Link to article here.

Spanish firm using loan from U.S. to build segments of Texas toll road
By David Tanner
Landline Magazine
March 13, 2008
Officials with the Spanish toll road operator Cintra have announced that the company has secured $430 million in loans from the U.S. government to build and operate two segments of a toll road in central Texas.

Cintra officials announced the company’s financial plan for the $1.36 billion Highway 130 segments on Monday, March 10.

OOIDA Senior Government Affairs Representative Mike Joyce told Land Line that the Association does raise red flags when federal dollars are used to subsidize private investors. Officials with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are not, however, categorically opposed to a state using future toll revenue to pay off bonds.

“I’m skeptical of any funding schemes that involve the private sector,” Joyce said.

Truck tolls on Segment 5 and Segment 6 of Highway 130 are contracted to be 50 cents per mile when the road opens. The 50-year contract includes a formula for increases. Tolls for cars will start at 12.5 cents per mile.

Cintra and its partner in the project, Texas-based Zachry American Infrastructure, signed a contract a year ago to design and build a 40-mile portion of Texas Highway 130, a tolled bypass of Austin running parallel to Interstate 35 in the Austin-San Antonio corridor.

The first four segments of the Highway 130 project, totaling about 50 miles, are part of the Central Texas Turnpike System constructed from 2002 through early 2008 with bonds issued through the Texas Transportation Commission. Tolls on those sections are being used to pay the bonds on the first four segments.

The Cintry-Zachry consortium, formed in 2005, expects to begin construction next year on Segment 5 and Segment 6 of Highway 130 on rights of way leased from the Texas Department of Transportation. The 40-mile section is scheduled to open in 2012.

A similar Cintra-Zachry partnership is designing the first leg of the Trans-Texas Corridor, a proposed 4,000-mile network of toll roads and railway lines to increase the flow of freight and people from South Texas to the U.S. heartland.

Cintra also has a 55-percent share of the lease for the Indiana Toll Road and a 50-percent share of the Chicago Skyway lease. The company partnered with companies affiliated with Macquarie Bank of Australia for those deals.

For the Highway 130 segments being built by Cintra-Zachry, TxDOT has agreed to provide and pay for “back office” functions including toll collectors, other staff, call center, equipment, transponders and maintenance for the roadway.

Cintra’s financing will come from a 35-year, $430 million loan from the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 1998 – a U.S. Department of Transportation program for jump-starting construction – along with a $686 million private bank loan and $197 million in shareholder equity. Cintra will also draw on other equity accounts, officials stated in a press release.

The TIFI Act program is designed to match a certain percentage of the cost for a road built using private sector money. U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters stated in a press release that the TIFI Act loan will give Highway 130 “the push it needs.”

OOIDA’s Joyce points to the comparison between Cintra’s 35-year loan from the federal TIFI Act program and the 50-year concession agreement for Segments 5 and 6.

“We know that they’re looking to turn a profit,” he said.

Click here to read some quick facts and figures posted by Cintra about Highway 130.

Click here to read contractual documents on the project posted by the Texas Department of Transportation.

Link to article here.

It shouldn’t surprise any of us that those eroding our sovereignty and those who care more about NAFTA than they do their own country’s citizens think they’re above the law. Here, here, Senator Dorgan. There had better be a consequence for such a flagrant violation of the law by President Bush and Secretary of Transportation Peters!

Senator questions allowing Mexican trucks in U.S.
Associated Press / USA Today
March 11, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senator wants Congress’ investigative arm to determine whether the Transportation Department has broken the law by spending federal money on a program allowing Mexican trucks on U.S. roads.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., called for the investigation by the Government Accountability Office a few hours after Transportation Secretary Mary Peters warned of economic losses if Mexican trucks are prohibited from driving deep into the U.S.

Peters has been fighting in court to prevent the program’s end. But Dorgan and others say Congress prohibited spending money on the program last year.

“When Congress passes a law that says no funds can be used for this program, we mean no funds can be used for this program,” Dorgan said in a news release. “The Department of Transportation cannot simply pick and choose which laws they want to follow and which laws they want to break.”

Dorgan said the agency is violating the Anti-deficiency Act, which prohibits spending federal money that has not been authorized or appropriated.

The North American Free Trade Agreement gave Mexican trucks greater access to U.S. roads beginning in 1995. But the U.S. only opened the roads to a few trucks when the pilot program began last September.

Long-standing opposition from labor and safety groups had kept the trucks off most U.S. roads. Without the program, Mexican trucks are confined to about 25 miles beyond the border, where goods they bring are picked up by U.S. truck drivers.

Peters said Monday the agency is not violating the law. The law prohibits using funds to establish the program, she said, but the money is being used on the existing program. The agency has made similar arguments in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is considering an appeal by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to stop the program.

The action was a prelude to a potentially bitter Senate committee hearing on the program planned for Tuesday, with Peters scheduled to testify.

Earlier Monday, Peters said U.S. business would suffer if the trucking program is stopped.

“Should Congress … end the cross-border trucking, Mexico has every right to impose fees and tariffs on the very goods we see before us this morning and many more,” Peters told a news conference. Before her were tables loaded with apples, ham, soybeans, rice, eggs, canned chili and meat, beef, milk, whiskey and other products.

Todd Spencer, vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, called Peters’ claims “economic fear-mongering.”

“The program is supposed to work both ways across the border, and yet there are very few signing up on either side,” Spencer said in a statement. “Big businesses want the cheap labor, but for a number of reasons trucking companies on both sides of the border don’t want to get involved.”

The latest numbers from the Transportation Department show 18 Mexican carriers with 62 trucks and six U.S. carriers with 46 trucks are participating in the program. Up to 500 trucks from 100 Mexican carriers can participate.

Mexican trucks have made 322 crossings into the U.S., while U.S. trucking companies have made 683 crossings into Mexico.

James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said he does not buy Peters’ argument that Mexico will sanction U.S. goods with higher tariffs in retaliation. Mexico has a $70 billion trade surplus because of NAFTA and “they’d be foolish to do it,” Hoffa said.

Ricardo Alday, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, said Mexico is keeping its options open.

Link to release here.
.
Read about the public-private partnership the State of Texas inked with Cintra, a Spanish company, and Zachry, a San Antonio Construction Company, here. The low interest loan mentioned below is backed by the U.S. taxpayers and represents about a third of the cash brought to the table for the SH 130/TTC-35 project. It also exploits the taxpayers in order to benefit a private, for-profit company!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, March 10, 2008
Contact: Nancy Singer
(202) 366-0660
FHWA 06-08

U.S. Department of Transportation Approves $430 Million Loan to Complete New Alternative to Congested I-35

WASHINGTON, DC – A $430 million loan from the U.S. Department of Transportation will give Texas the financial push it needs to help complete a new north-south highway as an alternative to the congested I-35 from Austin to San Antonio, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters announced today.

“We’re helping give this project the push it needs so commuters can experience less congestion, shippers less delays and the region less headaches,” Secretary Peters said.

The new southern portion of the four-lane highway is scheduled to link to the already opened northern one in 2012. When complete, the 91-mile SH 130 corridor will be entirely tolled and provide a new route to take traffic off the most congested section of I-35 in the central United States.

Cintra and Zachry American Infrastructure will finance the $1.36 billion project through the USDOT loan, bank loans and investor capital. Electronic tolling will make it possible for drivers to pay the toll without having to use cash at a tollbooth.

The loan was made possible through the Department’s innovative Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan program which encourages private sector participation in the financing of highway projects with flexible repayment terms.

Secretary Peters added that the Texas project was another example of the private sector’s readiness to invest in U.S. transportation infrastructure and of an evolving federal approach to financing major capacity improvements.

# # #

Link to article here.

It’s referred to as SH 130 in this story, but it’s also the first leg of Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35. Anyone who still thinks privatized toll roads speed up construction and save us money needs to look no further than the third paragraph of this story which states: “Hundreds of documents and over 20 lawyers were involved last week representing TxDOT, private equity people, banks, mostly European, the TIFIA loan group from FHWA (Federal Highway Administration), and Cintra and Zachry.”

Twenty lawyers? The waste of taxpayer money and the time it takes to negotiate these contracts is OUTRAGEOUS! TxDOT first announced Cintra-Zachry was being awarded the SH 130 contract in March of 2007. Here it is a year later and they’re just now inking the deal?

Cintra/Zachry complete legal work on $1.36 billion financial close with TxDOT on SH 130
Toll Road News
March 10, 2008

SH 130 Concession Company LLC finalized the legal details of a financial close with Texas DOT on a $1,360m toll concession to build SH130 segments 5&6 Thursday and Friday last week in bankers’ offices in New York City – at Orrick, 666 Fifth Avenue. The actual money flows should occur on Thursday or Friday (Mar 13 or 14) this week, Jose Maria Lopez de Fuentes, president of Cintra North America, told us this morning.

Hundreds of documents and over 20 lawyers were involved last week representing TxDOT, private equity people, banks, mostly European, the TIFIA loan group from FHWA, and Cintra and Zachry. SH 130 Concession Company LLC is the special purpose company is owned 65% Cintra, 35% Zachry.

Lopez told us: “The details were all done and the champagne was brought out (by Friday afternoon). It was hard work. But it was good. Everyone was there wanting to be helpful. There are now two or three business days for due diligence (before the money moves).”

Despite “constriction” in financial markets

In a statement Lopez is quoted: “This is an exciting milestone in the development of a much-needed roadway in Central Texas. This financial achievement on the part of our team is especially noteworthy given the current constriction in the financial markets. We now look forward to developing a state-of-the-art expressway system that will provide drivers congestion relief and greater safety.”

The concession contract was signed in June 2006. However, it could not be brought to a financial close until permitting was complete.

The concession company has paid TxDOT the $25.8m upfront concession fee for the right to collect tolls on the new road for 50 years. It has a contract with associated companies Ferrovial Agroman and Zachry Construction for construction of the 40 mile (64km) 2×2 lane expressway which will extend the TxDOT constructed SH130 segments 1 thru 4 from the interchange with TX45 South, on southeast edge of Austin to I-10 at Seguin. Seguin is not far outside San Antonio in a northeasterly direction.

Final design and land acquisition is underway and construction work should start early 2009, Cintra says. Completion should be by 2012 or earlier.

The road will be an all-electronic toll road – no cash collected.

On completion segments 5 and 6 will turn SH130 into an alternative route to I-35 for traffic between Georgetown and San Antonio – constituting a bypass of the Austin metro area and many other settlements that have clustered along the old interstate.

Cintra says the new expressway will “serve not only regional traffic but also offer an alternative to Interstate Highway 35 (I-35) between San Antonio and north Austin, making it possible for medium- and long-distance drivers to avoid the bottlenecks that are becoming increasingly common in Central Texas. This new high-capacity expressway will also help absorb existing and expected growth in long-distance truck traffic, further relieving congestion on I-35, Texas’ primary north-south route.”

Skeptics say the new toll road will not even attract 5-digit – let alone viable 25k – daily traffic volumes for many years and that it is too dependent on congestion on I-35 and on development occurring close-by it. Only on the northern end of the new toll road will there be much local traffic oriented for trips into the rest of the Austin region and that traffic will have free alternates.

The road does seem to make the most sense as part of a longer route from the Dallas area to San Antonio and beyond – to the Trans-Texas Corridor 35 (TTC35). In any case, the investors are putting their money, as the saying goes, where their mouth is. Central Texas gets a valuable new highway without expense to taxpayers.

Speed/concession fee tradeoff

An innovative aspect of the TX130/5&6 concession is the arrangement for higher concession payments if higher posted speeds are approved by the legislature. Details of the concession were posted in these articles:

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/3433

and http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/1535

Concessions may follow from TTC master contract

Cintra has a right of first refusal to negotiate any new concessions for Trans-Texas Corridor 35 (TTC35) from near Georgetown north into the Dallas area and onto the border. Cintra was selected in December 2004 to work toward concessions on 509km (316mi) of TTC35 tollway that was said to involve a possible $6 billion worth of work. This was called a Master Development comprehensive development agreement (CDA). CDA is the unique TxDOT umbrella term for a variety of contracts that range from small consulting jobs through design-build, project development work and large multistage concessions.

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/953

The TTC35 Master Development CDA was only firmed up into a < $10m project development contract with TxDOT for studies and planning of the first part of TTC35 extending from the Oklahoma border through the Dallas area to San Antonio, though it gives Cintra a kind of right-of-first-refusal to negotiate actual concessions.

SH130 is not formally part of TTC35 yet, but it is logically part of it, and no one has suggested any separate road would be viable.

BACKGROUND: Cintra, one of the world’s largest private-sector transportation infrastructure developers, is a publicly-traded company whose majority stockholder is the 100k employee Ferrovial Group. Cintra manages and operates more than 2,800km (1740 miles) of toll road, which represents a managed investment of more than $24 billion. With this project, Cintra will have a stake in companies managing 23 toll roads, in Spain (7), Ireland (2), Greece (2), Portugal (3), Chile (5), Canada (1) and the United States (3). Additionally, Cintra is Spain’s leading parking lot operator and manages more than 266k parking spaces, a Cintra statement says.

Link to article here.

S.A. airport finally gets port of entry status
By Sean M. Wood
Express-News Business Writer
03/04/2008

Private aircraft inbound from foreign countries no longer will have to stop in Laredo or other locations before continuing to San Antonio.The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection will designate San Antonio International Airport permanently as an “airport of first landing” for private aircraft. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff signed the order, and it was sent Tuesday to the Federal Register.

The order is expected to take effect in about 30 days.

“This is very exciting news,” Aviation Director Mark Webb said. “This is something that has been worked on for almost 10 years by a number of staff members and congressional delegations.”

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, has been one of those at the front of the campaign for the permanent change.

“This designation will significantly enhance business, commerce and trade relationships throughout Mexico,” Smith said in a statement. “The city of San Antonio will benefit from this greatly.”

Temporary legislation had granted the airport the designation, which is sometimes called “port of entry.” Airport officials reported an increase in general aviation traffic while the legislation was in effect during two 24-month periods.

“In 2000, when there was no port-of-entry status, we saw 841 private aircraft,” airport spokesman David Hebert said. “In 2006, we had it and it expired in November. So for 11 months, we saw 2,237.”

San Antonio International made the request Dec. 12, 2006, for permanent port-of-entry status.

Permanent status means private aircraft arriving in the United States from foreign countries can come straight to San Antonio International Airport to clear customs. Without that status, private aircraft were going elsewhere, like Laredo.

Smith and local officials argued that situation cost travelers time and the city money. The airport generates fuel fees from these aircraft, but Webb said those extra revenues are not the main benefit.

“This is more about our place as an economic engine in San Antonio,” he said. “The H-E-Bs, the AT&Ts, the Valeros, the corporate community in town flying back and forth from Mexico can do it on a much easier basis.”

Link to article here. Ports to Plains, once promised as a free highway relief route to I-35, is now part of the Trans Texas Corridor, according to Amadeo Saenz, Executive Director fo TxDOT (under oath in TURF lawsuit).

Trade corridor pushed

Officials call for plan on cost

ARTICLE TOOLS: Email Article | Print-Friendly Format

AUSTIN – With all the attention the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor has gotten in recent years, mainly because of growing public opposition, it is easy to forget that West Texas has its own corridor in the works, the Ports-to-Plains Corridor.The Ports-to-Plains Corridor is a proposed divided highway stretching from Laredo through West Texas to Denver to facilitate international trade from Mexico to Canada.

And though Congress designated it as a high priority 10 years ago, it has yet to get full funding.

“It is time to establish the financial plan so we know exactly what we’re aiming for,” Fred Underwood, a Lubbock businessman and member of the Texas Transportation Commission, said on Sept. 20 at a three-day Great Plains International Conference in Denver.

“Our agency will devote the resources to getting this done in partnership with the Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor Coalition,” Underwood said. “We must make this corridor a reality and make Ports-to-Plains a familiar name to communities along this route who will benefit tremendously from its completion.”

Although the state has yet to devise the complete financing plan for its share of the almost 1,400-mile interstate corridor, the project is under way, said Michael Reeves, president of the Ports-to-Plains Corridor Coalition.

“We have some projects underway in Del Rio and on Highway 87 (U.S. 87) in the Panhandle,” Reeves said. “What we’re trying to do is incorporate highways into the system.”

The Coalition is optimistic that the project can be completed in 20 years, Reeves said.

At $2.8 billion for the entire route, the estimated cost is a bargain compared to other TxDOT projects. For example, it would cost $46 billion just to upgrade the Texas portion of Interstate 35.

“The challenge we face is inflation,” Reeves said. “We really need to make a commitment. The gas tax is not producing the money so we’re trying to get federal money … we’re trying to get every resource we can.”

The benefits for West Texas are incalculable, Reeves said.

The corridor would be the nation’s freight alternative, offering shippers a low-density, low-congestion alternative to the major trade corridors.

In addition, the Plains-to-Port Corridor would help the state expand its booming wind power sector, Reeves said.

Although they are not part of the corridor, Denver is connected to Canada through two routes, Reeves said, one through Wyoming and Montana to Alberta and the other through the Dakotas to Saskatchewan.

In all, the Ports-to-Plains Corridor is vital for a healthy Texas economy because even though Mexico is the state’s largest trading partner, the Lone Star State is also doing booming business with Canada, especially with Alberta, he said.

“It’s very important to see the corridor underway,” said Mark Tomlinson, district engineer for TxDOT in the Panhandle. “It encourages growth.”

But because of the financial problems the agency faces, “I anticipate that part of the plan most likely will be delayed,” Tomlinson said.

However, Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, is optimistic that the project eventually will be fully funded.

He said it is in the entire’s state interest to see it completed because it will take away some of the freight traffic from I-35.

“My colleagues understand that the Ports-to-Plains Corridor helps their districts as well,” said Isett who is chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on General Government, which recommends funding for all government agencies, and chairman of the Sunset Advisory Commission, the 10-member legislative panel which oversees the state bureaucracy.

Generally, each government agency is reviewed every 12 years. This year TxDOT is one of 27 due for review.

“This is a big part of the conversation in the Sunset Commission,” Isett said. “The long-term structure of the agency will be part of the review process.”

Link to article here. The Executive Director of TxDOT, Amadeo Saenz, told TURF under oath that La Entrada is part of the Trans Texas Corridor.

Trade route is still a road to nowhere
By John MacCormack
Express-News
03/02/2008

ALPINE — In most settings, likening a West Texas highway project to a symbol of Cold War oppression and comparing its promoters to terrorists might be a bit of a stretch.But at a public hearing here last week, such hyperbole resonated perfectly with the mood.

“Borrowing words spoken in Berlin 20 years ago, ‘Mr. Craddick, Mr. Perry, Mr. Bush, tear down these signs,'” said John Wotowicz of Marfa, prompting a standing ovation from the more than 450 attendees.

Another speaker called the state’s mild-mannered transportation consultant a “bloodsucker.”

For years, highway signs marking the proposed route of La Entrada al Pacifico have stirred hope, anxiety and perplexity among Big Bend area residents.

A NAFTA-era brainchild of businessmen in Midland and Odessa, the project has had the support of heavyweight Austin and Washington elected officials.

So far, however, it has received far more study and debate than money. Only a small relief route around Midland is funded. For all the passion it is stirring, it is far from certain its backers will see their vision become a reality.

As originally conceived, a divided four-lane highway from the border town of Presidio to Amarillo would allow Mexican trucks loaded with Asian imports more direct access to East Coast markets.

But the thought of hundreds of heavy trucks rumbling daily through the quaint downtowns of Marfa, Alpine and Fort Davis has fired broad opposition.

Plague or boon

Critics say the trucks would bring a plague of congestion, noise and pollution, destroying an ambience that has made tourism an area economic mainstay and Marfa a mecca for wealthy outsiders such as Wotowicz, an investment banker from New York City.”I don’t know one soul in this county who doesn’t oppose it. It’s that simple,” said Brewster County Judge Val Beard.

“It’s a concept whose time has passed. It went out the window when everyone thought there would be a huge maquila industry in northern Mexico, but now that has been whacked by the Chinese,” she said.

And while many at the Alpine hearing argued for improving rail connections to Mexico through Presidio, the decrepit condition of the line on the U.S. side makes that less likely than a truck route.

The Texas Department of Transportation, which owns the now-idle rail line that stretches to San Angelo, estimates it would take more than $150 million to make it commercially viable.

Only in needier corners of West Texas — like Presidio, Fort Stockton and Pecos, where the vistas are a bit less inspiring and tourists are fewer — does La Entrada find support as a source of jobs and development.

At public hearings last week around the region, a TxDOT consultant gave both sides reason to be unhappy.

“We’re not recommending widening anything to a four-lane capacity and we’re also eliminating the new corridor alternatives,” said Brian Swindell of HDR, a Dallas firm.

Instead, he said, existing two-lane roads will be able to handle the anticipated growth in truck traffic with the addition of passing zones, relief routes and other improvements.

50 trucks a day

About 50 trucks a day now cross the two-lane bridge at Presidio from Ojinaga, Mexico. Until some recent highway improvements, the remote border city was largely isolated from the rest of Mexico by mountains and canyons.By comparison, some 2,500 trucks arrive daily in El Paso from Mexico, and more than twice that many cross over at Laredo.

According to Swindell’s study, which will be completed this fall, Presidio can expect between 338 and 739 trucks arriving per day by 2030, depending on numerous variables and uncertainties, almost all on the Mexican side of the equation.

Chief among them is how quickly — if ever — Mexico provides a highway link from Ojinaga to the Pacific port of Topolobampo, and how soon it improves the port, which cannot yet handle large ships.

The opening or expansion of other commercial border crossings could also affect the Presidio traffic. And while the consultant’s truck numbers were far lower than other estimates, they did not go down well in Alpine.

“What I’m hearing sounds like a done deal, with bogus, made-up statistics,” griped Tom Williams of Terlingua.

“I’m not hearing anything about moving it all to El Paso,” he added.

The next day, Swindell and the TxDOT crew got a warmer reception in Presidio, about one hour south and a cultural giant step from Marfa.

One glance at the two cities explains their conflicting takes on La Entrada.

Marfa has a majestic courthouse and a manicured, restored downtown, complete with a fine hotel, cultural foundations and a bookstore and art galleries.

Hip outsiders arrive from California and New York to reflect on wide-open spaces, shoot cowboy movies and discuss art.

‘West Texas in the raw’

Presidio, by contrast, has small-block houses and low-end retail commerce amid unpaved roads. Alfalfa fields, junked cars and abandoned mobile homes decorate the landscape.And the first thing visitors arriving from Mexico encounter in Presidio is “La Casa de Oro,” a highway flea market spilling over with bicycles, tires and used clothing. There is no doctor, and the nearest hospital is 90 miles away in Alpine.

While fewer than 40 people turned out to hear Swindell’s talk at Presidio High School, most locals favored La Entrada.

“Presidio is West Texas in the raw. We have to scratch for everything we can get here,” said John Ferguson, a former mayor who is the school bandleader.

Years ago, melon and onion harvests produced steady seasonal work, but agriculture is almost entirely gone, leaving only cross-border traffic and public employment, he said.

“We’re sensitive to the concerns about the environment and to what the people are saying in Marfa and Alpine, and we empathize, but being on the border, truck traffic is good for Presidio,” he said.

Benny Manchett, 75, who works for Bullet Transport in Presidio, scoffs at the notion that a good highway will ever connect Ojinaga with the Pacific.

“It’s a joke. You’ve got an 8,000-foot natural barrier between here and Topolobampo,” he said.

“It took them 100 years to build a railroad through there. Why would you want to go through the Copper Canyon to come here when you can go straight north over flat land to Nogales?” he said.

Others in Presidio are equally skeptical.

“You might as well say we’re going to have aliens come through Presidio. It’s a dream. You have to get more realistic to get my attention,” said Jake Giesbrecht, Bullet Transport’s owner.

“I’m part of the Mexican government’s planning committee. There is nothing planned in the next 10-15 years for a corridor through here. It’s a ghost. Everyone is making things up,” he said.

Contacted by telephone in Chihuahua City, Mexico, the overseer of the project for Chihuahua state, Armando Correa Nuñez, said great progress has been made on the highway but confirmed the uncertainty of ever cutting a truck route through Copper Canyon.

“They will build a road through the canyon someday, but at the beginning it will be a very narrow road for tourism. I just don’t know if they will ever build one for trucks,” he said.

“It’s a lot of money and the state doesn’t have it. It would have to come from the federal government, and President Calderón hasn’t designated it as a priority route,” Correa said.

With or without good access to the Pacific, truck traffic will increase in Presidio no matter what anyone in the United States does or wants, said Charles Perry of Odessa, who founded the Midland Odessa Transportation Alliance in the early ’90s to promote La Entrada.

“The Mexicans have been moving along a lot faster than we have in the United States in getting the corridor open, and that’s astounding everyone,” said Perry, 78.

Neither Texas nor Mexico “is in a position to direct traffic on which highway the trucks will take,” he said. “Traffic is like water: It will take the path of least resistance.”

“In 10 years, you’ll see traffic sufficient to begin the need for a four-lane highway. Somewhere around 5,000 vehicles a day is the limit for a two-lane. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.”

The debate in Texas over a proposed 4,000-mile network of toll roads that will parallel the state’s existing highway system is heating up

More than 10,000 people have attended public hearings across Texas to discuss the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, which has also been dubbed the “NAFTA superhighway.” It is a project that is expected to cost an estimated $183 billion over 50 years. (hear audio report)

Terri Hall with the group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom warns the project will create widespread eminent domain abuse and involve foreign control of public infrastructure. “They’re taking huge swaths of land, up to a million acres of private Texas farm and ranch land,” warns Hall. “Some of it is prime agriculture land … and they’re going to take that land and hand it over to private entities for commercial gain.”

Hall accuses Congress of pulling a “bait and switch” when they promised Texas taxpayers a free interstate. “They designated this corridor route an international trade corridor back in 1995,” argues Hall. “So for Governor Perry, or any of those folks who are trying to push toll roads here in Texas, to try and say that this road stops at the Texas border … that it’s not a NAFTA superhighway … it is an international corridor and it has been designated as such.”
Hall alleges that Governor Perry is “representing the interest of private industry over the public good,” noting he has accepted more than $1 million worth of campaign contributions from road contractors and the “road lobby.”

But the Republican governor is dismissing the concerns of some state residents who are upset the proposed 4,000-mile Trans-Texas Corridor running from Laredo to Canada will turn operation of the public highway system over to private, if not foreign companies. (hear part two of audio report)

Critics of the proposed highway project claim it was never approved by voters, and Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), CNN’s Lou Dobbs, and others call the project a “NAFTA superhighway” and warn it will be part of a “North American Union” between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.

Governor Perry calls critics of the Trans-Texas Corridor “unenlightened.” “Here’s what’s more important rather than all of the black helicopter … conspiracy theories,” argues Perry. “We have many, many multi-national groups that run various things … in the United States as we do in other countries, and nobody is going to roll up our highways and carry them back to Spain.”

According to Perry, there is a reason CEO Magazine selected Texas as the number-one state to do business. “… [U]nderstand you have to have a transportation infrastructure system in place so that people can get from point A to point B, and they don’t spend all their time in gridlock instead of being with their kids at soccer practice or back home with their families,” Perry explains.

Governor Perry maintains the controversial transportation network is necessary to “move [the state’s] people and product around” and reduce road congestion.

Link to blog here.

Residents reject Trans-Texas “monstrosity”
By Zen Zheng
Houston Chronicle blog
January 26, 2008
Finding a spot at the Rosenberg Civic Center’s parking lot Thursday night was a challenge.

At least 600 residents packed the main hall to attend the sixth of the 11 town hall meetings the Texas Department of Transportation has been holding in cities in the path of the proposed Interstate 69 route.

The gathering on the controversial I-69 proposal aimed to allow residents to ask questions and get instant responses from state officials. Originally set for 6:30-9 p.m., it dragged for nearly five hours as scores of residents waited for their turns to tell the officials how upset they were with the proposal.

Residents came from several counties including Fort Bend, Wharton and Waller. Some had attended previous public meetings and decided to continue to protest at the meeting Thursday.

Jeff Ritz of Tomball, who attended the forum in Hempstead, reappeared at the Rosenberg Civic Center entrance to hand out anti-Trans-Texas Corridor stickers. He said to me:

I can’t give this thing out quick enough.

In the lobby, while state officials laid out tables on one side to register speakers and distribute official literature to promote the project, Hank Gilbert, who formed a Texas Uniting for Reform and Freedom organization opposed to toll roads and the proposed corridor, had a table on the other side to gather signatures for a petition to the state.

Throughout the night, residents’ negative sentiment about the project struck me as overwhelming. Officials on the four-person panel including Texas Transportation Commissioner Ned Holmes and TxDOT’s Executive Deputy Director Steve Simmons kept their cool as opponents denounced the proposed 1,200-foot wide, 600-mile long toll road as a “monstrosity.”

Opponents said the proposed corridor would uproot their homes and livelihood and destroy their environment and communities while fattening the pockets of foreign companies and threatening our nation’s security with the open corridor that would link Mexico with Canada through the Unites States heartland.

Holmes and Simmons said the project is needed to address population growth that would worsen roadway congestion and to drive economic development.

When asked why the officials were against popular will as no single voice endorsing of the project was heard at the meeting, Simmons said there were people speaking in support of the proposal at other meetings.

Gilbert was quick to point out that those in support were a handful elected officials who failed to represent the people.

Some residents urged a popular vote on the I-69 idea.

Holmes said if it’s determined that people don’t want I-69, the project could be stopped.

Richard Morrison, a Sugar Land-area attorney, called the statement “a lie.” He said the officials’ mind was already made up before coming to the meeting.

Following the town hall meetings, a series of formal public hearings will be held, in which the officials will not respond to any questions and comments from the public speakers. While the public comments made at the town hall meetings are not officially documented, those from the public hearings will.

The hearings next month include one to be held at Arabia Shrine Center, 2900 North Braeswood in Houston on Feb. 12, at Rosenberg Civic Center, 3825 Highway 36 South, on Feb. 25, and at Katy High School Performing Arts Center at 6331 Highway Boulevard the next day.

Were you at the Jan. 24 town hall meeting? What do you think about the discussion that night? What do you think about the proposed I-69 and Trans-Texas Corridor?

Wonder how free trade, college, and jobs relate to toll roads? Our Nation’s so-called “free trade agreements” are the reason why the Trans Texas Corridor is being built and handed over to a foreign company (Cintra) to reap MEGA profits for the next 50 years. China and multi-national corporations want a new trade corridor to ship cheap Chinese goods into the U.S. at Texas taxpayers’ expense.

The project requires 580,000 acres of private Texas land to benefit Cintra and China, not Texans. It’s the worst eminent domain abuse EVER to befall our country. So in the name of “free trade,” we’re now sending so many high paying jobs overseas, that the expensive college education you just mortgaged your home to pay for was for nothing. U.S. News and World Report is now suggesting those students take blue collar jobs. This election year we can this to the mantra: it’s the jobs, stupid!
It’s Still the Economy, Stupid
By Phyllis Schlafly
Monday, January 21, 2008

Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 using James Carville’s slogan “It’s the economy, stupid.” The Democrats thus capitalized on a temporary economic recession during the last year of George H.W. Bush’s administration.

Could 2008 be a repeat performance? The falling stock market, rising unemployment, skyrocketing oil prices, subprime mortgage collapse and the Michigan recession have moved to front and center in the primaries.

Will the Republicans get it? Or will they just keep mouthing their tired mantras about free trade, the global economy, the world is flat, we have to be more competitive, send more students to community colleges and teach more math and science?

Will the Democrats get it, or just keep mouthing their Big Government mantras that we need more taxpayer-paid social services? The liberal New York Times calls on us to “embrace globalization,” and to compensate for job losses (which it speaks of with elitist disdain as “dislocations”) by extended unemployment benefits, more progressive taxation, tax-paid lifetime retraining of workers, socialized medicine and more income handouts to low-wage workers through the Earned Income Tax Credit.

The private-enterprise system did not cause the loss of jobs. It’s the result of bad U.S. policies and one-sided trade agreements that allow foreign governments to discriminate against American workers and products.

It’s a very bad U.S. policy to invite millions of illegal aliens to come into the U.S., take low-wage jobs and cash in on the social benefits that U.S. taxpayers generously provide to low-income households (estimated by the Heritage Foundation at a net cost of $20,000 per year).

It’s also a very bad U.S. policy to tolerate the H-1B and L-1 racket that is bringing in hundreds of thousands of skilled foreigners, particularly from Asia, to take jobs away from Americans. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, says that the H-1B program is “now replacing the U.S. labor force.”

The public is falsely led to believe that only 65,000 H-1B visas are permitted per year to take jobs for which no American can be found. The true figure is closer to 400,000 annually, because the number is increased by an additional 20,000 foreigners who get graduate degrees from U.S. universities, by foreigners who are completely exempt from the count because they work for research, educational or non-profits, and by 315,000 L-1 visas for which there is no cap at all.

The specific purpose of L-1 visas is to allow multinational companies to transfer managers and specialists within the company for a limited time. The high number now issued annually indicates that the multinationals are abusing L-1s as a back door to bring in lower-paid workers, not for a legitimate rotation of managers and specialized employees.

Tata Consultancy, for example, obtained 4,887 L-1s in fiscal 2006. Tata refused to answer questions from the tech journal InfoWorld, which called the H-1B/L-1 racket the fifth-most-underreported tech story of 2007.

Neither the H-1B nor the L-1 foreigners are expected to take permanent jobs or to get residency in the United States. But no one keeps track of whether or not they go home when their visas expire.

We can thank YouTube for posting on the Web a portion of a conference at which immigration lawyers train employers on how to sidestep immigration law. The blunt advice dished out by Lawrence Lebowitz of Cohen & Grigsby was: “Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified U.S. worker. … Our objective is to get this person a green card.”

Lebowitz also advised employers to find a place to advertise for U.S. workers where you will be “complying with the law” but hoping “not to find qualified and interested worker applicants.”

Jobs losses are also caused by unfair trade agreements signed by our government that encourage corporations to close U.S. plants and move their production overseas. Chinese laborers, working under slave-labor conditions, can be hired for 30 cents an hour.

In addition to the advantage of cheap labor, our trade agreements permit massive product discrimination against us. Foreign governments are allowed to subsidize the goods they export to us, but are also allowed to impose heavy taxes on goods they import from us.

Free trade was supposed to result in a mutual reduction of tariffs so goods can move freely around the world. It didn’t work out that way because our trade agreements do not require a level playing field.

The United States cut our tariffs, but foreign countries substituted border taxes that are just as high as the tariffs they supposedly eliminated. They hide these border taxes under the moniker “value added tax,” and it adds up to playing us for Uncle Sucker.

Now that millions of Americans have lost the good jobs they thought had put them on the path to living the American dream, the voters are waking up. Presidential candidates beware: We want to know what you will do to protect American jobs.