Category: General

Oil, Gas Prices Jump as Pipeline Shut Down

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Link to article here.

It doesn’t take much to disrupt our oil supplies these days. A perfect storm seems to be brewing and this is all before hurricane season…

Oil, Gas Prices Jump as Pipeline Shut Down
Pipeline repairs may take months, BP says
By MARY PEMBERTON
Associated Press
Aug. 7, 2006

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — BP said Monday it will replace 16 miles of pipeline from its huge Prudhoe Bay oil field and production could be closed for weeks or months, crimping the nation’s oil supplies.

The news drove oil prices up by more than $2 a barrel and boosted gasoline prices. The West Coast was expected to be squeezed particularly hard and the government was considering releasing oil from emergency stockpiles to ease an expected crunch.

BP PLC, the world’s second-largest oil company, began shutting down pipelines Sunday after a leak was discovered. The company said today it would replace about 73 percent of the 22 miles of transit pipeline it operates in the Prudhoe Bay field 650 miles north of Anchorage.

Company officials told a news conference they did not immediately know how much it would cost to replace the lines. They said that the oil field would remain closed while they inspect the lines for corrosion and that they would bring parts back into service once it’s safe to do so.

Once complete, the shutdown will cut production by 400,000 barrels a day, about 2.6 percent of U.S. supply including imports, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“BP deeply regrets it has been necessary for us to take this drastic action,” said Bob Malone, chairman of BP America.

BP discovered corrosion in the transit lines only after the Department of Transportation ordered their inspection following a 270,000 gallon spill in March at another section of the field.

Transit lines move processed oil to flow stations for transport down the trans-Alaska pipeline for shipment 800 miles south to Valdez, where it’s shipped to the Lower 48 aboard tankers.

BP officials said the line where the leak was found was last checked in 1992, using a “pig,” a device sent down the tubes to clean and assess pipeline integrity.

BP had not done a routine maintenance “pigging” on its transit lines. They didn’t think it was necessary because those lines carry clean crude from which water was removed.

Steve Marshall, president of BP Alaska, said the company believed ultrasonic testing of pipeline wall thickness was an acceptable substitute on those lines.

In hindsight, he said, that has proven not to be sufficient.

“Clearly, we are already in the process of adjusting considerably our corrosion program,” Marshall said, adding that the company will significantly increase its maintenance and surveillance of the transit lines both now and when they are replaced. The company is spending $72 million this year to inhibit corrosion, up from $60 million last year.

The aging pipeline system on the North Slope has been fraught with problems lately. BP, which posted a net profit of $7.3 billion for the three months ending June 30, operates the Prudhoe Bay field.

In March, BP was blamed for the rupture of a pipeline at the same field, leading to an extension of a criminal investigation into the company’s management of its Alaskan operations.

Steve Marshall, president of BP Exploration Alaska Inc., said tests Friday indicated that there were 16 anomalies in 12 areas in an oil transit line on the eastern side of Prudhoe Bay. Tests found losses in wall thickness of between 70 and 81 percent. Repair or replacement is required if there is more than an 80 percent loss.

BP also said Sunday that workers found a small spill of about 4 to 5 barrels, which has been contained and is being cleaned up.

The news sent the price of light, sweet crude oil up $2.22, or 3 percent, to settle at $76.98 a barrel today on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after peaking at $77.30 earlier in the day

The average U.S. retail price of a gallon of unleaded, regular gasoline was $3.036 on Monday — near its all-time high of $3.057, reached Sept. 5 after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

Gasoline futures also rose, indicating that the market expects prices at the pump to increase more.

Because of the disruption of supplies, the Energy Department is prepared to provide oil from the government’s emergency supplies if a refinery requests it. Spokesman Craig Stevens said the department will be in contact with BP and West Coast refiners later Monday to assess the situation.

California gets about 20 percent of its oil from Alaska, with the remainder coming from in state and foreign sources.

The reserve has about 700 million barrels in storage on the Gulf Coast to be used in case of a serious supply disruption. The Energy Department in the past has lent SPR oil to refineries when there were disruptions because of pipeline or other problems.

“If there is a request for oil we’ll certainly take a serious look at that,” he said.

Bill Hedges, BP’s technical expert on corrosion, said the Prudhoe Bay pipelines were initially designed to last 25 years, but have now lasted 29 years, with many of the lines in “excellent condition.”

BP’s anticorrosion program is intended prolong the life of the oil field another 50 years so that the infrastructure can be used to bring natural gas to U.S. markets. The company’s reliance on ultrasonic technology will have to be re-evaluated, he said.

“My assumption is that we didn’t do it in the right spots,” he said.

BP, along with oil giants ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp., are in negotiations with the state to build a $25 billion natural gas pipeline to Canada to ship the 35 trillion cubic feet of known natural gas reserves on the North Slope.

The troubles at the Alaskan oil field add to other problems for BP in the United States, where the company is the largest oil producer, following an explosion at its Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers in March 2005 and a trading scandal.

The shutdown comes six months after the North Slope’s biggest ever oil spill was discovered on a Prudhoe Bay transit line. BP installed a bypass on that line in April with plans to replace the pipe. Only one of BP’s three transit lines is now operating.

BP puts millions of gallons of corrosion inhibitor into the Prudhoe Bay lines each year. It also examines pipes by taking X-rays and ultrasound images.

BP has a 26 percent stake in the Prudhoe Bay field, meaning its own production would be cut by 100,000 barrels a day, or around 2.5 percent of the company’s worldwide production, said spokesman David Nicholas. He declined to provide any forecast on the impact of the shutdown on earnings.

U.S. shares of BP PLC fell $1.19, or 1.6 percent, to $71.35 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust, which derives revenue from royalties of BP’s Prudhoe Bay oil, fell $9.12, or 10.4 percent, to $78.77 on the NYSE.

Trans Texas Corridor hearings give Perry foes a forum

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Link to article here.

As if Williamson hasn’t given us enough fodder to galvanize Texans against Perry’s transportation schemes for Texas, here’s another one. He’s officially moved into the realm of dictator. When asked if all the universal opposition to the Trans Texas Corridor will stop the project, he answers below: “The transportation needs of the state trump such opposition,” Governor-appointed Chair of the Transportation Commission Ric Williamson.

There ya have it, folks. Williamson just confirmed how the Perry administration views the public: the taxpayers have no say, no influence, no veto power over the Department of Transportation. They answer to no one but their own self-centered agenda.

Here the RMA and TxDOT are constantly proclaiming NOTHING HAS BEEN DECIDED YET, and that they’re listening to and taking public input on these toll projects, and yet the Commission Chair let the cat out of the bag confirming our contentions: it’s not only decided…your opposition means NOTHING to the overall outcome of the process. These meetings are a check box on the NEPA list (federal law governing highway projects), the decision has been made. We’re now living under Perry/Williamson tyranny unless we do a regime change in Austin November 7!

Toll road hearings give Perry foes a forum
By Ben Wear
Austin American Statesman
Monday, August 07, 2006

In case you hadn’t noticed, Rick Perry’s Texas Department of Transportation has spent the past several weeks putting on campaign rallies for Carole Keeton Strayhorn.

OK, not exactly. But it’s pretty much worked out that way.

What the agency technically has been doing is taking a federally required step in the labyrinthine environmental clearance process for a tollway twin to Interstate 35. That road would be the first piece of Perry’s transportation centerpiece, the Trans-Texas Corridor.

Back in April, the Transportation Department released a draft environmental report about a 10-mile-wide study area from Mexico to Oklahoma. The state — well, probably its partner Cintra-Zachry, a Spanish-American company — will build the turnpike somewhere within that area.

So, to finalize that fat report, the agency had to hold public hearings seeking comment. It planned 54 of them from July 10 to Aug. 10, from Gainesville to Laredo.

The problem, from the governor’s political point of view, is that the corridor plan is about as popular as bull nettles in the rural lands east of I-35. Through the first 44 meetings, almost 12,000 people had turned out, including a staggering 1,589 in Temple. What politician could possibly resist showing up at such a gathering?

Well, Perry, for one. The governor has stayed away, leaving Transportation Department officials to show the flag. Not so with Strayhorn, the Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-indepen- dent who has popped up at 10 hearings so far to press the flesh for the 90-minute open house portions and to deliver a well-honed three minutes on what she calls the “Trans-Texas Catastrophe.”

“Let’s do another 54!” Strayhorn said to me last week while on her way to the hearing in Bastrop. Not likely.

So far, Democrat Chris Bell and independent Kinky Friedman have skipped the hearings, though a Bell spokesman said last week that he would come to some this week. A number of candidates for lower offices, most of them Democrats and virtually all of them against the corridor plan, have also taken their turns at the hearings.

Based on media accounts, speakers and a showing of hands at some of the meetings I have attended, sentiment among the crowds has been overwhelmingly negative about the tollway. Under the federal environmental process, one alternative is always “no build.”

Ric Williamson, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission and a longtime Perry ally, was asked recently at a briefing for transportation reporters whether the corridor road can or should be built, given the collective thumbs down at the hearings.

Yes, Williamson and agency officials said. The transportation needs of the state trump such opposition.

“The purpose of the public hearings is not to take a poll or survey or to estimate the supporters or detractors,” Williamson said.

True. That poll will occur Nov. 7.

Corridor security threat: Foreign goods traverse all the way to San Antonio or Kansas City before inspection

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Link to article here.

This article focuses primarily on the Kansas City interior port, but a previous one mentions the same principle for the Port of San Antonio.

Shipping-Corridor Deal Cuts Heart Out of Heartland
by Phyllis Schlafly
Human Events Online
August 07, 2006

Grass-roots Americans of all parties and economic classes rose up out of their political apathy a few months ago and forced President George W. Bush to reverse his administration’s decision to allow a Middle East government to own America’s major ports. But the push for foreign ownership continues: the next port scheduled to be taken over is Kansas City, Mo.
Even though public schools stopped teaching geography a couple of decades ago, most Americans (especially residents of the Show Me State) are surprised to learn that Kansas City (where the only waves are “amber waves of grain”) is a port. We are also surprised, and shocked, to discover that Mexico will be running its own inspection facility there.

The plan, shrouded in secrecy, has been in the works for at least three years, but it is now coming to light because of the diligent use of Missouri’s Sunshine law by concerned citizens. Joyce Mucci and Francis Semler forced the release of the e-mails from Kansas City to Mexico, including one admitting that “The space (in Kansas City) would need to be designated as Mexican sovereign territory.”

SmartPort representatives are now running away from this written admission, blaming “the problems and pressure the media attention has created.” However, the stubborn sovereignty issue won’t go away; the plan does involve setting up Mexican customs officials in downtown Kansas City.

The mechanism for this deal is a “nonprofit” business economic development corporation called Kansas City SmartPort Inc., whose president is Chris J.F. Gutierrez. The deal calls for Kansas City to lease the valuable property at 1447 Liberty St.

As laid out on SmartPort’s Web site, the plan is to enable products made in China to travel in sealed “containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico,” through “a ships-to-rail terminal at the port of Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico,” then up “the evolving trade corridor” to Kansas City, Mo., where they would have their first inspection.

A Kansas City SmartPort brochure explains further: “Kansas City offers the opportunity for sealed cargo containers to travel to Mexican port cities with virtually no border delays.”

A key purpose of the project is to take jobs away from U.S. longshoremen in Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., who earn $140,000 a year, and replace them with Mexican laborers at $10,000 a year. U.S. truck drivers and railroad workers will likewise be replaced by Mexicans.

The port of Lazaro Cardenas, on the west coast of southern Mexico, is controlled by Hutchison Whampoa, the same giant Hong Kong shipping firm that owns the ports at both ends of the Panama Canal. Chinese-made goods will be carried by Kansas City Southern Railway de Mexico directly to Kansas City, where freight will be distributed east and west and on to Canada.

Kansas City Southern was originally a belt railway around Kansas City but, after buying various Mexican rail companies and tracks, KCS controls a 2,600-mile artery from Lazaro Cardenas to Kansas City. KCS President Michael Haverty was one of five U.S. businessmen who met with President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at their March summit in Cancun, Mexico.

Mexico was at first expected to pay for the big, expensive machines to conduct high-tech gamma-ray screening for drive-through inspections of containers, but Mexico declined the honor. SmartPort has applied for a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (i.e., to get the U.S. taxpayers to pay for the machines).

The Kansas City City Council has already earmarked $2.5 million in loans and $600,000 in direct aid to SmartPort, which would build and own the facility and then sublet it to the Mexican government. The cost could go as high as $6 million because Kansas City has an existing lease that runs through 2045 on the same property with the 107-year-old American Royal, which uses that land for its annual livestock/rodeo/barbecue event.

The last piece in finalizing this project is getting the U.S. State Department to approve the Mexican operation on U.S. soil by signing off on what is called the C-175 document. It has already been approved by U.S. Customs.

Meanwhile, NASCO (North America’s SuperCorridor Coalition Inc.), another nonprofit business organization, has taken on the mission of building an “international, integrated and secure, multimodal transportation system” from Lazaro Cardenas through Kansas City and up to Winnipeg, Canada. This will allow Mexican trucks to haul goods along a 12-lane superhighway through the heartland of the United States.

Alternatives to elevated tollway on Bandera Rd. proposed by community and business groups

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Link to KSAT here. Click to see video on the right. Link to Express-News article here. Scroll down for article after KSAT story.

Opponents Unite To Battle Bandera Road Elevated Tollway Option
KSAT News
August 4, 2006

SAN ANTONIO — Several community organizations mounted a continuing effort Friday to put the brakes to an elevated toll-road option over Bandera Road.Members of San Antonio Toll Party and AGUA are among groups trying to convince the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority to abandon the idea of possibly building an elevated tollway between Loops 410 and 1604 with no exits.”It just seems outrageous because they’re trying … (to) destroy a whole community,” said Terri Hall of San Antonio Toll Party.

Another concern for opponents is that the toll road would be built over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone.”We want to make sure anything that happens minimizes negative impacts to the water quality in the recharge zone,” said Annalisa Peace of AGUA. Texas Department of Transportation officials estimate that 54,000 vehicles travel daily through Bandera Road and officials are looking for ways to relieve congestion.

Hall agrees about the traffic troubles but said that there are better alternatives, include synchronizing of traffic lights, increasing public transportation and reversing the lanes of travel during peak traffic hours.Alamo Regional Mobility Authority officials are accepting public comments on the proposal until Monday.

But Terry Brechtel of ARMA stresses that many options are being looked at before a final recommendation is made on what to do about Bandera Road, if anything.

“The alignment we’re looking at today is a corridor that has many options available to it,” she said. “There’s a lot of misinformation in the community about an elevated corridor. We’re looking at elevated, at grade. We’re looking at the possibility of a creek alignment that was also mentioned in the feasibility study.”

Toll alternatives wanted for Bandera Road
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News Staff Writer
08/04/2006

Are there any realistic options to proposed elevated toll lanes along Bandera Road?

With a deadline looming to submit opinions to decision makers, toll critics are urging residents to demand that alternatives be considered.

Toll officials say they welcome all comments, which are due by Monday, and for now all options are on the table.

Possible solutions to deal with Bandera Road traffic were announced Friday by the San Antonio Toll Party, Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas and the Helotes Heritage Association.

Ideas include:

Improve synchronization of signal lights.

Replace intersections and signal lights with roundabouts.

Convert road to a limited access parkway.

Reverse traffic in one or more lanes during rush hour.

Implement a rapid bus system with some of the comfort and convenience of light rail.

“These aren’t even under consideration so far as I have seen,” said Bill Barker, a transportation consultant who’s assisting the Toll Party.

Alamo Regional Mobility Authority officials said they’re listening and later this year will list options they believe the public most wants studied.

“We’re looking for sustainable long-term solutions,” spokesman Leroy Alloway said.

But other than tolling, the only funding allocated to Bandera Road over the next 25 years is $5 million for studies.

VIA Metropolitan Transit might develop rapid buses and dedicated bus lanes on half a dozen or more roads in coming years but plans don’t include Bandera Road.

Also, a state study estimates that a toll fee of 13 cents a mile, increasing with inflation, would cover less than half the $281 million to $358 million cost of building two to four elevated toll lanes on Bandera Road between loops 410 and 1604.

Other funds could come from gas taxes shifted from other projects or private firms interested in operating the toll lanes.

Comments can be submitted by fax to (210) 495-5403, e-mail to BanderaRd@AlamoRMA.org or mail to: Public Information Manager; Alamo Regional Mobility Authority; 16500 San Pedro, Suite 350; San Antonio, TX 78232.

Supercorridor to Oblivion

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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51282

Super-Corridor to oblivion


By Henry Lamb
World Net Daily
July 29, 2006
 

There is growing concern about the proposed “Super-Corridor” from the southern tip of Mexico to Canada. The project, under way for more than a decade, is just now being introduced to the public. And the public doesn’t like what they are hearing. Confusion about the project is rampant because it is still primarily a concept, in the planning stages, and most of the final decisions will not be made for some time. Several very important decisions, however, have already been made.

TheNorth American International Trade Corridor Partnership has officially amalgamated with the North American SuperCorridor Coalition, or NASCO, to promote the development of a trade corridor designed to expedite the flow of trade through the North American continent.

NASCO is a not-for-profit lobbying organization that has received $2.5 million in congressional earmarks from the Department of Transportation to promote the corridor concept. Its 24-member board of directors includes county commissioners from four Texas counties, an Oklahoma state senator and a member of OK-DOT, two officials from the Texas DOT, attorneys, a couple of construction company officials and an official of the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce. Membership fees range from $500 for an individual up to $25,000 for government entities. Membership includes several U.S. government entities.

NASCO claims that “There are no plans to build a new NAFTA super-highway – it exists today as I-35.” This, however, is at odds with reality.

On Dec. 16, 2004, the Texas Transportation Commission, well represented in NASCO, entered into an agreement with a consortium called based in Spain, with tentacles into several other countries. The Comprehensive Development Agreement is open-ended (up to 50 years) and provides for many options along the way.

The goal is to build and operate a privately funded toll corridor that includes up to 10 lanes of car and truck traffic, rail lines, pipelines and utilities, including communications systems. The current agreement is limited to Texas, but fits nicely into the master plan being advanced by NASCO.

It also fits nicely into the vision of the Council on Foreign Relations’ recent report, “Building a North American Community,” which advocates “unlimited access to each other’s territory” (page 47), including allowing Mexican or Canadian companies to freely enter the United States to compete with U.S. trucking companies, hauling freight between U.S. cities.

This, of course, is essential to the creation of the North American Union, the goal of the Security and Prosperity Partnership. This partnership includes enhanced border crossings for trade and for individuals, using a new SENTRI program being developed by the U.S. Customs Department.

This massive transformation of the United States of America into the North American Union is well under way. It is being implemented with the blessings of the last three presidents, key congressmen, and the most powerful business and professional government leaders.

There’s one small problem: No one asked the American people if they want this transformation.

The entire concept has never been presented to Congress, nor to the American people for reflection, discussion, debate and approval. Instead, powerful lobbying groups, such as NASCO and others, present small segments of the concept wrapped up in a package of financial benefits, and then “sell” the idea in installments. Each installment is a baby step toward the North American Union, which is similar to the European Union – both key elements in the structure of global governance.

The fundamental transformation is to our system of governance; we are moving from the system of representative government set forth in the U.S. Constitution to a system of collaborative policymaking by professional bureaucrats and business leaders. This outcome is precisely what the President’s Council on Sustainable Development called for in its 1993 We Believe Statements:

“We need a new collaborative decision process that leads to better decisions; more rapid change; and more sensible use of human, natural and financial resources in achieving our goals.” (Statement No. 8)

What we really need are elected officials who listen to their constituents and refuse to be steamrolled or bought by professional bureaucrats and business leaders.

The Texas Transportation Commission can withdraw from its agreement with Cintra-Zachry at any time. Perhaps the voters in Texas can call for a referendum to see if the people really want this Super-Corridor. The people of Texas could, once again, play a vital role in saving the United States.


Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International.

San Antonio Port Authority actively working with Communist China

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Direct link to Human Events Online article here.

Red China Opens NAFTA Ports in Mexico
by Jerome R. Corsi
Human Events Online
Posted Jul 18, 2006

The Port Authority of San Antonio has been working actively with the Communist Chinese to open and develop NAFTA shipping ports in Mexico.

The plan is to ship containers of cheap goods produced by under-market labor in China and the Far East into North America via Mexican ports. From the Mexican ports, Mexican truck drivers and railroad workers will transport the goods across the Mexican border with Texas. Once in the U.S., the routes will proceed north to Kansas City along the NAFTA Super-Highway, ready to be expanded by the Trans-Texas Corridor, and NAFTA railroad routes being put in place by Kansas City Southern. Kansas City Southern’s Mexican railroads has positioned the company to become the “NAFTA Railroad.”

Right now, the cost of shipping and ground transportation can nearly double the total cost of cheap goods produced by Chinese and Far Eastern under-market labor. The plan is to reduce those transportation costs by as much as 50% by using Mexican ports.

Cost-savings will be realized by bringing the goods into the U.S. at mid-continent. Equally important is that the substantially reduced cost of using Mexican labor in the ports and to transport the goods once off-loaded. Mexican workers undercut Longshoremen Union port employees on the docks of Los Angeles and Long Beach, just as Mexican truck drivers undercut the Teamsters and Mexican railroad workers undercut United Transportation Union railroad workers. By using the Mexican ports, the international corporations managing this global trade are able to avoid the U.S. labor union workers who otherwise would unload the ships in west coast ports and transport the Asian containers into the heart of America by U.S. truckers or U.S. railroad ground transport moving east across the Rocky Mountains.

In April 2006, officials of the Port Authority of San Antonio traveled to China with representatives of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio, the Port of Lazaro Cardenas, and Hutchinson Port Holdings to develop the Mexican ports logistics corridor. The goal of the meetings in China was described by the March 2006 e-newsletter of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio:

In January of 2006, a collaboration of several logistics entities in the U.S. and Mexico began operation of a new multimodal logistics corridor for Chinese goods entering the U.S. Market. The new corridor brings containerized goods from China on either Maersk or CP Ships service to the Mexican Port of Lazaro Cardenas. There, the containers are off loaded by a new world class terminal operated by Hutchinson Ports based in Hong Kong. The containers are loaded onto the Kansas City Southern Railroad de Mexico where they move in-bound into the U.S. The containers clear U.S. customs in San Antonio, Texas and are processed for distribution.

Hutchinson Whampoa, a diversified company that manages property development and telecommunications companies, with operations in 54 countries and over 200,000 employees worldwide, is also one of the world’s largest port operators. Hutchinson Ports Holding (HPH) owns Panama Ports Co., which operates the ports of Cristobal and Balboa which are located at each end of the Panama Canal. HPH also operates the industrial deepwater port of Lazaro Cardenas in the Mexican State of Michoacan, as well as the Mexican port at Manzanillo, also along the west coast of Mexico, north of Lazaro Cardenas.

The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio was created in 1994 to promote the development of San Antonio’s inland port. The Free Trade Alliance San Antonio and the Port Authority of San Antonio are both members of NASCO, an acronym for the group’s formal name, the North American’s SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc. A Kansas City Star newspaper article posted on the website of the Kansas City SmartPort, another NASCO member, shows the importance of San Antonio’s inland port to the developing NAFTA Super-Highway and NAFTA railroad corridor emerging along Interstate I-35. According to reporter Rick Alm, San Antonio envisions the opening of a Mexican customs office in their inland port, a move that has been pioneered by Kansas City SmartPort:

Under this area’s arrangement [establishing a Mexican customs facility in the Kansas City SmartPort], freight would be inspected by Mexican authorities in Kansas City and sealed in containers for movement directly to Mexican destinations with fewer costly border delays. The arrangement would become even more lucrative when Asian markets that shipped through Mexican ports were figured into the mix. “We applaud the efforts of Kansas City and the Mexican government in developing a Mexican customs facility there,” said Jorge Canavati, marketing director for Kelly USA [former name for San Antonio’s inland port established on the former site of Kelly Air Force Base]. He said a Mexican customs function for KellyUSA “is something that is still far away … We may be looking at that” in the future.

A world map on the North American Inland Ports Network (NAIPN) on the NASCO website graphically highlights in yellow the trade routes from China across the Pacific ocean, to Mexico at the ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, entering the U.S. through San Antonio.

A Free Trade Alliance San Antonio 2005 summary of goals and accomplishments documents the direct involvement of the Bush administration into the development of San Antonio’s inland port NAFTA plans. The following were among the bulleted points:

  • Organized four marketing trips to Mexico and China to promote Inland Port San Antonio and met with prospects. Met with over 50 prospects/leads during these trips.

  • Continued to pursue cross border trucking by advocating a pilot project with at least two major Mexican exporters as potential subjects. Worked with U.S. Department of Transportation, Dept. of Homeland Security and U.S. Trade Representative on this concept.

  • Working with Mexican ports to develop new cargo routes through the Ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Candenas.

  • San Antonio is on the route of the Trans-Texas Corridor planned to be built along I-35 from Laredo, Tex., on the Mexican Border, north through Dallas, en route to the Oklahoma border.

The development of a China-Mexico trade route reflects a fundamental shift since the passage of NAFTA. At the peak in the mid-1990s, there were some three thousand maquiladoras located in northern Mexico, employing over 1 million Mexicans in low-paying, assembly sweat-shops. Today, even Mexican labor is not cheap enough for the international corporations seeking only to maximize profits. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, that bubble has burst and the maquiladora activity is down over 25 percent from the peak as the international corporations have found even cheaper labor in China.

As the Port of San Antonio evidences, linking NAFTA inland ports with NAFTA super-highways and NAFTA railroads is an important part of the development plan for the emerging global free trade economy. San Antonio officials by working with the communist Chinese to open Mexican ports for NAFTA trade evidence that plan. International capitalists are now determined to exploit cheap Mexican labor, not so much for manufacturing and assembly, but as a means of saving port and transportation costs in the North American market.

The Bush Administration seems on-board with the plan, aiming to increase corporate capital gains in NAFTA markets rather than worrying about the adverse consequences to Mexican low-skilled workers or to the U.S. labor movement that transferring increasing amounts of manufacturing and assembly to China entails.

Perry's contempt for the base of his own Party shows why we need a new Governor

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Link to article here.

Campaign rethinks Perry donor codes
By Gary Scharrer
Express-News Austin Bureau
07/28/2006

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign sheepishly acknowledged Friday that labeling protest contributors as “ASS” donations could have been handled more delicately.A bunch of Texans upset with the governor’s support for a new business tax acted on their frustration by giving him campaign checks for 2 cents earlier this summer. Some sent in checks for 3 or 5 cents and a few mailed 1-cent checks.

The Perry campaign coded them as “ASS 06.” Political campaigns routinely code contribution checks to keep track of which event or mailing inspired them.

Because the unsolicited protest checks were not tied to any specific event, “they were coded as ‘A Small Supporter,'” Perry campaign spokesman Robert Black said Friday.

“In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best choice for an abbreviation,” Black said. “They’ll probably be changed to something like ‘SML’ for ‘Small’ going forward.”

Some of the protest-check writers discussed the special coding appearing on their canceled checks Friday morning with Houston talk show host Edd Hendee. A few posted copies of their check on the www.lonestartimes.com Web site, affiliated with radio station KSEV.

Lisa Stapp of Spring, who protested Perry’s business tax plan with a 3-cent campaign check, shrugged off the special coding for the small-change contributions.

“I am willing to believe that there is a code that says ‘a small supporter.’ I also believe that it is probably a disparaging remark,” Stapp said. “But if I have the right to protest, he has the right to call me ‘a small supporter.'”

Perry persuaded state legislators to pass a school funding reform bill in May that kept the Texas Supreme Court from closing public schools after June 1. A key feature includes a new business tax.

Most Texas businesses will face a new tax on gross receipts with deductions for either the cost of goods bought for resale or for payroll expenses, including employee benefits.

Some angry conservatives offered their 2 cents’ worth of protest with the tiny contributions.

“When Texans disagree with Rick Perry’s largest tax increase in history, he doesn’t listen. He just labels them,” said Mark Sanders, spokesman for Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who is challenging Perry in the fall gubernatorial election as an independent.

Perry and his supporters argue that the new business tax is not a net tax increase because it will help pay for $15.7 billion worth of cuts in school property taxes over the next three years.

More evidence gas prices having negative impact on inflation, ecomony

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Express-News:
“For only the second time ever, gasoline is averaging $3 a gallon at pumps nationwide. And while prices in San Antonio were well below that benchmark Thursday — averaging $2.84 a gallon — at least one local station owner believes $3 gas will soon be here. ‘It’s going to get higher,’ said David Ezell…”

Link to Express-News latest gas price article here.

Washington Times:
“Economic growth fell by more than half to a 2.5 percent annual rate in the spring quarter as a surge in fuel prices to record highs helped precipitate a sharp downshift in spending by consumers and businesses and stoked the highest inflation in more than a decade.”

Link to Washington Times economic indicators article here.

Vehement opposition to tolls at Bandera Rd public meeting finally gets some fair press

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Express-News traffic blog here. Comments on blog are interesting, some even supportive. Link below is same article, without the comments.

Express-News ARTICLE here.

Get the Toll Party analysis of the meeting here.

Leon Valley neighbors rap tolls along Bandera Road
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News Staff Writer
07/29/2006

Officials eyeing toll lanes along Bandera Road could be hitting a roadblock in Leon Valley, after a public meeting in which almost all speakers expressed their opposition.

The Thursday meeting at Marshall High School to kick off an environmental assessment for the toll lanes drew about 450 people, the most yet for a local toll meeting.

Of the more than two-dozen speakers, all but one was against elevated toll lanes over Bandera Road between loops 410 and 1604.

Former Leon Valley Councilman Darby Riley — whose wife, Chris, is mayor — said it’s obvious people are “pretty unanimous” against the toll lanes and suggested organizing with neighborhoods along Bandera Road to the north of the city.

“We would be interested in working with neighborhood associations, North Side chamber or whoever else can organize along this corridor,” he said.

Speakers asked the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, which is studying the proposed toll lanes, for alternatives such as better traffic light coordination, reversible lanes, rapid bus transit and a parkway design with added lanes and better pedestrian and bicycle amenities.

They also voiced concerns that competing free roads would be neglected as a way to drive traffic to toll lanes. And they said tolls are a big-business scheme to make money rather than solve traffic congestion.

A businessman and pastor said he is grieved by what he sees as a stark divide between powers pushing tolls and taxpayers who’ll foot the bill.

“Something’s really wrong here,” he said.

Speakers also complained that the mobility authority was not up front enough about tolls being the only funding option on the table and accused the agency of conducting the first half of the meeting as a workshop so some of the crowd would be chased away before the comment period.

Mobility Authority Director Terry Brechtel, a veteran of many years of high-dollar projects and political winds whipping through San Antonio’s City Council chambers, was unflappable and acknowledged a daunting task ahead.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” she said. “It’s not surprising at all.”

Brechtel, a former city manager, said she was heartened by comments from the workshop because participants said something has to be done about growing congestion.

Options to deal or not deal with traffic loads that could double in 25 years will be laid out to the public — and so will ways to pay for them, Brechtel said.

El Paso MPO RESCINDS their vote in support of toll roads!

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Link to article in El Paso Times here.

Wouldn’t this be bliss to read this in the Express-News:
“The MPO also voted to rescind a previous decision to support a regional system of toll lanes.”

Well, it’s a reality in El Paso tonight! Their MPO has had it with TxDOT and ripped the toll plans right out of their regional transportation planning! How ’bout it? Think there’s anyone at our MPO willing to actually represent the electorate? Not if Councilman Richard Perez, Councilman Art Hall, and TxDOT’s David Casteel and Clay Smith have any say in the matter. These pro-tollers are holding us hostage and failing us in the Democratic process. Commissioners Adkisson and Larson and our friends at Via need more votes to make this a reality in San Antonio. We’re the ONLY MPO in the State where POLITICAL APPOINTEES outweigh ELECTED OFFICIALS on the MPO. This needs to change. In fact, the MPO web site has failed to “load” for over 3 months and there is no way for the public to know who is even on the Board! Do you honestly think any of this is an accident?

MPO tables decision on transportation authority
By Gustavo Reveles-Acosta
El Paso Times
July 28, 2006

The El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization, or MPO, postponed any action
regarding the creation of a regional mobility authority that could plan,
fund and build future transportation projects in the area.

The MPO, which is made up of elected officials and transportation experts,
narrowly voted to table an agenda item that called for the opposition to the
creation of the regional mobility authority, or RMA.

The postponement came after members discussed working on a letter from the
Texas Transportation Commission outlining the role of the MPO when it comes
to construction projects planned and approved by an RMA.

While state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, believes the letter states that any
project approved by an RMA would also need the approval of the MPO, others
said the commission only would require that an RMA project also be on the
project list already approved by the MPO.

The MPO board voted table the issue and seek legal advice before voting
again on it in about 30 days.

The MPO also voted to rescind a previous decision to support a regional system of toll lanes and the designation of the southern relief route – the connection of the Cesar Chavez Border Highway to Loop 375 on the West Side as a priority.
The board asked the Texas Department of Transportation to come back in 120 days with a plan that also might include other priority projects like the northeast parkway that would connect the north part of Loop 375 to Interstate 10 near Anthony.