A RESOLUTION addressing a proposed liquefied natural gas facility in Tacoma, and urging the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency to improve tribal consultation procedures and collaborate with regional mayors, leaders, and tribes to address the growing impact of climate change.
Please read the report of the full council. The report of the Full Council Agenda Item one Resolution 317 93 opposing a proposed liquefied natural gas facility in Tacoma and urging the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency to reflect, reject its permit applications. COUNCILMEMBER So want. To thank you, President. Harrell. And I apologize in advance. My comments will need to go a little bit in depth into the question of what LNG actually is. So I will make an effort to include most of the points that have come up. This resolution opposes the liquefied natural gas or LNG for short plan that Puget Sound Energy is attempting to build into Goma. I want to first express my gratitude to all the Puyallup tribal leaders and activists and all and members of all native tribes who have not only begun to begin to build a movement against the Tacoma LNG plant, but also have been at the forefront of the struggle against environmental destruction and against climate change. Many of you, I think, were personally at Standing Rock, so this is not the first battle we're fighting. I also want to thank all the activists who have been fighting against B.C. LNG, which includes environmental activists, labor union rank and file members, and also native members from Seattle who live in Seattle. If this facility were actually built and run, it would hold over 8 million gallons of natural gas that has been frozen and condensed to one 600 volume. When expanded back into it's natural they perform. This plant would hold an incredible 4.8 billion gallons of natural gas. Puget Sound Energy is a massive, multi-billion dollar non-for-profit fossil fuel company owned by a multinational company out of Australia. In other words, PSC is owned by billionaires and just like any other multinational corporation under capitalism, BSE is interested in one thing only profits, and they will sacrifice the world and environment that we all depend on to survive. The lives and the livelihoods of regular people if it increases their wealth bases the company responsible for improperly maintaining one of their natural gas lines and Greenwood leading to an explosion that destroyed several small businesses, injured firefighters and probably would have killed people if it wasn't. Not that it was lucky enough that it happened at night. Now they want to station 4.8 billion gallons of this highly volatile fuel in a metropolitan area and on the lands of the people of tribe without the tribes permission. And in the context of a breathtaking lack of tribal consultation. And because he is using the power and influence of their immense wealth to try and convince people to support by making pseudoscientific arguments, to convince people to support this dangerous and polluting venture. Because he has claimed that this LNG plant will bring down the costs for people who heat their house with bases, natural gas or get electricity from these natural gas power plants. That is not true because he is a for profit company and its profits go to its wealthy shareholders, not to its ratepayer customers. When was the last time a billionaire owned company gave out checks to ratepayers? When was the last time you got a check at home? Seattle satellite is a publicly owned utility, and one satellite makes extra money that goes directly to benefit its ratepayers. And there's a public process involved because the city council oversees it. But B.C. is not like that. But he's also claiming that natural gas is somehow clean or a cleaner fuel. We need to correct that. Many in the environmental movement are calling LNG the next big battle, the next big battleground over climate change, because propaganda that claims natural gas, environmental friendly is like the coal industry's advertisements lauding the so-called clean coal because environmental claims center around an argument that LNG is cleaner than the highly dirty diesel coal bunker fuel used by many cargo ships and I think most cargo ships today. How low do you have to sink in order for the, quote unquote, better than bunker fuel argument to be convincing? And absurdly, that might not even be true. But let's look at the facts. It is true that LNG is less polluting polluting that bunker fuel at the point that it is burned. But LNG is also extremely destructive when it is extracted and transported when natural gas is burned. It produces carbon dioxide, which is the greenhouse gas that causes climate change. Beyond that, most natural gas today is extracted from deep in the earth using a technique called fracking or hydraulic fracturing. But the earth is fractured with pressurized water. Fracking pollutes the water with many deadly and carcinogenic chemicals. And research shows it may even cause earthquakes. Natural gas is overwhelmingly made up of methane, which is also a greenhouse gas that is 86 times more warming, that carbon dioxide. And during the fracking and later transportation of that natural gas, methane leaks into the atmosphere, further adding to climate change. And when you include the climate change impacts of methane with the impacts of the CO2 and the pollution from the fracking, many environmentalists believe that natural gas may be as bad or worse than diesel. But even if it were hypothetically, even if it were true that LNG is at least no worse than diesel, that is not the metric by which we should be judging these things in this day and age. Based on everything that we know now about climate change, making new investments in fossil fuel is absolutely the most destructive and the worst way to go. It is like taking a thousand steps backwards. The point is we are talking about what infrastructure is built for the future for the next 5000 years. Cargo ship companies are going to be building ships that use the cheap fuel sources that are readily available. This LNG plant would be an expansion of that whole fossil fuel infrastructure. That would be a barrier to building truly clean fuel sources in the future, which is why so many of you and other regular people and organizations have come out in staunch opposition to LNG in general and this facility in particular. Residents of Tacoma and Puyallup tribe members do not want to see themselves or their families the casualties of an explosion like what happened at Greenwood only on a much larger scale. And regular people all over the world who are not PSC shareholders want an end, not an expansion one an end to not an expansion of LNG. We do not when it's a question of climate change, when it's a question of fighting for disadvantaged communities and communities of color, we do not recognize jurisdictional boundaries. Already. Already our movement has had a huge impact and I already want a concrete victory. The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency just five days ago announced that they will carry out a supplemental impact analysis, and this time that will include quantitative analysis of the emissions throughout the fossil fuel lifecycle, which will be a scientific approach because it showed if they are if they do it the right way, it should take into consideration other things like the dangers of fracking. The Washington State Democratic Party Central Committee has passed a resolution against this facility. The King County Democratic Party Central Committee has passed a resolution against us. Hundreds of you have sent emails, have called our offices. 50,000 people have signed a petition from the tribal members that is demanding that Elon that Governor Inslee stand in opposition against LNG. So I want to thank you all courageous activists who have organized and successfully brought us to this point. But let's also remember, as hard as this fight will be and it will be hard, there are so many victories in the past that we can build on the Tacoma method, not the proposed marine planned at the port was defeated. The Cherry Point Terminal was defeated. And and at first nobody thought we could do it, but we did it. And that's why we need to persevere. Now as an elected representative of working people and as a rank and file member of the labor movement myself, I do also want to answer the question about jobs, which is an important question, and I really appreciate myself the rank and file member, that this is an important question not only to organized labor but to workers in general. We all want decent living wage, unionized jobs. But this is why this is exactly why we should not buy into Baez's propaganda that it's using to justify this dangerous and polluting LNG facility. We heard the statistics, the damning statistics about how few jobs are going to be created. There is no shortage of jobs that could be created in fixing our crumbling infrastructure, our transportation with electric vehicles and public transportation to replace our electricity generating infrastructure with power generated by wind, solar and other fuel sources that do not cause climate change. There is no shortage of jobs that could be had. Yes, the question remains that those jobs are not here today. But how do we get there is the question. The problem is that if we use this line that these are the jobs we have today and this is what he has to offer, then there will never be a solution and we will always be digging more into our graves as far as climate change is concerned. And the problem and this is a political question. This is not it's not a question of ecology or other science is the political question. As long as the power remains, power and wealth remains in the hands of the billionaires, they have no incentive to switch to renewable energy. So we have to do something and we have to start somewhere. And some point has to be a starting point. We cannot forever say that what we have these jobs. And so we have to we have to go forward because somewhere we have to draw the line. That is why I am a socialist, because we cannot afford to give companies like PSC the power to decide how society is structured because we know how that's going. We need to build a movement to demand that politicians tax big business and use those resources to build clean energy sources, generate green jobs, unionized jobs. And it is been my honor to work with environmental, tribal and labor activists to fight for those green jobs. I want to particularly thank Mark Martinez from the Pierce County Building Trades and Matthew Hepner from the statewide IBEW, who spoke today who are very willing to meet us. Last Monday with myself, members of the Puyallup tribe, and I thank Councilmember James Rideout for being there, an environmental activist and as I said, rank and file members from labor themselves who are against this plan. We all had a very good meeting. We obviously did not agree on all issues, but it is essential, sisters and brothers, that we use that model because it is essential we find common ground with one another, because we need to unite our movement in order to overcome the political power of big business. And while we did not come out of Monday's meeting with an agreement. I am really thankful to all of you to have had the opportunity to maintain those lines of communication. I apologize that I was not able to contact every representative of labor, but our intention very much is to, you know, work in solidarity with labor. It reminded me it was a good, good, good memory that we had done a similar meeting during the shuttle, no campaign. And there was a similar difference of opinion that arose between the environmental and tribes movement on one side and the labor movement and maritime trade and other. And I really thank Nicole Grant, who is now the head of the King County Labor Council, for helping me co-chair that meeting. The reality is that when the labor movement and especially the trades they go, stand with the support of social movements, we can build immense power. The labor movement is in a strong position to draw a line in the sand and say there will be no more fossil fuel infrastructure built in this country. You know, with our labor, because labor has the power of going on strike and refusing to work, and that is the most incredible power, because if we as workers refuse to go to work, PSC makes no profits. And so I appeal to everybody that we let's let's work in a united fashion so that we send a strong message to our fellow community members. Our fight is not with each other as working people. Our fight is against the corporate bosses and the financial oligarchy. And just to give you a stat statistic here, $800 million of aggregate commitments have already been made for this plant by the financial industry. And there's all your usual suspects Jp morgan Chase, Bank of America and KeyBank, and also your friendly neighborhood, Wells Fargo. They are all the financial underwriters of this project. So let's not forget who exactly is to blame for this now, largely because we have to think of next steps. As many of you know, PSC LNG plant is currently being constructed even though they have not received all the necessary permits. This is a very common, strong arming tactics used by corporations. They will were started already thinking that they will intimidate the movement enough to go away. But we're not going to be intimidated. Right. So we need to keep building the movement. I urge the City Council of Seattle to have the same courage as our movement and be willing to stand up against a powerful company like Boise. I thank Councilmember Juarez for doing a lot of work with us in terms of making sure that all the language that we need in order to represent the the positions of the tribal leaders are included. I also know that several other council members have been negotiating amendments over one another. I was not part of that and I'm happy to vote on the original version of my resolution, if that if that goes forward. But there is an understanding that council members may want to delay the vote because they feel that it has been rushed. I will accept that as long as it's not a cover to water down the resolution. And if council members want to delay the vote for any reason, I would urge you all I would appeal to you all to state your reasons for why you want to delay. But my message to the activists is, regardless of what happens today, please know that we need to keep building a fighting movement and holding all elected officials accountable. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Swann. And we discussed this morning about sort of the posture of this case. I know we have several amendments that have been discussed and sort of work behind the scenes, so to speak, in it. As of 1030 this morning, they were still being developed, I think even up until noon, our cutoff deadline. I had mentioned earlier that one motion we may want to consider is moving it back to moving it to the Civic Development, Public Assets and Native Community Committee for further consideration. Not so far as watering it down or any other purpose, but there has been very little public process. We heard today both opposing views of Councilmember Swann space legislation and supporting views, but we haven't had really the public dialog or the committee structure and it's not a preferred practice to have resolutions on the full council. So I'd like to hear some opinions from some of my colleagues, whether we want to go through all of the amendments that we have one after another now, or we want to refer it to the committee. Given the Puget Sound Clean Air Agencies request or demand for a supplemental environmental review, what your thoughts are. Councilmember Belcher. Thank you. I am going to second your motion if and when you do it to refer it to Councilmember Suarez's Committee. And before I do, I want to. Thank those of you. Who came today and a number of you from the pull up tribe who said you are pleased that at last you've got a voice on this council. And I want to tell you, you have a very excellent, respectful and capable voice in Councilmember Suarez. So I feel lucky to have her here. And I want to thank you all for coming, because her voice and your voice matters a lot to me. I want to also acknowledge my colleagues and friends in the various labor unions who came today. I believe that what we should do is to bring this conversation back to the table. And I think that, Mr. O'Halloran, you mentioned this, that having the health and safety issues up front and then for us to consider the air quality issues and frankly respectfully how we work with Tacoma, the port of Tacoma, the tribes, because they do have tribal consultation rates that haven't been respected to date. So I believe that we have a real opportunity to have this respectful regional cooperation and opportunity led by Councilmember Suarez, where the tribes, our communities are workers, their safety is front and center. But also we hear from scientists, people that can tell us about the natural resources, what we need to do in our region. And again, respectfully ask the city of Tacoma, the port of Tacoma and others to join us so we can really get our hands around this. So I'm going to recommend it go back to her committee and when you move it, I will. Seconded Councilmember Waters say cuts no worries and so on. Out mama I'm. Original her original. In all due respect, ma'am, public comment is over and I don't want to have to, but I understand. But. But but we should also know that we had a discussion with council members who want this morning as one of our respected colleagues about this procedural issue. But we hear you, Councilman, where you have the floor. Ma'am, I want to see this. This, ma'am, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to hold you disruptive in a minute, which I don't want to do, which you're going to be removed. I'm going to let you know I'm going to have to remove you if you keep that up. Councilman Morris Council President Thank you. Councilmember. So want for bringing us this resolution that we've been working on for the last week. The overarching goal and the main purpose in the spirit intent of this resolution is to address climate change and its disproportionate effect on tribal communities and lands, in particular the Puyallup Nation. What we plan to do with with the resolution in the drafting was to also attach the resolution from ATCI, which was passed in September 2017, opposing the LNG plant and to also attach the NCAI resolution passed in October 2017 opposing the LNG plant. I've had an opportunity to speak with the Puyallup tribal elected leadership as well as their council. I had an opportunity to read the correspondence between PSC reps CAA that would be the clean air energy in their correspondence and the notice of violation. I had an opportunity to read the Shoreline Hearings, Board Opinion and the appeal by the Puyallup tribe in which the court found that they indeed did have standing. Now, let me just be very clear. The most important issue here for us in this council and what we've seen is the lack of tribal consultation and the concerns regarding the Puget Sound Clean Air Energy, which has elected leadership from four counties, which include nine tribes. We have no elected tribal elected leaders on that very important air agency that has been around since 1967. 51 years as. We know tribal consultation is not just an amenity, it is required by law. And my understanding is it did not happen in this case. I'm an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation. I've been a lawyer for 31 years and I've been representing tribes my whole life. I was a tribal attorney and I was a trial lawyer in USV, Washington. I was born and raised on the Puyallup Reservation. I know Blair Waterway. I know high blows. I know Commencement Bay. And I was there when the court ruled that the mob tried indeed owned the Tidelands. So I understand this issue and many, many levels. This is not about the city of Seattle versus the city of Tacoma or PSC versus the Puget Sound clean air energy or tribes versus labor or tribes versus business or tribe versus the port. All jurisdictional and legal arguments aside, the tribes, the tribe, the Puyallup nation is, has always been and will continue to be the original steward of that land as signatories to the Treaty of Medicine Creek. They are the original water protectors and they will be here long after all of us are gone. The tribes are not going anywhere. And I want to make it very clear what I heard today. The Puget Sound, the Salish Sea, the Tidelands. Nobody owns them but the tribes. The Puyallup Tribe has a treaty, right? Government to government, tribal consultation. And again, all jurisdictional and legal arguments aside, the tribes will continue to be here and we will continue to defend their right to tribal consultation and their treaty. Right. This is our Dakota Access Pipeline moment, except we're on the front end of this. These are our water protectors. And again, you know, I bristle when I hear people say, stay in your lane. This is our lane. It's Indian country. So again, I want to go back to what I'm working with my colleagues. I want to thank Councilmember Mosqueda, Councilmember Bagshaw, Councilmember Herbold and President Harrell, who have been working on us and different drafts, because our main goal has been to make sure that climate change and its disparate impact on the nation and other signatories to the treaties, STEPHENS Treaties of the 1960s are upheld. This council, the Seattle City Council, which I'm proud to be a part of, has been consistent in its actions to reduce carbon emissions, to support the Paris climate agreement, to stop the oil trains. And, of course, we passed a resolution, two of them, to protect the water protectors, the Dakota Access pipeline. And we now know that we have had three spills in that project. And the main issue there was lack of tribal consultation. I am a personal friend of all the leadership that you saw sitting in the front row. Except I just met you, sir, but I knew your uncle well. I used to babysit David being so he probably didn't want people telling them his mother was one of my mentors. Gloria, we should all be working with all of our tribal governments and sister cities. When we recognize this, when we recognize an environmental risk or injustice. I should remind people that the last treaty that was made with our people was in 1871. And since the Steven Treaties and the treaty with my own tribe, we have been fighting to uphold that. We are more than warriors, we're soldiers. And that has never stopped. One of the council members addressed various victories Cherry Point oil trains in Elliott Bay. But I want to remind people that tribes are not environmental groups. They are not clubs. They are not a political base. They are a government. And what one of those cases, quite frankly, for Cherry Point, was the Lummi Nation. What won that issue for the oil trains was Suquamish and Swinomish. Both chairman's very dear friend of mine and I used to represent those tribes, the Elliot Bay issues in the lawsuits. That was Michael Shute. That is because when you have a treaty right in your back pocket, it trumps state and federal law. It is the law of the land. I mean, no disrespect to the advocates, activists, environmentalists and all the groups that align themselves with Native people. But again, tribes are not an interest group. We're not a club. We're not a political base. We're not a grassroots organization. We are a government a government accorded the same sovereignty as federal, state and city governments with all the privileges, amenities and responsibilities. So I think those of you who are not members of tribes but are here to be supportive, I appreciate that. But are people died for this land and we will continue. And I want to add on one last note. It has been a privilege to work with the colleagues that I have here because we all work together. And the reason why we want this to go back to in which we now added and to my committee, which has never happened before in any city, we have never had native communities on the legislative branch. And my goal has, which has been wonderful in that I have had an opportunity to reach out and speak directly government to government with Puyallup and other tribal elected leadership, such as council member Mr. Rideout. And that's important. I'm not taking away the work from the activists and environmentalists and unions and the and the interest groups. But what I am saying and the perspective that I come from is I like to rely on facts, on evidence, on research and on history. And with that, I'm glad that this issue is going to come back to my committee and we can sit down and we can talk about what this means to government. To government. I'm not here to debate the science. I am not an engineer. I'm not a scientist. I appreciate the people who came through public comment who do have that. And like I said, I did have an opportunity to look at PSC. I was one of the attorneys that sued the I have sued Pewds so many times is a tribal lawyer and one I represented the lower Elwha tribe in the removal of their dams when they tried to build a grieving dock on their ancestral lands on their graveyard. I know this stuff. So it isn't for me just about having a slogan or a hashtag or a T-shirt or a one liner for us. Those Native people who are in the room, we don't have the luxury of letting things like this go. So we will not stay in our lane. And I can assure you that this council is just as compassionate and is just as diligent as me to wanting to make sure that climate change in its impact on the Puyallup and Native folk that we pay attention to, that that we demand tribal consultation and that we make sure and we have discussed this with our mayor, with her seat on this very important agency. That elected tribal leadership must be part of this conversation, otherwise it cannot go forward. I will leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Whereas. Cancer Council member O'Brien. The floor is yours, sir. Thank you. Council member Wise, thank you for those powerful words, and thank you for your ongoing work on this and your work to elevate the conversation between the city and tribal leadership around the region and around the country. Councilmember Swan, I also want to thank you for bringing forward this resolution, which I fully support. I support it today and I will certainly support it continue working through working with it through committee. I want to just highlight a couple of things. Well, what's been said and I'll just repeat briefly, I'm proud that this council has stood with the Lummi tribe defending their sovereignty in fighting the coal export facility up there. I'm proud that this council has stood with the people of Standing Rock in fighting the oil pipeline through their tribe. And I will be standing with the Puyallup tribe as they fight this LNG facility to. I want to say thank you to labor leaders that were here today speaking on behalf of workers. And I want to just reiterate what Councilmember Salmon said, that the people that work for fossil fuel companies that are feeding their families and paying the rent for that, these are good people. They're not our enemies here. As we move to a fossil free society. It's critically important that that transition is a fair, thoughtful and just transition away from the fossil fuel industry. And we need to center those workers at that work to make sure that the impact on them is is minimal. But we also know if we're transitioning to a fossil free society, we cannot add new fossil free infrastructure today. So which is why I fought the Shell Oil rigs in the earlier bay was why we're going to fight this LNG plant. I want to also reiterate that. Half a dozen years ago, there were a lot of people that thought natural gas was a transition fuel that we could be switching to. The science has been telling us since then that that has shifted. Two things have shifted. One, it's becoming more and more apparent that the changes and the threats to our climate are happening much more swiftly than we had previously thought. We have to act faster than we thought. We had time, even just half a dozen years ago. And as council members so on highlighted, we also are learning more and more about the impacts of natural gas. When you calculate the leakage that happens in in the pipelines, in storage and in the mines for these, the impacts are significant and may actually be a worse fossil fuel than even things as awful as bunker fuel. But having the arguments over which fuel is the best fuel when we know they're all bad and they all need to stay on the ground, really misses the point. We certainly shouldn't be building a piece of infrastructure that's going to lock us in for decades of a fossil fuel. Instead, we should be focusing our energy on a clean transition to clean energy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Comes from O'Brien. So I will move to her for item one, resolution 317932, the Civic Development Public Assets, a native community native community committee for further consideration. All those in favor of the motion and any more discussion about the motion. Okay. Councilmember Swan and then Governor Skinner. Ahead. Go. Good. This is on the motion, correct? Yes. On the motion? Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. So I just want to comment on a few of the themes that we've heard today. There's some recurring themes that the panelists have brought up that I've heard throughout the day and throughout the last two weeks from my colleagues as well. Number one, there is a commitment to protecting the environment. Number two, we want to move towards greater clean energy jobs and a cleaner energy economy. And number three, which came out loud and clear today, is that there is a commitment to stand in solidarity for tribal representatives, not only have respect, but to have what is afforded to them under the law, which is government to government relations. As a member of the labor movement, as someone who stands shoulder to shoulder with labor, brothers and sisters every day. I want to reiterate something that we also heard. Every single union that I spoke to throughout the last two weeks has said that they send a solidarity message with the tribes, with the Puyallup nation, that we will want we want government to government relations to be respected. It is not a nicety. It is the law. No one today has said counter to that, and I appreciate what council members want and others have said today, we will not reduce this issue to labor versus tribes. We cannot and we will not. As Vince O'Halloran also mentioned, the Labor movement has a long history of standing shoulder to shoulder with our tribal brothers and sisters, and my office has made it clear under no uncertain, uncertain terms, that doing the bare minimum, which has been discussed this morning and in the last two weeks, as required under the law with respect to outreach to tribal governments, is not good enough. We know that the bare minimum exacerbates environmental racism. It harms rank and file workers. It harms communities of color. These individuals are bearing the brunt of climate change. We must go above and beyond the bare minimum to create sustainable change, to make sure that we're promoting green energy jobs and be transparent in our actions, as well as council members as we engage with other municipalities. That is why I'm supporting Councilmember Suarez's effort to bring this to her committee. That is why I'm supporting the effort to make sure that the Civic Development, Public Assets and Native Communities Committee has the opportunity to have this discussion in conjunction with tribal representatives, with labor union members and workers, with government municipalities. Because we will not be divided. We cannot be pitted against each other. And that is how we build a movement. I know from my colleagues and conversations with them over the last two weeks that when we have this conversation in committee, it will be a full and robust discussion. And for those who haven't had the opportunity to see the proposed language, which has been discussed, as you heard, up until ten 3011 this morning, we will be more informed as we move forward on this very important discussion, and we'll have the opportunity to engage more fully with the public. But I want to be clear that the outcome of this resolution and the outcome of committee is not enough. We here in Seattle have an opportunity to lead by example, to show what it means to create those green energy economies, to actually take the reins on this issue. And that's why I think it's important that we look internal into our own house to address the policies that we need, not to just curb global warming, but to create the green energy economy that our city can create our own our own Office of Environment and Sustainability has reported in the Media Report and recently, as of last week, that we are nowhere near meeting our own emissions reduction goals. The largest contributor locally to climate change. We must act on that. We must hold ourselves accountable. Work in conjunction with labor unions and workers and tribes and environmentalists and our regional municipalities to address this change right here in Seattle. I'm going to throw out three ideas because I think it's important to act on these. Number one, I want free transit for every resident and commuter in this city. This would immediately, immediately reduce carbon emissions. It would immediately help to put more folks to work in King County Metro and Sound Transit with good paying union jobs. It would provide access to transportation for all residents, regardless of income. And it would create a better experience for everyone here commuters, those who live here, and those who want to visit. Number two, I think we should be looking internally to how we retrofit our own buildings throughout Seattle. I've had conversations with folks in the building and construction trades who tell me that they've been to boiler rooms in our own city down in the basement, and the room is 120 degrees. We are admitting energy unnecessarily to heat our own buildings when we should be thinking about how we retrofit our buildings throughout Seattle. Number three, I think we need to call for us to have action immediately on an energy audit so that we move to glean clean, green energy technology. Working with the Port of Seattle, working with the Port of Tacoma, regional tribes, our neighboring municipalities. We must protect industrial lands, clean up our waterways and promote, promote green manufacturing jobs. So working with the longshore, working with the seafarers, we can become leaders in green clean energy technology for. Our own ports while protecting and promoting our economy, our health, our lands and our port. So this is the things that I think that we can do when we work together. The movement that we create must be all inclusive. We must find the intersectionality of our struggle so that we lift up the health, protect good living wage jobs, and protect our environment. I want to thank again the good work of the council, especially the good work that Councilmember Juarez is about to begin in her committee. I think that this is just the beginning of how we create a more inclusive conversation, how we can make sure that it's a productive discussion. And I look forward to making sure that we're creating a unified movement that never pits ourselves against each other. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Skinner. Consumers want. All of us as activists, you know, because we worked together on this. No, I would be ready to vote on the resolution today because I think that we know everything that there is to be known at this moment about climate change and about LNG. I don't exactly understand. I have to admit, I don't exactly I don't understand why it is being postponed. But I will vote yes on this on the on the condition that we actually see from the council a resolution that does the job. What this resolution draft does, which is opposes LNG, the LNG plant in Tacoma. And I, I really agree, obviously that the law is for us, for every government to maintain and respect government to government relations. But I think it also needs to be said, this is not about government or government relations. This is about the lives of ordinary people, many of whom are native, but others are not. But we all. Share. We all share in the same fate. If we don't deal with climate change and I don't think that we should in any way accept this kind of divisive sort of language that, well, Native people are the only real speakers, and others don't get to speak. Not all of us have a stake in this. All of us should stand with Native people because they are on the front lines. But I don't agree with having sort of this tiered activist sort of stature. We all stand together because all of our lives are at stake together. If you look at the whole radius where this facility will impact, if there's an explosion, it's not only Native people living there. There's white people and black people. I don't I'm not done the demographic study, but I'm assuming that there's people of different races and ethnicities there. I think we all should be at the forefront of struggle. Absolutely. In solidarity with the. I. I also think that I'm in response to a comment that was made. Science is extremely important. Science is very important to the native communities because they know they understand the science and they know that this is extremely dangerous to them. So I would not I think we have to be careful not do not do. Not to say that this is just about tribal relations, is not about science. The tribal leaders who spoke to me, they are extremely concerned about this issue because they understand the science. So it is not an either or. We are we are fighting in solidarity with the tribal leaders, but we're doing it because we understand the science of what will happen if we let this go forward. So I think that should be clear. And I look forward to working with you all and also with council members on this issue so that we make sure we have a strong resolution going forward. But also, please know from our experience, we cannot let up on our movement. We cannot just put our blind faith in active officials. We have to keep building our grassroots movement. And I look forward to being there with you. And in addition to being on the dais, I look forward to being there with you on the streets. Thank you. Do. Okay. So we have a live motion on the tables and moved in second. I think everyone understands it, so I don't and we've had ample comments there. So I'll call for a vote. Now, all those in favor of the motion to refer please vote I. I opposed the ayes have it so will be referred to the Civic Development, Public Assets and Native Community Committee. For further consideration, let's move to the next agenda item. Agenda item number two, please read that into the record. The report they read the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development and Arts Committee Agenda Item two Appointment 886 Reappointment of Timothy Lennon as members Seattle Music Commission for Term two August 31st, 2020. The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.