Link to article here.

Rick Perry Does the Texas Two-Step Around NAFTA Super Highway
by Jerome R. Corsi
Human Events Online
Nov 06, 2006

Gov. Rick Perry (R.-Tex.), in an interview with HUMAN EVENTS, attempted to defend his plan to build the Trans-Texas Corridor parallel to Interstate 35 (TTC-35) and denied he was attempting to create a “big, tri-lateral connection” between Canadians, the United States and Mexico.

As we have previously noted, Perry is locked in a re-election battle with three challengers who have all opposed TTC-35. Given the plurality nature of the Texas gubernatorial race, even if considerably more that 50% of those voting in the Texas gubernatorial election oppose TTC-35, Perry could win with as little as 35% of the vote and proceed with his super-highway plans.

To better structure the debate, we will abstract five major issues from the political arguments Perry advanced:

1. The projected doubling of population in Texas by 2040 demands the construction of TTC-35.

Perry argued that the population of Texas is projected to double by 2040. Moreover, he suggested that 50% of Texas population is in the I-35 corridor. From these statistics, the governor concluded that Texas had no choice but to construct new limited access highways. “We’re going to have to build some roads,” Perry told HUMAN EVENTS. “We must build some infrastructure in the state of Texas.”

We should note that U.S. Census estimates of population growth validate that the major anticipated growth in the U.S. between now and 2050 assumes that the current population invasion across our southern border with Mexico will continue unabated. Writing in 2001, the Census Bureau concluded that growth of the Hispanic-origin population is the major element of projected U.S. population growth.

By 2000, the Hispanic-origin population may increase to 31 million, double its 1990 size by 2015, and quadruple its 1990 size by the middle of the next century. In fact, the Hispanic-origin population would contribute 32% of the Nation’s population growth from 1990 to 2000, 39% from 2000 to 2010, 45% from 2010 to 2030, and 60% from 2030 to 2050.

These same Census Bureau projections validate that minus the Hispanic invasion from Mexico, U.S. population growth is actually slowing. The Census Bureau concluded that “the decrease in the rate of growth is predominantly due to the aging of the population and, consequently, a dramatic increase in the number of deaths.” If it were not for the Hispanic invasion, the Census Bureau said that from 2030 to 2050, the U.S. “would grow more slowly than ever before in its history.”

Granted, Texas draws migrants form other states because of its favorable sunbelt climate. Still, demographic studies have documented that in the 1990s, Texas gained five times as much population from immigration as domestic migration. Again, the conclusion is the same. Secure the borders and stop the invasion of illegal immigrants and Perry has no demographic basis for his alarmist population projections that the population of Texas will double by 2040.

2. Texas has no other option but to go to foreign investment to obtain the billions needed to build new Texas highways, rail lines, and energy pipeline systems.

Perry dismissed alternative financing mechanisms. “Hell, they won’t raise a 15-cent gas tax or a dime or a nickel,” he told HUMAN EVENTS. “So that was kind of out of the window.”

Nor was the governor optimistic about getting funds for interstate highway improvement or new limited access highway construction from Washington. Again, Perry was dismissive. “Our congressional delegation has not been very successful in getting Texas much over 9 cents out of every dime that’s sent to Washington in gas tax.”

So, by a process of elimination, Perry felt he had to turn to the private sector and accept toll roads, arguing, “There are no free highways. There’s tax roads and there’s toll roads.” Again, the language was sufficiently populist to play in Texas, but the governor neglected to explain why he felt the only alternative was to turn to a foreign private financing entity, Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transport, S.A., a Spanish investment consortium with ties to the Juan Carlos ruling family of Spain.

First, we should note that under SAFETEA-LU Texas improved its gas tax return formula up from the current 90.5%, to 92% by 2008. Perry neglects to mention that this percentage increase will result in increasing the gas tax return to Texas from $2.1 billion per year to $2.9 billion, a 37.4% increase, before earmarks. Earmarks add an additional $699 million to the take Texas gets for highway and transit projects.

So, at present, Texas is hardly without funds to improve the existing interstate highway system. Nor is Texas lacking for highways. The second largest state, Texas has the most highway miles in the country. Texas also has alternative highway financing available, as evidenced by the $1.86 billion in tax-exempt private activity bonds (PABs) the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) raised in October 2006 “to improve mobility in the Dallas area by accelerating development of State Highway 121.”

What Perry correctly should state is that in the current wave of public-private partnerships being developed by investment bankers seeking to derive huge fees, Cintra, a foreign capital fund in Spain, has offered the state a pot load of cash, some $184 billion over the next fifty years, if only Texas will allow Cintra to tear Texas up for super highways on which Cintra will receive the tolls for decades to come.

The full build-out of the TTC system is planned for a 4,000-mile network designed to crisscross the state, not just to rip a four-football-fields swath up the center of the state parallel to I-35. CorridorWatch.org provides a map of the Cintra plans, describing a highway network that will remove some 584,000 miles from the state tax rolls, displacing by eminent domain some 1 million Texans from their homes, places of business, and currently productive ranch and farmland.

Perhaps what the governor meant to say was that other financing options existed to develop Texas highways over the next fifty years, but none of the options offered the campaign contribution possibilities that were offered by Spain? We have separately documented that Perry’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign has received substantial contributions from Cintra, as well as from San Antonio’s Zachery Construction Company which has entered into a limited partnership with Cintra to undertake the TTC construction.

Then, as Perry pointed out, all highways cost the public something. Yet, do we have any real idea just how much the TTC system will cost Texans in toll charges. If Cintra decides to charge tolls in the range of 20 cents a mile, this could be equivalent to adding one or two dollars of gas tax.

We have had limited experience in this country with foreign ownership of roads. What certainty do we have that once TTC-35 is built that Texans will have the unrestricted option to continue using the existing I-35 freeway without paying tolls? Should Cintra not derive the toll revenue projected to their investors, will TxDOT begin restricting access to I-35, in a move to force more Texans to use the toll alternative? Will TxDOT continue expanding and improving I-35 once TTC-35 is built, or will TTC-35 suddenly derive the status of a neglected stepchild? As Perry himself pointed out, nothing is free and Texans should expect to pay for all this construction Cintra is so generously offering to fund.

3. TTC-35 is not a NAFTA Super Highway

Perry portrays TTC-35 as if the super highway were simply the most efficient solution to solving future Texas transportation needs. He argues that TTC-35 is “the smallest footprint,” a concept to consolidate roads, pipelines, and trains in “one particular pathway” that is “all in one place.”

Yet what exactly is the future transportation need that TTC-35 is designed to solve. We begin by noting that the current design of TTC-35 on the TxDOT website is to by-pass every major city on the way north from Laredo on the Mexican border to just below Oklahoma City on the Oklahoma border with Texas. Austin and Dallas are both by-passed. Any connections between I-35 or other existing highways will not be funded by Cintra.

The primary goal then does not appear to be to relieve existing I-35 congestion in Dallas or Texas. TTC construction is not planned to start in these major cities, nor has any considerable thought given to establishing connections between TTC-35 and I-35. The major goal of TTC-35 remains to bypass Texas cities, not to provide alternative inner-city toll routes designed as alternative routes to siphon off those willing and able to pay for faster, supposedly less congested alternatives.

The real purpose of TTC-35 is not to relieve urban highway congestion in Texas, but to open up Mexican ports on the Pacific so Mexican trucks and Mexican trains can participate in a cost reduction scheme to bring containers with slave-labor or near-slave-labor goods manufactured in China and the Far East can be brought more cheaply into the U.S. heartland. This design objective is revealed on the website of the Kansas City SmartPort, where SmartPort officials describe TTC-35 as part of a North American corridor that justifies the SmartPort putting a Mexican customs facility in Kansas City. The diagram below drawn from the SmartPort website graphically makes the point.

Perhaps the governor would be well advised to spend more time reading U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) publications which openly describe the projected 4,000 miles of TTC four-football-wide super highways Cintra is planning to build as part of a NAFTA-CAFTA plan to use Texas as a “gateway” for foreign goods entering the U.S. via Mexico. The map immediately below is described by the FHWA as showing “the heavy volume of freight shipped through Texas, a major trade gateway from Mexico and South America, as red lines branching out from the heart of the Lone Star State.”

We have separately demonstrated that like population plan projections done by the Census Bureau, projections of future port, rail, and highway needs are heavily predicated on the U.S. opening our borders wide to foreign trade. Much of this trade is envisioned to allow a continuing unprecedented flow of container goods from China, regardless of the adverse impact on our balance of trade with China that will inevitably increase our already huge and growing imbalances.

Even NASCO, the trade organization whose acronym name stands for “North American SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc.,” would have to agree that TTC-35 being planned by NASCO member TxDOT is part of the NASCO “super corridor” envisioned for Interstate Highways 35/29/94. Either that or NASCO should repudiate the plans of its TxDOT member and tell Perry to focus on promoting Texas manufacturing instead.

4. Perry is busy securing the Texas border with Mexico

Perry attempted to prove that he was not working for the creation of a North American Union because he was intent on securing the southern border. We strongly dispute Perry’s seriousness about this border security claim.

On October 10, Rep. Michael McCaul (R.-Tex.), chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations, released a report that produced evidence the Bush Administration has been dramatically underestimating the numbers of illegal immigrants, the volume of drugs, and the risk of violent crime and terrorism entering the U.S. across our wide-open border with Mexico.

The report, titled “A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border,” claims that as many as 4 to 10 million illegal aliens crossed our border with Mexico in 2005. Previous government figures have underestimated the number as at low as 1.2 million.

This finding supports a key contention we argued in the book, “Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders,” co-authored with Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project. In chapter two, “The Trojan Horse Invasion,” we maintained that “illegal immigration numbers are all about politics.” Bush administration reports of illegal immigration are intentionally under-estimated in order to reassure the American public that the problem is manageable. We argue there maybe as many as 30 million illegal aliens currently in the U.S., not the 12 million that Bush administration figures generally cite.

The McCaul report also produced a map which shows the wide-open drug trade and human smuggling coming across from Mexico into Texas.

Remarkably, the Mexican drug cartel and human smuggling routes in Texas look remarkably like the 4,000 mile TTC full build-out proposed by Perry and Cintra.

Other proof that the Texas border with Mexico is wide open comes from personal experience. The following photo of the author with Gilchrist was taken on the Laredo border with Mexico on Sept. 11, 2006, following a Minuteman rally in downtown Laredo at which Rep. Steve King (R.-Iowa) spoke.

On the other side of this fence barrier is the Rio Grande, the only other barrier preventing illegal immigrants from entering the United States. Perry, much like President Bush, is long on rhetoric about the need to secure our border with Mexico and short on results.

Judicial Watch has obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request Department of Homeland Security records which document 266 Mexican government incursions into the U.S. from 1996 to 2005. Many of these incursions involved the Mexican military supporting drug cartel deliveries of drugs into the U.S. Many of these Mexican government incursions came across the Texas border that Perry and President Bush (Perry’s predecessor in the first of these years) have been working so hard to secure, with no apparent success.

5. TTC-35 is not part of a plan to create a North American Union

“I don’t see some great conspiracy,” Perry told HUMAN EVENTS, explaining instead that TTC-35 was only intended to advance the economic vitality of Texas. Again, we appreciate the governor inserting the dismissive characterization of “conspiracy” to those of us who see a plan developing to evolve NAFTA into a North American Community to be followed by a NAU much as the European Common Market evolved into the European Union and the Euro as a common currency.

We would advise Perry to examine the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America website that is maintained in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Here in a document titled “2005 Report to Leaders” we see described a program in which trusted traders will be issued SENTRI electronic chips to speed border crossings. This program will ultimately allow Mexican trucks to enter the U.S. from Mexican ports with containers from China and the Far East, with a major entry point certain to be Laredo, Texas, the origin of TTC-35.

We have previously discussed the degree to which the Kansas City Southern railroad, now billing itself as “The NAFTA Railroad,” is integrated into the TTC-35 plan, utilizing SPP guidelines to move container goods from Mexican ports into the U.S. via Laredo, Texas, with the plan to continue north along the rail corridors planned for construction as an integral part of the TTC-35 design.

On the website of the Minuteman Project, we have archived the approximately 1,000 pages we have received on a FOIA request from the SPP office within the U.S. Department of Commerce. Those who doubt that a shadow trilateral bureaucracy has already been formed are invited to review here the SPP working group membership lists which give the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of the Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. administrative agency personnel who are coordinating right now to “integrate” and “harmonize” U.S. administrative laws and regulations into a trilateral North American format.

Finally, Perry is invited to consult with Rep. Ron Paul (R.-Tex.) who has separately described TTC-35 as a NAFTA Super Highway. Paul agrees with us that the ultimate goal of the TxDOT TTC scheme is “not simply a super highway, but an integrated North American Union — complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union.”

Link to article here.

Mexico ambassador: We need N. American Union in 8 years
U.S. ‘investment,’ EU-style merger key to better relations, says diplomat
World Net Daily
November 5, 2006

There have been conferences, academic papers, mock student parliaments and secret meetings on a confederation of the U.S., Canada and Mexico into future North American Union, but, until now, few officials of any of the three countries have publicly called for the creation of a European Union-style merger.

In a panel discussion on U.S.-Mexico relations last Tuesday at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Enrique Berruga, Mexico’s ambassador to the Nations, came right out and said a North American Union is needed – and even provided a deadline.

Berruga said the merger must be complete in the next eight years before the U.S. baby boomer retirement wave hits full force.
The discussion of was organized by the UTSA Mexico Center and the San Antonio campus of Mexico’s National Autonomous University.

Noting that both countries depend on each other economically, Berruga urged leaders to put petty politics aside for the region’s benefit. He said the U.S. should abandon plans to build border fences and instead “invest” more in Mexico so the country can do a better job standing on its own.

“We will be together forever and we need to make the best out of it,” Berruga said, as reported in the San Antonio Express News.

Another panelist, economist Mauricio Gonzalez, who works for the North American Development Bank, created as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, explained that illegal immigration was actually good for the U.S. economy. While it’s true, the said, that the immigrants bring down wages in the U.S., it is only by about 2 percent. In addition, he cited studies showing illegal immigrants do not drain U.S. social services.

“NAFTA was a very important first step, but we need to start thinking outside the NAFTA box,” Gonzalez said.

Panelist Robert Rivard, editor of the Express-News and a former Newsweek correspondent in Latin America, spoke of the lingering impact of 9-6 – that is, Sept. 6, 2001, five days before the terrorist attacks, when the U.S. and Mexican governments were on the brink of a far-reaching immigration deal. In the wake of the terrorist attacks five days later, there was little chance Americans would accept more open borders and pardons for illegal aliens already in the country.

“People of peace can’t build walls between each other,” Rivard said of the move to build the border fence. “It’s a wall meant to corral Republican voters, not to keep out Mexican workers,” he added.

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Link to article here.

The best line is at the end:”I always thought a hearse would haul me off this land. Not Rick Perry,” says rural Texan Melvin Krahn.

As usual, Joe Krier doesn’t care one stitch what anyone outside the Chamber of Commerce thinks about ANYTHING in life, and he’ll rue the day he stood in support of this detested project. Joe Krier isn’t an elected official, Joe Krier doesn’t represent the taxpayers, he represents himself and his cronies who stand to make millions off stealing other people’s land in the name of “global trade.” He’s in this article because the spineless politicians wouldn’t dare defend this two days before they face re-election! How deplorable to pit global interests against American interests. That’s downright un-American and definitely un-Texan.

Then there’s the Temple Mayor Bill Jones. He seems to think we’ll all crawl back in the holes we crawled out of to oppose this project. Here’s a taste: “‘It’s either going to be commercial land or farmland. It’s cheaper and easier to build this way.‘Jones thinks the rancor will ultimately subside.” What arrogance! That’s precisely why they targeted rural Texas instead of expanding existing I-35…it’s CHEAPER, even though it doesn’t make sense, it’s not justified, and will displace over 1 million Texans. It’s not about congestion relief or transportation as much of the article points out; it’s all about money.

This guy was the lone supporter of the TTC at the Temple hearing where 1,000 of his own constituents turned out to decry the TTC. This guy is surely headed for defeat in his next re-election effort if not recalled before then. Anyone that out of touch with his own constituents is clearly being courted by lobbyists and interests who have convinced him to sell out Texas and America for global trade and so government can share in the billions in toll taxes alongside their foreign buddies.

Another telling quote: “Why should I take a step backward to help NAFTA?” asked Melvin Krahn, 69, a farmer near La Vernia, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement. “Let’s bring jobs back to Texas. Don’t take my land to help NAFTA.”

More tellign quotes…“They’re thinking with their billfold. They’re not thinking like Texans,” says Ralph Snyder of Holland, TX.

“How can they say this is benefiting this community?” Krahn said. “I don’t know how Rick Perry sleeps at night.”

“Rick Perry used to own this place,” said Snyder. “Not anymore.”

“I voted for him before,” said Mary Jo Dylla, St. Hedwig’s mayor. “Not this time. He’s let us down.”

Rick Perry is going down and he’s brought it on himself. Carole Strayhorn has shown precisely how expanding I-35 IS FEASIBLE (despite Mayor Jones attempt to conviunce people it’s not) using TxDOT’s own study. Enough of this phoney baloney that the TTC is the ONLY choice…there are alternatives, the elites won’t consider them because they’d rather exploit government’s power of eminent domain for their own private gain using 50 year monopolies so they can profit off of a lifetime of NEW toll taxes due to foreign trade, not Texas drivers and Texas traffic.
To Corridor foes it’s city vs farm
By Roy Bragg
Express-News National Writer
11/05/2006

CORSICANA — Raindrops rolled off Jesse Mills’ Resistol hat as he sat on the tailgate of his silver Ford pickup — parked on the Navarro County Courthouse square — armed with a battery of fliers, yard signs and campaign posters.

As voters made their way to the courthouse to cast early ballots, Mills politely made his case for a cobbled-together slate of candidates.

It’s an unusual mix of parties. It’s a bizarre mix of politics. And it’s driven by one thing in common: a dislike for the Trans-Texas Corridor project.

Mills, 64, hasn’t been politically active since he was a college student 40 years ago, but Gov. Rick Perry’s plan for a statewide network of toll roads has turned the retired vocational school teacher into a political activist and a fixture on the town square.

He’s not alone in his concern. Thousands of rural Texans have taken up rhetorical arms against the project. They see it as government betrayal and another example of a state turning its back on its agrarian tradition.

Lighter loads along Interstate 35

* Under the current proposal, TTC-35 would split off from Interstate 35 just south of San Antonio. It would wrap around the southern edge of the city and then run parallel to the road as both make their way north to the Oklahoma state line.
* A Texas Department of Transportation study released last week projected that in eight years, nearly 18 percent of the total traffic on I-35 between San Antonio and Austin could be diverted to TTC-35 and by 2030, this number could reach 24 percent.
* Between Austin and Waco, TTC-35 would siphon off 15 percent of traffic by 2014 and 23 percent by 2030.
* Between Waco and Dallas, those numbers would be 9 percent and 20 percent by 2014 and 2030, respectively.
* Truck traffic, the bane of an I-35 driver’s existence, would drop even more dramatically, according to TxDOT. By 2030, truck traffic diverted to TTC-35 could be as high as 36 percent, 25 percent and 26 percent for the San Antonio-to-Austin, Austin-to-Waco and Waco-to-Dallas segments, respectively.

Business and government leaders, while acknowledging the sacrifice of rural landowners in the path, tout the TTC as a plan to keep the state out of perpetual gridlock and keep the state’s economy moving.

“The world is changing, and Texas is right in the middle of it,” Temple Mayor Bill Jones III said. A lot of goods “will be moving through Texas, and a lot of it is going to stop here, too. We’ve got to be ready for it.”

But for opponents such as Mills, the plan to pave thousands of acres of farmland has turned a normally quiet and conservative niche of Texans into a well-oiled activist machine.

In public, they meet, they rally, they network and they campaign. In the ether of the Internet, they exchange reports, maps and rumors.

And when they’re alone, they cry and fret over their future.

In the two weeks before Tuesday’s gubernatorial election, Mills has been fighting the controversial plan by campaigning for Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who opposes the plan, and against Perry, who has staked his political future on it.

Gubernatorial politics aside, the real goal is to stop the first leg of the Trans-Texas Corridor — a privately operated toll road called TTC-35 — before it leaves the drawing board.

If it’s completed according to plans, the TTC will consist of a 4,000-mile network of new and existing highways and rail corridors, tied together and linking the state in the most efficient manner, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.

The preliminary price tag for the whole project — which would take a half-century to complete — is between $145 billion and $183 billion.

First up is TTC-35, a privately funded, 600-mile road intended to relieve congestion on Interstate 35, the state’s most heavily traveled highway, which stretches from Laredo to the Oklahoma border.

Under the current proposal, TTC-35 would split off from I-35 just south of San Antonio. It would wrap around the southern edge of the city and then run parallel to the road as both make their way north to the Oklahoma border.

The road would be bankrolled, built and leased to a consortium led by Cintra of Spain and Zachry Construction Corp. of San Antonio as part of a 50-year deal. The state would acquire land via purchase and condemnation and own the whole project.

Plans for TTC-35 call for an $8.8 billion construction effort that would, when maxed out, rival any road project anywhere: six car lanes, four truck lanes, freight and high-speed passenger rail, and utility rights of way stretched across a quarter-mile swath.

A wide divide

Some fear that the highway, with limited access to facilitate high speeds, will split the state in two, with little or no access for locals.

A lot of the specifics of the plan, however, remain undecided, state highway officials say, including the toll schedule, the location of exit and entry ramps, the highway’s speed limit, and the location of underpasses and overpasses.

It’s the audacity of the plan — as well as fear of the unknown — that has stirred up most of the anger. Not since the failed plans for the Superconducting Super-Collider and the Texas High Speed Rail Project of the early 1990s has there been this level of grass-roots rebellion in rural Texas.

To most rural residents in the way of TTC-35, the issue is about more than a highway. It’s about a lack of respect for Texas’ rural roots. It’s city vs. farm.

And, more insidious, it’s about bureaucrats putting the tantalizing taste of global economic returns ahead of working Americans.

“Why should I take a step backward to help NAFTA?” asked Melvin Krahn, 69, a farmer near La Vernia, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement. “Let’s bring jobs back to Texas. Don’t take my land to help NAFTA.”

Residents see a dim future for them in a world with TTC-35.

“The life we’ve taken for granted for years is going to change,” said Ralph Snyder, owner of a salvage yard in the Central Texas town of Holland, about 10 miles south of Temple and near the projected route.

“That’s progress. Rural people aren’t against progress. They realize there’s a need for transportation.

“But is this the right thing to do?” Snyder asked. “We haven’t had the necessary studies. The first handful of dirt hasn’t been turned and won’t be turned for years, and there are already angry people.”

“They’re going to just take land that’s been in families — for five generations, in some cases — and give it to a foreign company with a 50-year lease,” he said. “They’re thinking with their billfold. They’re not thinking like Texans.”

Ronnie White, mayor of nearby Little River-Academy, agrees. The town sits at the headwaters of the Little River. Its 1,600 residents live minutes away from river bottom land where cattle graze and families have spent countless hours camping and fishing.

“We love it like it is,” White said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a big economic boost to the state. It doesn’t matter if you get rich or not. It’s all about the type of life that you lead. ”

While the planned route for the corridor cuts a wide swath through farmland, it goes right through the middle of White’s tiny town. The most recent maps show an underpass on FM 436, but White isn’t sold on the notion that it will be built.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

There are similar concerns in St. Hedwig, which sits on the Bexar-Wilson county line, due east of San Antonio.

A bedroom community of 1,800, St. Hedwig has fought hard to keep its rustic feel. Local ordinance requires large tracts of land for each home, said Mayor Mary Jo Dylla, and dissuades smaller subdivision lots.

“We’re consciously making an effort,” she said, “to keep this as a rural community. We live in the country. We like it here. I’ve got to drive 20-25 miles to go to anything. That’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

And now, along comes TTC-35. According to the latest maps, the toll road runs through the middle of town.

“You’ve got this side of my city,” said Dylla, pointing at a map of the town on the wall of City Council chambers, “and you’ve got this side of my town.”

City Hall and the city’s access to ambulance service are on one side of town. The Volunteer Fire Department is on the other side of town. There is to be an underpass or overpass allowing a single road to connect the two halves of the town.

There won’t be an exit or access ramp for St. Hedwig, meaning the city can expect noise and exhaust fumes around the clock, she said, but no chance for local merchants and service providers to cash in.

“We’re not going to have any economic opportunity,” she said. “Our little restaurant that struggles to stay open isn’t going to benefit from it.

“They just come in,” the mayor said, “and tell you, ‘Sorry, we need your land for a road that’s not going to benefit you or your community, but we’re going to do it anyway.’

“There’s no upside to it.”

Snyder, the Holland salvage owner, said the impact on existing infrastructure could cause economic devastation.

Hundreds of county roads used by emergency vehicles and school buses across the state will dead end at the toll road, which won’t have an accompanying access road.

Power lines crossing the highway will need to be re-routed and raised to allow clearance for the double-decked trucks that will be daily fixtures. Water lines will have to go deeper to create separation from oil and gas lines running in TTC-35’s utility corridor.

New traffic problems
Existing roads, critics say, also will be devastated.

Traffic will be forced onto a smaller pool of roads that cross over or under the toll road, farmer Robert Fleming said. The few roads allowed to cross TTC-35 will be crowded and heavily traveled.

“The traffic on our roads, while we’re trying to get our kids to school, or people are trying to get to work, or trying to move farm equipment, will be more than these roads can handle,” said Fleming, whose agricultural operation stretches across 20 farms that he owns or leases near Troy, between Waco and Temple.

His farm equipment — some of which is 50 to 100 feet wide — doesn’t travel well and won’t hold up to repeated trips to work on farmland that’s been split in two by TTC-35.

The highway also threatens to disrupt the Blackland Prairie ecosystem of Central Texas, Fleming said.

The land is rare — it doesn’t require irrigation and rarely requires fertilizer. But TTC-35 will remove thousands of acres from cultivation.

Adjacent land will be rendered useless because of noise and runoff. And without freeway access, it cannot be salvaged for commercial development.

Beyond the ecosystem, the toll road also threatens the fragile farm economy, Fleming said.

TTC-35 will split some farms and swallow others. Parcels of land that are cut off from the bulk of a farm, Fleming argued, will immediately decrease in value.

Farmers operating adjacent to the orphaned land will be able to buy it for pennies on the dollar, while the original owner takes a financial beating.

“To maintain our income,” he said, “we need to maintain our acreage. We need a better price for our product, or we need to produce and sell more of it. We get that with more acreage.”

There’s a danger of cultural damage, too. The stress of land acquisition will be too much for some people.

“What’s the family going to do when easement people come by the house?” he asked. “What’s going to be going on with mom and dad and the kids?”

Farmland is more than an investment, rural residents say. In many cases, it goes hand-in-hand with a family’s history.

“You can point to something,” Fleming said, “and say, ‘Daddy built that’ or ‘Granddaddy built that.'”

Sometimes, the looming threat of TTC-35 is too much for residents who fear their lives will be destroyed by it.

“I’m a third-generation German American,” La Vernia’s Krahn said, unable to hold back tears. “My wife is the fourth generation of her family to live on this land. I’m a veteran. I served my country. And they’re going do this to me?”

Even residents who claim to have an open mind about the project are wary of what it will do to their way of life.

“In the long run, it’ll probably be for the best,” said Dutch Strzelczyk, a bar owner in St. Hedwig. “But it’s going to dilute this community.”

While fear of change remains Topic A along the path of TTC-35, hatred of Gov. Perry runs a close second in the rolling hills and black prairies along the planned corridor.

“How can they say this is benefiting this community?” Krahn said. “I don’t know how Rick Perry sleeps at night.”

“Rick Perry used to own this place,” said Snyder, of Holland. “Not anymore.”

“I voted for him before,” said Dylla, St. Hedwig’s mayor. “Not this time. He’s let us down.”

Open up bottlenecks

Proponents of the route, while sympathetic to landowners’ concerns, say the Texas leaders and residents have to make tough decisions to ensure the Lone Star State’s quality of life.

“We’re going to add another 6 million Texans in the next decade,” said Bill Hammond of the Texas Association of Business & Chambers of Commerce. “We need the infrastructure here.”

Global trade depends on the project.

“The chokepoint between Mexico and Canada is the Colorado River,” he said, referring to the around-the-clock bottleneck as I-35 passes through Austin. “We need this to keep this state moving.”

“I understand that this is uniquely hard for rural communities through which it will pass,” said Joe Krier, president of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and chairman of Texans for Safe Reliable Transportation, a business group created to tout the benefits of the plan.

“But we know for a fact that, in this state, a rising tide lifts all boats,” Krier said. “Sure, the state’s total economy is disproportionately driven by the urban areas, but when the big cities are doing great, the smaller cities are doing well, too.”

As Texas competes in the global economy, Krier said, transportation will be vital.

“If we’re going to compete, not just as a state, but globally, we’ve got to continue to provide job opportunities,” he said. “We’ve got to provide ways for businesses to get their products to and from customers as fast as possible and at a competitive speed.”

Critics say TTC-35 is not the panacea for gridlock in the state’s urban areas, nor will it relieve the traffic problems projected when the state’s population doubles by 2050.

Krier agreed that TTC-35, by itself, isn’t the answer.

“TTC-35 is part of a much bigger picture,” he said. “Regional mobility authorities are proposing their own network of highways, and in many cases, their own tollways.

“The Trans-Texas Corridor is primarily designed to move traffic across the state in an efficient, safe and competitive way. These two sets of roads are separate but, in many ways, interdependent.”

Critics say the state hasn’t exhausted all of the possibilities for making I-35 work. But expanding that highway isn’t feasible, said Jones, the Temple mayor.

“There’s no more expansion of I-35,” he said, “without going into major expenditures of capital to buy land and businesses, and that’s not practical.”

That freeway model calls for access roads, which allow local use of the highway and create commercial real estate. Critics of TTC-35 complain that it won’t generate the same opportunities.

But the goal of TTC-35 is different, Jones said. Instead of causing spikes in local economies, its purpose is to eliminate bottlenecks.

“It’s a different model,” Jones said, “than the interstate highway system we have in Texas.”

Like Krier, Jones understands the anger of farmers.

“I don’t have an answer for them,” he said. The new highway, however, is inevitable. “It’s going to happen to someone, somewhere along the line, regardless of what is done. It’s either going to be commercial land or farmland. It’s cheaper and easier to build this way.”

Jones thinks the rancor will ultimately subside.

“We appear to pick sides and fight over this,” he said, “but in the end, it’ll be the best system we can get. We’re all Texans, and we’ve got to figure out how to make this work.”

That optimism means little to Krahn, the Wilson County farmer.

“I always thought a hearse would haul me off this land. Not Rick Perry.”

Link to article here.

NAFTA Super Highway Debate Inflames Texas Governor’s Race
By Jerome R. Corsi
Human Events Online
Nov. 3, 2006
In Texas, the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC-35) has become a major issue in the gubernatorial campaign where incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry is viewed as a chief proponent for building this new, giant toll road parallel to Interstate-35.

This year, three major candidates are contesting Perry: Democrat candidate Chris Bell, Republican-turned-independent Comptroller Carole Keaton Strayhorn, and independent Kinky Friedman. Moving outside traditional party lines, the typically colorful Strayhorn presents herself as “One Tough Grandma.” Strayhorn’s children include Scott McClellan, the former press secretary to President Bush. Kinky Friedman, who aspires to be the Lone Star state’s first Jewish governor, is a 61-year-old country-and-western troubadour who is known by his trademark cowboy hat, mustache with limited goatee, and ever-present cigar.

All three contenders have slammed Perry for advancing TTC-35, a new toll road to be built four football fields wide from Laredo on the Mexican border to the Texas-Oklahoma border south of Oklahoma City. As disclosed by the Texas Department of Transportation, this road, characterized by this author as a “NAFTA Super Highway,” will be financed by Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transport, a Spanish investment consortium with ties to Juan Carlos and the ruling family of Spain, and built by San Antonio-based Zachry Construction Co. I have previously documented the extensive campaign contributions made by Cintra-Zachry to the Perry campaign.

Incumbent Under Attack

Each of Perry’s contenders is attacking him (as well as each other), campaigning on a platform opposing TTC-35 construction. Democrat Bell notes that in 2001 as comptroller, Strayhorn recommended that Texas build new toll roads. Bell’s campaign website rails against TTC-35, noting that the road would “destroy almost 1.5 million acres of prime farmland and strip Texas landowners of over 150 square miles of privately owned property.” Bell’s argument strongly suggests graft:

The Trans Texas Corridor is a case study in corruption and cronyism, and one of my first acts as governor would be slamming the brakes on the whole plan and dragging it back into the public light.

Strayhorn’s website is equally emphatic that TTC-35 is a politician’s dream and a citizen’s nightmare:

In this election, there are two sides and one choice – the Austin political establishment and its land-grabbing, secret, foreign-owned tolls versus the people and their desire for freeways. I stand with the people. I will shake Austin up.

A video clip of Strayhorn speaking at a vocal rally opposing TTC-35 can be viewed on the Internet. Here Strayhorn connected TTC-35 to NAFTA by claiming Perry’s super-highway plan amounted to turning “Texas DOT into Euro-DOT.” In her speech to the rally, she also renamed the “Trans Texas Corridor” as “Trans Texas Catastrophe.” Strayhorn called for putting TTC-35 to a referendum, which prompted participants at the rally begin chanting, “Let the People Vote!”

Friedman’s campaign website joins the anti-TTC chorus:

Kinky is opposed to the Trans-Texas Corridor since it relies on toll road construction. He feels that the TTC is a land grab of the ugliest kind, with land being taken from hard-working ranchers and farmers in little towns and villages all over Texas. The people who will ultimately own that land are the same people who own the governor.

Typically, Perry’s campaign website defends TTC-35 as business as normal, just another highway needed to accommodate the state’s growing population and burgeoning economy:

Texas’ rapid population and commerce growth has strained our highway and rail systems to their limit. Rather than taking decades to expand these important corridors a little bit at a time, Governor Perry developed the Trans Texas Corridor plan. The Corridor plan allows the state to build needed corridors much more quickly and without a tax increase.

This past summer, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) held a series of final public hearings proposing the final route choices for TTC-35. Thousands of Texas residents showed up at these hearings to protest TTC-35, not realizing that the only question at issue was the specific route, not whether the super highway would be built. TxDOT has proceeded with a resolve to begin construction in 2007, as if TTC-35 were a “done deal,” regardless how much public outcry is heard in opposition. Ironically, since the Texas gubernatorial race is a plurality contest, Perry could win even if a majority of the votes go to a combination of his three opposition candidates. Thus, unless Texas voters opposed to TTC-35 are able to focus on one opposition candidate, Perry could win even if his TTC-35 plan is opposed by a majority of Texas voters.

Sal Costello, founder of the TexasTollParty.com and vocal opponent of TTC-35, has led the Internet charge against the proposed super highway. The TexasTollParty.com has produced two television commercials supporting the group’s endorsement of Strayhorn in the governor’s race. One commercial proclaims, “If you liked the Dubai Ports deal, you will love the TTC land grab,” while the other presents a cartoon figure of Perry who announces, “You will love my TTC land grab. It turns your property into foreign profits.” The ads have been aired thanks to People for Efficient Transportation PAC, a group which Costello also founded .

David Stall, another opponent of TTC-35, has created CorridorWatch.org, a website dedicated to disclosing information that TxDOT has not fully disclosed, including arguments contesting the ability of TxDOT to utilize eminent domain under the recent Supreme Court case Kelo v. City of New London to grab more than half a million acres of Texas private property and displace up to 1 million Texans from their homes, businesses, ranches, and farms in the process of building out the full 4,000-mile TTC network planned to crisscross the landscape throughout Texas.

A documentary opposing TTC-35, titled “Truth Be Tolled,” was premiered at the Austin Film Festival on October 26. Austin talk-radio host Alex Jones, an outspoken opponent of TTC-35, has archived videos of his in-studio radio interviews with both Sal Costello and David Stall.

A group of citizens in central Texas have formed an organization known as the Blackland Coalition, which has also created a PAC that is running newspaper ads in Texas opposing TTC-35.

Bloggers Ask Questions

While the mainstream media have largely ignored the issue super highway toll roads, bloggers in Texas have even picked up an issue HUMAN EVENTS first developed, namely that trade organizations such as North America’s SuperCorridor Coalition (NASCO) have been supporting NAFTA super highways through endorsing the activity of their members, including TxDOT.

In an interview with the author, Todd Spencer, the executive vice president of the 145,000 member Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, openly opposes TTC-35 on behalf of the group’s 145,000 members who operate more than 240,000 individual heavy-duty tucks and small truck fleets throughout the U.S. and Canada. Spencer argues that the real purpose of the TTC-35 project is to open Mexican ports, such as Lázaro Cárdenas, so Mexican trucks can transport Chinese under-market goods into the U.S. at a reduced transportation cost.

“We are also concerned about security. There’s no reason to think that just because there’s a Mexican customs office in Kansas City that all Mexican drivers on the Trans Texas Corridor will stay on the route. The Mexican trucks will get off the TTC and go lots of other places and there won’t be anything meaningful to stop them.”

Spencer fully expects TxDOT to make the TTC-35 toll road attractive by setting high speed limits, in the range of 75 to 80 miles per hour. Noting that TxDOT is planning on charging up to 40 cents per mile as a toll for trucks, Spencer commented that this was equivalent to charging an extra $2.40 a gallon in additional fuel taxes.

“Once the TTC is built,” Mr. Spencer commented, “TxDOT will attempt to force people to use the toll road.” How? “Simple,” Spencer responded, “just watch, once TTC-35 is completed, TxDOT will begin maintaining I-35 a lot less. You can count on Cintra to enforce a ‘no-compete clause’ that is designed to prevent TxDOT from building an alternative road or even improving I-35.”

Congress Gets Involved

Just this week, Rep. Ron Paul (R.-Tex.) entered the TTC-35 debate, writing in his weekly column to express his opposition to the super highway. Paul expressed constitutional concerns over TTC-35:

By now many Texans have heard about the proposed “NAFTA Superhighway,” which is also referred to as the trans-Texas corridor. What you may not know is the extent to which plans for such a superhighway are moving forward without congressional oversight or media attention.

Paul has decided to co-sponsor H.C. Res. 487, introduced in the House by Rep. Virgil Goode (R.-Va.) on September 28. The resolution is co-sponsored by Representatives Tom Tancredo (R.-Colo.) and Walter Jones (R.-N.C.). It asks the House to not engage in the construction of NAFTA super-highways and to oppose entering into a European Union-style North American Union (NAU) with Mexico and Canada.

At a National Press Club news conference held in Washington, D.C., on October 25, I joined in forming a coalition co-sponsored by Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus, and Phyllis Schlafly, president of Eagle Forum, to support the House resolution. An online petition is available for readers to sign to indicate their support of this coalition in the battle to secure America’s borders.

From San Antonio Free Trade Alliance e-newsletter

Port San Antonio, Lazaro Cardenas and Free Trade Alliance Conduct Second Corridor Marketing Visit to Southern China

On October 30^th, Port San Antonio, the Port of Lazaro Cardenas (Mexico) and Free Trade Alliance San Antonio embarked on their second promotional visit to China this year. The primary objective of the trip was to promote the new multimodal logistics corridor developed by Port San Antonio that runs between the Mexican Port of Lazaro Cardenas and San Antonio.

Mr. Bruce Miller, CEO of the Port Authority of San Antonio and Mr. Armando Palos Director General of the Port of Lazaro Cardenas led the delegation made up of other key representatives of the ports, Free Trade Alliance and other critical partners to the corridor project. The team once again coordinated the visit through San Antonio’s new representative office in China that has been operating since February of 2006.

Inland Ports Across North America Conference attracts international record attendance

On October 11-12, 2006, North America’s SuperCorridor Coalition and Free Trade Alliance hosted the 2nd Annual Inland Ports Across North America Conference at the Historic Menger Hotel in San Antonio, Texas.

Only in it’s second year, the conference attracted over 150 people in representing 19 inland port projects, 5 departments of transportation, 18 trade and government organizations, 6 rail companies, 10 shippers and logistics providers from all over the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Several attending organizations are worth mentioning including, Guanajuato Puerto Interior, Port of Lazaro Cardenas, COMCE Noreste, Iowa Department of Transportation, Alliance Texas, Destination Winnipeg and many more.

As the conference focus was on the rail industry, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Kansas City Southern de Mexico, Union Pacific, and the Rail Association of Canada provided conference attendees with an understanding of the rail capacity and infrastructure constraints and new options. In addition, conference attendees learned the latest on security, technology, advocacy and other issues.

“San Antonio Flight School to Train Chinese Pilots in San Antonio”

Wright Flyers Aviation, Inc. has received formal certification from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to train Chinese pilots at their facilities. In September, representatives from the CAAC visited San Antonio to conduct a two-day site inspection of Wright Flyers Academy, owned and operated by Mr. Rand Goldstein.

Wright Flyers’ first contract from one of China’s most respected private airlines will bring 50 Chinese students annually to San Antonio for flight training. “CAAC certification places Wright Flyers and San Antonio among a handful of sites in the U.S. where Chinese pilots can begin their airline pilot careers.” Goldstein added that thanks to the support received from Bexar County, City of San Antonio, Free Trade Alliance San Antonio and Port San Antonio during the CAAC delegation’s recent visit from Beijing, Wright Flyers plans to increase its staff of aviation professionals by 30%, with more job growth to follow as additional training agreements are signed.

Wright Flyers Aviation, Inc. is San Antonio’s premier flight school and Global Aviation Degree Center. Wright Flyers, established in 1982, is San Antonio’s only Cessna Pilot Center and has trained thousands of pilots worldwide.