Are we going to let Wentworth, Uresti, Van De Putte, Zaffirini, and highway lobbyists pull our roads out SB 792 in conference committee (of course, their line is: “that was a decision of the conference committee”)? Are we going to let highway lobbyists threaten Rep. Joe Farias this way? Our senators and highway lobbyists have shown TOTAL contempt for the WILL of the PEOPLE in a sneaky dirty trick. They haven’t even made the conference committee report available online yet, therefore it hasn’t been made available to the public, until AFTER the SENATE already voted on it! If I hadn’t been in Austin working with our reps, I wouldn’t have known it, and now here it is on a blog!

Link to Express-News blog here.

Ricky’s ticked

By Eileen Welsome
Texas Observer

May 22nd, 2007 at 9:25 pm

Sources tell us this evening that Tricky Ricky is displeased with an amendment put up by state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, which closed a loophole in SB 792, the transportation legislation designed to temporarily halt the rush to privatize the state’s roads.

The loophole was big enough to drive, well, the the Trans-Texas Corridor through. And, of course, that’s exactly what Tricky Ricky wanted.

For five years, Ricky has been pushing his futuristic plan to pave the state with super-highways the width of several football fields. The corridors will eat up hundreds of thousands of acres of prime farmland and facilitate global trade, but they won’t reduce congestion at all, records and testimony show.

SB 792, which has passed the House and Senate, is now supposedly going to a conference committee made up of House and Senate members. The bill sponsor, State Rep. Wayne Smith, a Baytown Republican, said tonight that the conferees have been trying to come to agreement on the nearly two dozen amendments tacked on by various legislators. He declined to say what amendments, if any, are causing problems.

The loophole that Lois Kolkhorst fixed was spotted by the grassroots organization, Corridor Watch, and dealt with something called a facility agreement, which is a sub-agreement to a comprehensive development agreement.

The eager beavers over at TxDot have already entered into a comprehensive development agreement with Cintra to develop the Trans-Texas Corridor, but the legislation didn’t specificially address these facility agreements. Watchdogs fear that without the amendment, TxDot would continue full steam ahead on the TTC.

Ricky’s been threatening to hold a special session. And that might not be a bad idea, given that billions of dollars are at stake and these toll roads will affect commuters for the next 50 years.

If legislators don’t deal honestly with this hot-button issue now, they may find themselves on the griddle during the next election cycle. Various citizens’ groups are promising a jihad if the legislators don’t reign in these private toll-road deals. “We’re not going to walk away. We’re going to keep the grassroots fire burning,” says Terri Hall of the San Antonio Toll Party.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 – YOU’VE BEEN HAD! reads the bulletin to legislators sent out by grassroots group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF). In seeking clarification on the implications of “market valuation” on toll projects (Sec. 228.0111), TURF has learned that if SB 792 passes as written, ALL toll projects around the state MUST USE market valuation to establish toll rates and to set toll rate escalation. Traditional turnpikes, where a PUBLIC tolling entity simply sells bonds for the actual cost of building the road and the tolls pay back that debt, WILL BE OFF THE TABLE!

A third party appraiser would determine the market value of the road and that amount, once agreed upon by TxDOT and the tolling entity, would be deposited in subaccounts JUST LIKE A CONCESSION FEE with public-private toll deals called CDAs in Texas! Motorists taking that tollway will then be charged OPPRESSIVELY HIGH TOLLS beyond the cost of building that specific road since the toll rate now has to cover the upfront fee (which is just like a concession fee in the private toll deals!).

“Market valuation” is TxDOT and the Governor’s GOTCHA in SB 792. In speaking with many legislators, most DO NOT KNOW THIS and thought market valuation only applied to the buy back provisions or were optional or applied only to certain projects. Senator Robert Nichols added an amendment stating if both the tolling entity and TxDOT CANNOT AGREE on the market value, the project cannot move forward. However, most legislators don’t realize this means the PROJECT DIES and cannot go forward USING THE TRADITIONAL TURNPIKE model. So unless a tolling entity can agree with what’s been dubbed a rogue agency, TxDOT, A PROJECT DIES ALTOGETHER!

“Market valuation tolling is like a back door CDA! Do we really have a CDA moratorium when this is the case? Will your constituents back home think YOU VOTED FOR A WIN when they’re going to be charged OPPRESSIVELY HIGH tolls anyway?” asks Terri Hall, Founder/Director of TURF.

“We fear this opens another can of worms that will bring regrets similar to HB 3588. Many wanted to “correct the sins of the past” this session in regards to tolling and for having “created a monster” in TxDOT,” states Hall.

Here’s what Senator Robert Nichols said about market valuation in the Lone Star Report, May 21, 2007: “For the first time you’re having a county toll authority or a regional mobility authority that is going to have to come up with a front end concession, kind of like a private entity. They’re going to have to commit to spend those funds. Either to TxDOT or to other projects in that area.”

“We have to ask is getting a compromise bill signed more important than enacting good transportation policy that’s been fully vetted and had the proper public debate? Unleashing yet another ‘monster’ (http://satollparty.com/post/?p=538 and http://satollparty.com/post/?p=549) on the taxpaying public with provisions stuck in a bill at the last minute should cause us all to pause,” warns Hall.

It’s clear few knew what they were voting on last week.

TURF’s bulletin continues:
“This Legislature needs to step back and focus on getting a good bill passed, not on special session threats or rushing to the finish line empty-handed. May it be said you finished well, and in a way that you won’t regret back home.”

View the bill here.
For initial warnings on market valuation go here:

Link to article here.

Foreign Privatization of PUBLIC Highways
By Henry Lamb

American roads are the hottest commodity in the international marketplace. State and local governments are falling all over themselves to sell off highways, bridges, and all sorts of other revenue-producing infrastructure, to international financiers who are eager to snap up structures Americans have already paid for, and for which they continue to pay maintenance costs through endless taxes.

The Chicago Skyway, for example, brought $1.83 billion from a Spanish-Australian partnership. The 157-mile Indiana tollway, brought $3.85 billion from the same partnership. And the state of Texas has recently concluded a deal to sell a Trans-Texas Corridor for $7.2 billion to the same Spanish company who partnered with a Texas construction company.

What’s going on here? Why are government officials so eager to sell off our infrastructure? Because it’s a win-win deal for everyone – except the people who pay taxes and use the highways. Governments get a pot full of cash up front, and the “public-private” partnerships get a long term cash-cow. The taxpayers and highway users get ______, well, you fill in the blank.

Actually, these “sales” are long term leases, which is much worse than an outright sale. The Chicago Skyway deal is for 99 years. The Indiana Tollway is for 75 years. In what condition will these important roads be when they are returned to government? The folks who celebrate the deals today – and spend the billions – will be pushing up daisies by the time a new crop of government officials will have to explain why the roads have crumbled.

The roads that exist today were bought with taxes and tolls. They are maintained with taxes and tolls. Neither taxes nor tolls will be reduced when these roads are sold to public-private partnerships. In fact, taxes are likely to increase, and the tolls are certain to increase. Tolls for commercial use on the Indiana Tollway were scheduled to double during the first three years of the deal. Auto tolls would remain flat for the first three years, and then “catch up” with the commercial rate.

When the taxpayers and highway users get slapped in the budget by these increases, and complain to their elected officials, the elected officials can do nothing but say “we’re sorry, it’s out of our hands for the next 99 years.” When the roads begin to crumble and potholes begin to appear, elected officials can do nothing but say, “we’re sorry, it’s out of our hands for the next 99 years.”

When the people of Texas learned about the $7.2 billion deal the state was constructing, they overwhelmed the legislature and demanded a two-year moratorium during which the consequences of the deal could be studied. The moratorium legislation passed the state House and Senate by a combined vote of 165 to 5 – more than enough to override the governor’s threatened veto. But legislators are trying to take the teeth out of the legislation by exempting half the roads in Texas.

The Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee says that the public-private partnership project must go forward, because the state has not raised gasoline taxes in 16 years, and there’s not enough money to build the roads that are desperately needed.

Well, now, he didn’t say what portion of the state and federal gasoline taxes were spent on non-highway projects. He didn’t say why the gasoline taxes were not increased if a valid need existed. He didn’t say why the state could not raise the necessary construction funds the same way the public-private partnership will raise it – by pledging future revenues to pay for the funds borrowed. He didn’t say why he is eager to turn public transportation over to a public-private partnership that is not accountable to the voters.

There is another reason for the media hype and popularity of public-private partnership funding. To meet the anticipated construction costs of the NAFTA Super-corridor network, incredible sums of capital must be amassed – rather quickly. Not all cities or states have the expertise or the credit worthiness to structure a multi-billion-dollar financing package. It’s much easier to turn to an outfit that has done it before – and damn the consequences that will fall on another generation.

The sale, or long-term lease, of the nation’s infrastructure is not just a fix for immediate congestion problems, it is a method of financing a whole new infrastructure designed to allow goods to flow from Chinese-controlled ports in Mexico, throughout the United States, and into Canada. Proponents of the project know that it will be much easier to get financing from public-private partnerships than from taxpayers who are already over-taxed. Left up to the taxpayers in each state, the international NAFTA Super-corridor network would be in great jeopardy if even one state refused to cooperate.

That’s why it is necessary to take the matter out of the hands of taxpayers, and let the professional bureaucrats do what they know is best for the poor, uneducated taxpayers, who, in the end, must still pay the bill. The sale of the nation’s infrastructure is nothing less than a national tragedy.

Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO), and chairman of Sovereignty International .This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it