records request . Tillman said, “For years, many local officials like myself, together with thousands of citizens, have done all we could to get the Railroad Commission to listen to the concerns we have about the potential for groundwater contamination, air pollution and destruction of a whole way of life we have in rural Texas by the oil and gas industry’s new practice of hydraulic fracturing. My kids got so seriously ill, it forced me to resign and leave my own community. The Railroad Commission continues to demonstrate what we have known for years — they are captives of the industry.” Michele Gangnes, water rights activist from Lee County and fellow board member to Tillman with the new League of Independent Voters of Texas, said, “The no-interview policy was put in place a couple of years ago, about the same time the production from fracking ramped up in Texas. But now that fracking, which the Railroad Commission is supposed to regulate, is in the spotlight as a serious contamination risk to our state’s groundwater, citizens are wondering why claims of groundwater contamination have to be emailed to the agency for an ‘official’ but anonymous staff response. And they wonder why the Railroad Commission continues to hide behind the oil and gas industry’s claims that fracking is perfectly safe.“ A recent WFAA report shed light on the fact that fracking practices in Texas pose very serious contamination risks to our groundwater, regardless of how many scientists for hire have claimed it cannot be proven. “To his credit, Sen. Craig Estes (R-Wichita Falls) who co-chairs the Joint Interim Committee to Study Water Desalination, asked in a hearing on Monday whether wastewater from fracking has already contaminated underground brackish water, a potential source of fresh water from new mega-dollar desalination projects under consideration. That the question is even being asked by a Republican State Senator speaks volumes,” said Linda Curtis, Executive Director of the League of Independent Voters. Tillman, a lifelong Republican and now an unaffiliated independent, has been working with hundreds of local officials throughout the state who want more local control to protect their citizens from eminent domain abuse by pipeline companies and contamination from the fracking industry. Tillman is featured in the popular Gasland and Gasland 2 film documentaries. Gangnes is an attorney and long-time independent voter who helped lead the successful battle to stop the City of San Antonio’s “water grab” of Lee and Bastrop counties’ groundwater over ten years ago. She is currently assisting another citizens revolt in those counties to “Stop the Water Grab” by water marketers and some area officials in the IH-35 growth corridor. Tillman, Gangnes and longtime independent organizer, Linda Curtis, are working together to build the new non-profit, non-partisan citizens lobby for the state’s millions of non-aligned independent voters and to unite them with those who vote in either party primary and who want reform. The League’s purpose is to “unite voters across partisan lines to protect what is uniquely Texan – our land, our water, our clear blue skies and the democratic republic for which we are supposed to stand.” The group’s legislative agenda includes ending the practice of straight ticket voting. See more here . # For more information: Linda Curtis League of Independent Voters of Texas PO Box 651 * Bastrop, TX 78602 512-213-4511* 512-535-0989 home office * 512-657-2089 cell

We’re starting to hit pay dirt! Read this and, if you haven’t yet, please  join the League , get a yard sign and get active y’all! Starting tomorrow morning, we will have bi-weekly Saturday morning conference calls at 9 am. These are planning and strategy discussions for building the independent movement, and our call for local control, across Texas. Want to join us for the call tomorrow? Call us at 512-213-4511 or email us at info@IndependentLeagueTX.org . Our first Regional Round Up was a smashing success with 70 attendees from 13 counties! Many attendees are now working to set up chapters, get out “Stop the Water Grab” yard signs and more. If you want a yard sign, call us or reply! Did you hear that the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas mysteriously shut down? Federal “regulators” have failed to make TransCanada disclose what, in fact, is going on. Read the release here . If you live in East Texas and want to work with Texas Pipeline Watch, please let us know and we’ll hook you up. It appears that taxpayer subsidies in the City of Austin are on hold – for now – until the entire council is elected this November under the new 10-1 voting district system! (The 10-1 voter initiative via petition drive, passed in 2012, continues a voter revolt in Travis County.) After giving away the store to some of the wealthiest (Apple) and sleaziest (Formula 1) outfits in the world, Austinites have had enough. Read how lame duck Mayor Lee Leffingwell weeps. We have some more exciting plans to share…so watch for more next week or join us tomorrow.

In the face of the long term denial and interference by the Railroad Commission, there is finally proof that fracking is contaminating our groundwate r. Our keynote speaker tomorrow night, former Mayor and League Board Member Calvin Tillman, will explain this to you — and read this ! We really hope to see you tomorrow night from 6 to 8 pm at the American Legion Hall in Bastrop, next to Bastrop State Par k. Details here . (Read on even if you can’t make it). A few days ago, we told you about this outrageous shell game that Hays County officials are playing with private water profiteers (Forestar Real Estate Group) with public money and how they’re messing with rural Texans who live east of the IH-35 growth corridor. Today we are telling you that this isn’t a rural problem. It is a rural, urban and surburban problem . (The Trans-Texas Corridor wasn’t just a rural problem either. But it took us years to build a unified rural-urban revolt.) We don’t have that much time now. We need to be ready for the 2015 legislative session with a full blown movement for local control that unites citizens across the state and across party lines. Come tomororow night to learn more about what how we can do this, but NOT without YOU! If you can’t get here, watch for a report next week and get ready to bring us to your community.

Lee and Bastrop Countians issued this tongue-in-cheek warning to the central Texas growth lobby in February. Ads in Times Square began running this week luring more people to Hays County.            Simultaneously with an ad campaign in Times Square intended to lure more people to Hays County and partially paid for with public money, a new non-profit, non-partisan citizens lobby – the League of Independent Voters of Texas — is throwing down in Bastrop, Texas . Citizens from throughout central Texas are coming to Bastrop this Saturday evening to join forces to “Stop the Water Grab” and “Protect Our Land, Our Water and Our Homes with Local Control” at the League’s first “Regional Round Up” from 6 to 8 pm at the American Legion next to Bastrop State Park. Details here .             Michele Gangnes, Lee County water activist and League interim board member , said, “It is the height of arrogance for the Greater San Marcos Partnership to waste taxpayer money on jumbotron ads in New York City, while back at home Hays County officials are busy grabbing groundwater from Lee and Bastrop counties and loading ever more debt on to Hays County residents to pay for what they call ‘inevitable growth’. Do they think anyone is fooled by this con game?”             Gangnes cited the refusal of the Texas Attorney General to bless Hays County’s multi-million dollar contract with Forestar Real Estate Group to reserve vast amounts of Lee County water that Forestar has so far failed to secure. She said, “Until now, Forestar’s latest brazen move against our counties was to sue not only our local Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District, but also the individual volunteer members of the district’s board to get either a permit for the water or millions of dollars in damages. If there were any doubt the ‘growth lobby’ is calling the shots in how public dollars are spent in this state, the teamwork of Forestar, Hays County and now the GSMP leaves no doubt.”             The keynote speaker in Bastrop on Saturday is former North Texas small town Mayor Calvin Tillman, another interim board member of the new League of Independent Voters. Tillman is known throughout Texas and nationally for his work to enact genuine eminent domain reform and other private property protections, to secure more local control over pipeline routing and to assure responsible and respectful operations by the natural gas industry. In so doing, Tillman has worked with hundreds of local Texas officials. Tillman said, “The State of Texas has taken away more and more rights from local governments, but small towns are the purest form of democracy and should have the power to protect their citizens’ land, water and air. Partisanship is not the answer, and citizens need to unite across party lines to join the battle for local control of their lives and property.”             The League’s volunteer Executive Director is Linda Curtis , a Bastrop resident who in 2012 helped lead a cross-partisan voter revolt via citizens petition in the city of Austin for passage of a charter amendment known as “10-1” for district City Council elections and the first independent citizens redistricting commission in the state of Texas. Curtis said, “Austinites used the power of local control through the citizens petition process so effectively that this November Austin voters will have the opportunity to give the central Texas ‘growth machine’ a big swift kick in the pants by electing an entirely new Council to represent each area of the City. Texans must unite now across party lines and prepare to go into the 2015 legislative session with a statewide movement for local control.” Click here for details on the costs of growth.             Like Hays County officials, many Central Texas officials have claimed that they can do nothing to take the foot off the gas pedal of unfettered growth in the midst of historic drought . Meanwhile, public-private partnerships like the Greater San Marcos Partnership, the Governor, and many legislators and other officials, on both sides of the aisle, are doing the bidding of the large-scale real estate lobby. The oil and gas lobby, which is supposedly regulated by the Railroad Commission, continues to allow frackers to use potable water for fracking and to risk contamination of groundwater, including the same water from Lee and Bastrop counties that is so coveted by the real estate developers. Click here for more on fracking risks. Also reporting at this meeting are: James Abshier on Caldwell County citizens’ efforts against a landfill and John Mikus of Texans for Responsible Water and Energy on efforts to protect land, air and water against coal and fracking activities in Fayette County. The remainder of this event is designed for citizens to strategize on what actions they can take to rein in the lobbies that are running roughshod over citizens and local communities. # For more information: Linda Curtis, Director League of Independent Voters of Texas 512-213-4511 * info@IndependentLeagueTX.org

The pundits are busy telling you what the “tea party takeover” in the Texas primaries means. These range from making being Hispanic illegal to saving us from crony capitalism. It’s likely that neither is true. But more to the point, the Tea Party, now the new boss, will quickly become “same as the old boss”, unless it finds its own independence. Think about it. What if Tea Party leaders decided to bust the unsavory deal between the two parties that currently threatens Texans’ economic independence and the further destruction of our land, water and the very air we breathe? Today, once again, the state of Texas hid its head in the sand with an unsurprisingly inability to tie water contamination to fracking. Be sure to read the hilarious comments. It’s no surprise that the Texas Republican establishment, which had its head handed to it in the primary runoff on Tuesday, has been locked in an embrace with the King and Queen lobbies for a long time. The King is real estate and the Queen is oil and gas. What is generally not known is that the Republican establishment has also enjoyed a sweet deal with the establishment Democrats in their mutual embrace of the King and Queen. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that the leading lights in the Texas Democratic Party rarely ever peep a bad word about the King and Queen? Always a good example is Senator Kirk Watson (D-Austin). Watson is a leader of the “growth lobby” that recently made Austin the fastest growing city in the United States. Of course, Perry had a hand in that too. Neither Perry nor Watson wants the world to know that while the King and Queen focus on huge profits in real estate and oil and gas, they are risking the destruction of our local economies. Using central Texas as an example, the Austin area is experiencing a net growth of 110 people per day. Meanwhile, current residents must deal with unsolvable traffic nightmares, a thoroughly gamed property tax system for million dollar mansion owners (they get 25% under-appraisals), large-scale commercial developers and land speculators (who, together, get 40% under-appraisals), and the offloading of the costs of growth by developers. Did you catch that last one? Current residents are forced to pay for most all of the costs for infrastructure (roads, safety, schools, etc.) for the newcomers. For more, click here . Top it off with the news that hit nationally this week — Texas is beginning to run out of water. Meanwhile, no one on either side of the aisle will raise a voice to stop the oil and gas lobby from using potable water for fracking and likely contaminating our groundwater. For more, click here . The frightening prospects for Texas water policy is not even our biggest problem. Try this one on for size. Texas local governments (taxpayers) are mostly powerless to stop water grabs, eminent domain abuse for increasingly dangerous pipelines, landfills, toxic waste dumps and contamination of our groundwater, to name a few. Any semblance of local control is slated for extinction in the 2015 legislative session. Is the Tea Party going to go along with this madness or are they going to fight for Texas?  (Go to our “ Beefs ” section to read about all of these issues.) Our biggest problem may turn out to become our saving grace. Millions of Texans — including many tea partiers and progressives — are waking up and beginning to work together to topple the King and Queen. Our demand is as it must be – to have the power to protect ourselves where we live . We want local control. Though politics is not now, nor will it ever be, a true science, there is one scientific law that applies well to politics. That would be Newton’s discovery that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Our (the independents’) question is how do we orchestrate the reaction. One thing is for sure. We won’t find the answer to that without YOU. Come to the first Regional Round Up of the new League of Independent Voters of Texas, to be held in Bastrop on Saturday, June 7th from 6 to 8 pm at the American Legion Hall, next to Bastrop State Park. Click here for more information and bring your friends or forever hold your peace! #contamination #RickPerry #TeaParty #Texasprimary

Many folks are asking why we have formed another organization — the League of Independent Voters of Texas. One reason is because the “growth lobby”, arguably the King of all lobbies in Texas, can’t lure people here fast enough. In the midst of a historic drought and growing unaffordability, Texas is in trouble. Unparalleled growth has brought us profiteers. Water speculators are roosting in our towns preparing to swoop in to take our water to the growth corridors of this state. One such real estate vulture, Forestar Real Estate Group, has even sued not only the Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District (for Lee and Bastrop counties), but each board member individually for simply doing their job to protect the aquifer. Who pays for the new roads, new water hook-ups, new schools and everything else needed for the newcomers? YOU, not the developers who continue to build in areas without enough water. Don’t believe us? Read here. Add to this the interference by the Lobby Queen — oil and gas. Irresponsible frackers are risking contamination of aquifers that everyone wants to tap, including Bastrop and Lee counties’. Don’t believe us? Read here . Isn’t it high time for Texans to topple the King and Queen? They should be in the same line as everyone else. That is why we’re building a new statewide citizens lobby to unite voters across party lines — the League of Independent Voters of Texas. The new League is holding our first and FREE to the public Regional Round Up entitled, “Protecting Our Land, Our Water and our Homes through Local Control” on Saturday, June 7th, 6 to 8 pm, at the American Legion Hall next to Bastrop State Park. League Board Member, Calvin Tillman , a former Mayor from North Texas, will be our guest speaker. If you cannot make it, help us hold a Round Up in your community. Click here for the 36 districts of the new League . Don’t forget to join the League if you haven’t already, or just come on the 7th! Thank you so much to those of you who signed up this week and for your generosity. Saddle up, y’all! We need to ride ’em high — the growth lobby, that is. There will be “Stop the Water Grab” yard signs at the Round Up! Please share this post fast and wide across the great state of Texas with the share buttons on this page below.

The following release was sent to over 1500 news outlets throughout Texas today. Texas Water Development Board Seeks to Overturn Local Control in Water Planning for the Marvin Nichols Reservoir, Caring Less for Farm and Timber Jobs in NE Texas During the campaign for Proposition 6, Texas independents warned voters that the new Texas Water Development Board had become a political tool for Governor Perry and his special interest allies in their efforts to promote uncontrolled population growth. Now, a new independent non-profit citizens lobby – the League of Independent Voters of Texas – is calling out the “new and politically improved” TWDB for its attempt to push the Marvin Nichols Reservoir on Region D, the regional water planning area in NE Texas. Region D and area citizens have long opposed the Marvin Nichols because it would flood 70,000 acres of prime farm and timber land, potentially wreaking havoc on local economies. Calvin Tillman, former Mayor of DISH and an Interim Director of the League of Independent Voters of Texas who lives in Denton County and Region C said, “There is a conflict in the state water plan between Region D and Region C, which encompasses the DFW area. Rather than resolve the conflict, TWDB tried to move forward for Region C – for the Marvin Nichols Reservoir — but they ran into a road bump. A court said they had to settle the conflict before moving forward with the project. TWDB’s idea of ‘settlement’ was to order Region D, even before their hearing today and Region C’s hearing tomorrow, to end their opposition now and forever. This is obviously an abuse of state power and portends what is to come. The TWDB is apparently willing to ignore local control in water planning in Texas, plain and simple.” Rep. David Simpson (R-Longview) has tried his best to reason with the TWDB. Simpson recently wrote, “Even the executive administrator has admitted that relying on the Marvin Nichols reservoir is not feasible because it is highly unlikely it can be permitted and built in time to meet the projected needs of DFW Region C. Why, then, has he proposed to eradicate the conflict on paper if it is impractical? Why would he do so prior even to public comment? Besides throwing out local control of planning, his injudicious and unequitable proposal may well cause future investment and development in major industries in Northeast Texas to begin to dry up.” Linda Curtis, Executive Director of the League of Independent Voters, who lives in Bastrop where citizens, alongside the Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District, are fighting to hold on to their groundwater in the face of litigation by private water marketers (Forestar Real Estate Group) said, “Politicians often underestimate the extent to which citizens will fight for local control and their heritage. It is time long overdue for the 40% plurality of voters who identify as independents to disassociate with the partisanship that is getting us nowhere. We must now and forever refuse to accept violations of our rights to own and enjoy property, our rights to clean water and air, and our rights to apolitical government.” Citizens across the state are being urged to send the letter at the end of this release, or their own comments, to the TWDB through the comment period ending this Friday, May 2, even if it falls on deaf ears. The first of 36 “Regional Round Ups” of the League of Independent Voters of Texas will be on Saturday, June 7, starting at 6 pm at the American Legion Hall in Bastrop. The theme of this event is, “Local Control, new Environmentalism…Texas Populism”. It will be a rally for local control and protecting aquifers from increased fracking slated for Bastrop and Lee counties over one of the most sought after aquifers in the state. Mayor Tillman will be a keynote speaker. The League has 36 districts across the state and plans to hold similar events to build its membership before the pivotal 2015 legislative session. # Dear Texas Water Development Board: I believe that you are interfering with the rights of Texans to local control and the rights of local communities to have the biggest voice in projects that significantly impact their land, their water and their local economies. I also believe that, in interfering with the rights of all Texans to local control, you are risking a dangerous precedent for all local communities across our state. In the case of the Marvin Nichols Reservoir, I believe that the Texas Water Development Board is trampling on the rights of citizens and officials in Region D by forcing them to put aside their concerns now and forever, and thereby accept a bad result for themselves and their descendants. How do you ask Texans to virtually give up what makes them Texans in the first place — the right to question authoritarian leaders who do not have their interests at heart? I urge you to back off of the Marvin Nichols and listen to the people and leadership in Region D. Their point of view is at least as valuable as those who would deny their voice. Interfering with the rights of the citizens and officials of Region D will not only worsen the state’s water crisis, it will confirm the crisis in confidence in the newly organized Texas Water Development Board. Voters were warned in the campaign for Prop 6 last November that the TWDB had become a politicized agency. I would urge you to not prove those criticisms correct. John or Jane Q Citizen

We formed the new League of Independent Voters last fall because mama told us there’d be days like this. Remember Mayflower, Arkansas, the little town that suffered a tar sands pipeline breach? Yesterday, they were hit by a deadly tornado and our hearts go out to them. Follow their recovery efforts here . The Texas Water Development Board is kicking up another deadly storm on all local communities as they seek to assert the state’s perceived power over local control. If we don’t head ’em off at the pass, the long opposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir in NE Texas will flood 70,000 acres of prime farm and timber land. For what purpose? So Dallas can continue to avoid what everyone in water planning knows is a far more cost-effective way to produce more water than reservoirs that get us 50% evaporation rates. It’s called conservation. This is an abuse of state power — pure and simple. The independent-minded Rep. David Simpson (R-Longview) in yesterday’s Longview paper here echoes our concerns and says this is way bigger than all the flap about the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) making headlines. The Marvin Nichols is a fight internal to Texas, not a fight with the feds. What can you do? Do the Texas two-step:STEP 1:  Go to the little window below and use online letter to send a clear message to the TWDB to back off the Marvin Nichols. STEP 2:  Saddle up now and join the new League of Independent Voters — your dues fuels our fight FOR YOU! [emailpetition id=”3″] Last November a coalition of statewide officials (Republicans and Democrats) together with some of the “Big Green” organizations (Sierra Club, Environment Texas) formed an alliance to pass Proposition 6 based on promises by those in charge to do more conservation. Independents warned the greens that the chickens would come home to roost at the Marvin Nichols Reservoir, the enemy of conservation in Texas. And so it did. Call it local control, call it new environmentalism…call it Texas populism. It is time now for Texans to unite outside the parties and to move independent. If we can recruit into the League of Independent Voters of Texas 50,000 members (that’s only 1% of the 5 million independent Texans) our non-partisan independent voice can be the change agent in the pivotal legislative session in 2015. That is why we are asking you to become a dues paying member today. While you’re at it, please like and share our new Facebook page too. (See Facebook button on right side of this page.) If you can get to the Region D hearing in Mt. Pleasant on Tuesday, April 29 at 2 pm, at the Mt. Pleasant Civic Center or to the Region C meeting in Arlington on Wednesday, April 30, at 2 pm at the Bob Duncan Center, 2800 S. Center Street. Please bring a rope! That’s a cowboy joke you’ll be reading more of from us. More info here . PS MARK YOUR CALENDARS (Central Texas) for our first “Regional Round Up” in Bastrop on Sat., June 7, starting at 6 pm, June 7th. Volunteers are needed now! Call us at 512-213-4511 or email us at Info@IndependentLeagueTX.org #RegionC #TexasWaterDevelopmentBoard #MarvinNichols #reservoir #RegionD

Breaking News! Landowner, David Holland’s history making case (aka “Denbury Green”) is having an OPEN hearing tomorrow at 1:30 pm in Beaumont at the 172nd Civil District Court, 1001 Pearl Street map here . Remember that a question arising in this case went to the Texas Supreme Court. The Supremes ruled that you cannot give someone the power of eminent domain simply allowing them to check a box on a form. (This “common carrier” check box is on the T4 form at the Railroad Commission.) Now the case is back at the lower court on a hearing for “summary judgement”. If Holland wins, the case moves forward on the facts. If he loses, we all lose (especially those who grow food) and the pipeline industry gets another big pass on eminent domain abuse. Please pass this on and come if you can. We’ll have dinner following to talk before we hit the road. Water Action Requests/Mark Your Calendars Now thru Feb. 12: Travis, Colorado, Fayette, Wharton, Bastrop, Matagorda Counties! Please read this, send a letter and consider coming to this hearing of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on Feb. 12th, 9:30 am in Austin. (They’re actually considering cutting off the flow to the river basin southeast of Austin, about which 5 County Judges are asking for help to stop!) NOW Statewide: There’s the “SWIFT Stakeholder Meetings” held by the Texas Water Development Board about what, where and how Prop 6 money is going to allocated ( click here for details ). Saturday, Feb. 15th, 10:15-11:30, Seguin : Linda Curtis (for the League) and Kathleen Hubbard (Brazos River Bottom Alliance) will be speaking at the Texas Certified Farmers Market 2013 Meeting. Details here . Got questions? Call us at 512-213-4511 or email us at:   i nfo@IndependentLeagueTX.org Got comments?  Please click the link at the bottom. Want to share?  Use the icons at the top of bottom of this post and have fun!

If you have already signed our letter to Attorney General Greg Abbott, THANK YOU! If you haven’t yet signed it, please do here: Online Letter to Attorney General Greg Abbott The Attorney General has received something on the order of 1,000 letters.  We need your help to multiply this to 10,000 asap! Here’s how you can help: Keep asking more people to sign by emailing them or posting on Facebook this link: http://independentleaguetx.org/?p=19 OR you can print it out here . Join our conference call tomorrow at 10 am for more. Just reply and we’ll send you details. Note!  There are three pipelines carrying diluted bitumen (aka tar sands crude) across East Texas. The Keystone XL, Seaway and the Pegasus. For the moment, Pegasus is shut down due to a lawsuit against its owner, Exxon, taken by the Attorney General of Arkansas AFTER the devastating spill in Mayflower, Arkansas last March. In the case of the TransCanada’s Keystone XL, we are urging that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is known for his challenges to the feds, to step in NOW, BEFORE a breach harms public safety, land and our precious East Texas waterways. (The letter explains). TransCanada is saying that what’s coming through the Keystone XL is “crude”. Even if that’s true (only the AG might get a straight answer), it won’t be for long. Everyone on earth knows this is a tar sands pipeline. Therefore, we believe that TransCanada may well be adding to the problem of confusion and ill preparation. What’s the problem with tar sands? This site tells it all: http://www.tarsandsprotectionleague.org/ How do you protect yourself, your land and your water? This site tells you more: http://safecommunityalliance.org/pipeline.html We’re working with folks through the Texas Pipeline Watch site and Facebook page to work with communities adjacent to the tar sands pipelines (Keystone XL, Pegasus and Seaway), to watch for problems and get the appropriate authorities involved when there is a problem:  TexasPipelineWatch.org

Remember  this CBS national news story on November 12th about Keystone XL’s faulty construction ? We just learned that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal agency that oversees the Keystone XL, has not adequately reinspected since this report. It’s now time to turn to the Attorney General Greg Abbott. Please read this. Then send the letter linked below in this message — and please do it right away. The Attorney General has broad powers . If you live in Texas , sign this letter to Attorney General Abbott and it will be immediately sent to his office and copied to the three Commissioners on the Railroad Commission: [emailpetition id=”1″] You can also print the “ Dear Attorney General Abbott ” letter right here have others to sign, then mail it to: Office of the Attorney General PO Box 12548 Austin, TX 78711-2548 or call (800) 252-8011 Please send a copy to your Congressman, your State Representative and your State Senator.  ( To find their addresses go here . ) No matter where you live in Texas, you are invited to sign this. All for one and one for all, Texans! This release was sent to statewide media . Please consider writing a letter to the editor about this of your local newspaper. This Letter to Attorney General Greg Abbott from Public Citizen provides more details as to the safety issues. There’s lots more background and maps about how East Texas is affected at:  TexasPipelineWatch.org . More soon. We hope to hear from you now!