Link to article here.

You gotta ask what kind of reporter is this? Do your homework! Texans for Safe Reliable Transportation is Joe Krier and Red McCombs’ group pushing this stuff on behalf of road profiteers. How is the passage of Prop 12 an endorsement of tolling existing highways or the Trans Texas Corridor neither of which is mentioned in the amendment? This reads like a press release from TxDOT…Cornyn’s head is officially on the chopping block. The second article shows the opposition is already gathering steam. This road was promised as a FREE interstate, now it’s going to be built as a massive tolled trade corridor, likely in the hands of a foreign company. Another bait and switch…

Transportation group applauds TxDOT’s I-69/TTC announcement
By GARY WILLMON
The Lufkin Daily News
November 14, 2007
Transportation advocacy groups are applauding Tuesday’s announcement of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement released by the Texas Department of Transportation on the I-69/Trans-Texas Corridor highway project and agree with TxDOT officials that using existing road rights of way whenever possible in planning the corridor is the best idea.

“Using existing rights of way means highways can potentially be built faster, more cost effectively and with less impact on property owners,” said Bill Noble, spokesman for Texans for Safe Reliable Transportation, a statewide transportation group. “By first considering building along existing roadways, TxDOT will provide better mobility and emergency evacuation for south and east Texas.”

TxDOT also announced public hearings on the I-69/TTC project are to begin in January 2008.

“Public involvement is essential to the planning and design process,” Noble said. “We believe there is strong public support for the TTC-69 in the counties where the highway could be located.”

In last week’s statewide constitutional amendment elections, a majority of voters in counties along the proposed I-69/TTC route voted in favor of Proposition 12, authorizing up to $5 billion in state general obligation bonds for transportation improvements. Specifically, 39 of the 44 proposed counties where the highway project could be located passed Proposition 12 by greater than 50 percent, according to election data from the Texas Secretary of State’s Web site. Only five counties fell below 50 percent.

Angelina County voters passed the proposition with a 66 percent yes vote.

“The population is expected to grow 65 percent within the next 25 years while road usage is projected to increase 214 percent,” said Ted Houghton, a member of the Texas Transportation Commission, at Tuesday’s TxDOT press conference.

Noble said the radical shift in thinking toward meeting future transportation needs is a much-needed one. “Unless Texans change their approach to transportation, road capacity will grow by only 6 percent,” Noble said. “Experts would say that an expanded transportation system for Texas is not optional; it is a necessity.”

Texans for Safe Reliable Transportation is a 501(c)6 public education organization made up of Texas citizens, employers and transportation professionals dedicated to easing traffic gridlock and improving infrastructure to move people and products more efficiently. The group’s Web site is www.BetterTexasRoads.org.

Also on Tuesday, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) gave his endorsement of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement announcement. Cornyn, a member of the I-69 Caucus, said the transportation project will relieve congestion as well as boost the Texas economy.

“Progress on the impact statement brings us another step closer to Texas drivers being able to travel on this corridor,” Cornyn said in Tuesday’s statement. “It is encouraging to see the effort move forward, and I’ll continue working to improve transportation in Texas.”

_______________________________________

Valley Leaders, Toll Opponents, Blast New Corridor Plan
TexDOT plans 650 mile toll road from Valley to Texarkana
By Jim Forsyth, WOAI Radio
November 14, 2007

With controversy not abating over its existing toll road plans, the Texas Department of Transportation has announced plans for another massive toll project, the 650 mile ‘TTC/I-69’ road from Laredo, Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley to Texarkana, 1200 WOAI news reports today.

It is the second leg of the ambitious Trans Texas Corridor to be unveiled. Mark Cross of TexDOT says existing roads would be expanded wherever possible, instead of new roads being built.

“US 59 runs all the way from Texarkana to Laredo, so that’s the main portion of roadway we’ll be looking at,” Cross said.

TexDOT had previously unveiled plans to built TTC-35, which will run mainly east of the existing Interstate 35 from south of San Antonio to the Oklahoma border, and may include State Highway 130, which is currently under construction from Marion to Georgetown.

It is State Highway 130 that 1200 WOAI news reported exclusively more than a month ago that TexDOT has agreed to ‘consider’ cutting the speed limit on Interstate 35 to support. Speed limits on Trans Texas Corridor are allowed by state law to be as high as 85 miles an hour, which would be the highest posted speed limits in the world.

Already there is criticism for the TexDOT plan.

State Senator Eddie Lucio (D-Brownsville), a long time supporter of the “interstate 69” idea, says it’s ‘not fair’ that Rio Grande Valley residents would have to pay a toll to access an Interstate highway. The Valley is the largest area in the country in terms of population without access to a through Interstate highway.

“All the Interstates that were established in Texas, in Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, El Paso, Laredo, all those people can drive on the Interstate for free,” Lucio said. “Why should only people in the Valley have to pay a toll?”

Lucio says residents of the Rio Grande Valley pay just as much in gas tax as people everywhere else in Texas, and should not have to pay to use Interstate highways.

Cross says many environmental hearings are necessary and it will be ‘many years’ before final plans for TTC/I-69 are released.

“Ron Paul’s extraordinary fundraising success is a clear sign that there is a yearning by the Republican grassroots for the party to return to its historic small-government roots. Paul’s message of limited government, free markets and peace obviously has touched a chord. Perhaps the other candidates and the big-government conservatives in Washington should take notice.” —Michael TannerRead about how his grassroots supporters (not his campaign) raised $4.2 million in a SINGLE DAY to assure Ron Paul a place in the top tier and ultimately a place in history if he makes it to the White House.

Ron Paul on the Trans Texas Corridor/NAFTA Superhighways: “The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union–complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union. Like the European Union, a North American Union would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether.” – October 30, 2006

Link to article here.

Giuliani also has massive conflicts of interest through his law firm with the Trans Texas Corridor.

Qatar Contract Offers Glimpse Into Giuliani Firm
Dealings Have Potential For Trouble If Ex-Mayor Receives Nomination
By MARY JACOBY
November 7, 2007

Rudy Giuliani is one of the few candidates ever to pursue the White House while maintaining a high-ranking role in a private-sector firm.

But since he became a candidate for president, the Republican front-runner has rebuffed all calls to disclose details about the clients and dealings of Giuliani Partners, the consulting firm he founded in 2002.

Some of those clients have controversial records. Among those he hasn’t disclosed is the government of Qatar, a Persian Gulf state to whom the firm provided security advice, according to the former U.S. ambassador there. Qatar is a strategic U.S. military ally and energy supplier, yet also a country that has been criticized for its conduct toward al Qaeda — a potential political pitfall for a candidate pitching himself as an uncompromising foe of Islamic terrorism.

Other potentially controversial dealings have been disclosed by the firm or by clients over the years. They include Purdue Pharma, a drug company that hired the firm in 2002 to help with a federal investigation into overdose deaths attributed to the pharmaceutical firm’s powerful OxyContin painkiller, and New York nuclear-power-plant operator Entergy Nuclear Northeast.

But more recent Giuliani clients aren’t known. Because the firm is closely held, Mr. Giuliani isn’t required to disclose much about his income and wealth, other than his holdings in the firm itself, where he remains chairman and chief executive and receives income in the form of guaranteed payments and partnership distributions.

Campaign watchdog groups say that raises some red flags. “Are there folks who might want to have greater influence with a potential President Giuliani? If so, they may be partnering with him now in the hopes of currying favor with him later,” says former federal prosecutor Melanie Sloan, head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

Mr. Giuliani so far has fended off all queries. Giuliani campaign spokeswoman Maria Comella said the campaign wouldn’t comment on any matters to do with the candidate’s business, and said such questions should be answered by Giuliani Partners. A spokeswoman for Giuliani Partners, Sunny Mindel, said in an email: “We do not discuss our clients.”

Earlier this week, he reiterated that he wouldn’t release his client list in an Associated Press interview. “Everything I did with Giuliani Partners has been totally legal, totally ethical,” he said. “They are a very ethical and law-abiding business … There’s nothing for me to explain about it. We’ve acted honorably, decently.”

Still, Mr. Giuliani could face questions about his business ties if he wins his party’s nomination. The Qatar contract offers a window into the potential complications.

Many details of the deal aren’t known, including whether it is still in effect. It was signed with state-run Qatar Petroleum around 2005, according to Chase Untermeyer, who left a three-year term as President Bush’s envoy to Qatar in August. It involved a subsidiary, Giuliani Security & Safety LLC, which offered security advice to a giant natural-gas processing facility in Qatar.

Mr. Untermeyer provided the information after The Wall Street Journal asked him about a 2006 speech in which he said Mr. Giuliani’s firm had “important contracts” in Qatar.

He is a Republican who says he hasn’t endorsed any candidate in the party’s nominating contest; he hasn’t donated to any campaigns this cycle. A spokeswoman for Giuliani Partners declined to comment on the connection.

While Qatar is a U.S. ally, it has drawn scrutiny for its involvement in the U.S. effort to combat terrorism. In 1996, the Federal Bureau of Investigation went to Qatar to arrest al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, then under indictment in New York for a plot to blow up U.S.-bound jetliners. But Mr. Mohammad slipped away, apparently tipped off by an al-Qaeda sympathizer in the Qatari government, U.S. officials told the bipartisan 9/11 commission. Mr. Mohammad went on to mastermind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Qatari officials have denied they tipped off Mr. Mohammad, and a State Department report says the country has offered “significant” counterterrorism support to the U.S. since the 2001 attacks.

Phone calls, emails and faxes seeking comment from officials at Qatar Petroleum in Qatar and at the country’s embassy in Washington went unanswered.

The emirate also hasn’t always followed U.S. wishes in recent years. The Bush administration has pressured Qatar to tone down the anti-American rhetoric of Al-Jazeera, the television station based there. But Qatar rebuffed the request, citing freedom of the press. Qatar also has lagged behind President Bush’s ambitious global-democracy agenda. While the emir has made limited moves toward elections, political parties remain banned and proselytizing by non-Muslims is illegal.

The public financial disclosure report Mr. Giuliani filed in May to run for president doesn’t require him to disclose such contracts as the one with Qatar. It requires him only to reveal his 30% equity stake in Giuliani & Company LLC, the holding company that is the umbrella corporate structure of Giuliani Partners, Giuliani Security & Safety and other related entities.

Other 2008 presidential hopefuls also have faced scrutiny of their private-sector ties and investments. Democratic hopeful John Edwards worked as a consultant for a private-equity fund before running for the 2008 nomination but has faced questions about his $16 million stake in the firm.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney helped found and run private-equity firm Bain Capital, but he retired from the firm in 1999 before holding public office. He still has stakes in Bain funds but has no say in how Bain makes or disposes of its investments, his financial-disclosure report says.

No candidate’s wealth is as closely tied to one entity as Mr. Giuliani’s. He earned income of more than $4 million from Giuliani & Company between January 2006 and May 2007, his financial-disclosure report shows. He values his 30% stake in the company at between $5 million and $25 million.

Barring disclosure from Mr. Giuliani, it isn’t known how much the consulting contract in Qatar contributed toward his income. In addition, Mr. Giuliani receives $1 million in guaranteed income each year from his law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, which opened an office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in June.

Link to article here.

Harris County’s unaccountable toll road slush fund would be far worse with TxDOT’s power to lower speed limits…

Toll road 85, free road 50?
By RICK CASEY
Houston Chronicle
Nov. 6, 2007

Today’s news is that Harris County toll roads are throwing off so much “profit” that they are paying for $120 million worth of other street and road projects and maintenance.

How would you feel if, in order to make even more “profit,” the Harris County Toll Road Authority raised the speed limit on, say, the Hardy Toll Road to 85 mph while lowering the limit on the parallel portion of Interstate 45 to 50 mph?

Then how would you feel if they raised the tolls to reflect the increased demand for the Hardy?

Don’t worry. The Harris County Toll Road Authority doesn’t have the power to play with speed limits that way.

Speed-limit games

But the state of Texas does.And buried in the 192-page “concession agreement” between the Texas Department of Transportation — known affectionately as TxDOT — and the private-sector folks who will build and operate Texas 130, one of the first privatized toll roads to be part of Gov. Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas, are incentives to play just such speed-limit games.

San Antonio Express-News reporter Pat Driscoll stumbled across this possibility while wading through Page 79 of the densely worded document, trying to figure out a section which provides for penalties should TxDOT build or allow anyone else to build roads that might reduce profits on the toll road.

An unintended side benefit

TxDOT signed the contract with a consortium of the Spanish company Cintra and San Antonio-based Zachry Construction Corp. last spring, at a time when legislators were trying to put a brake on Perry’s ambitious privatized toll road system.The penalties for allowing competition to the toll road can be offset by the amount of profit added to the toll operation by a “decrease in the maximum daytime posted speed limit for passenger vehicles on all or a substantial portion of I-35 where it runs generally parallel” to the toll road.

(An unintended side benefit could be a sharp jump in revenue from speeding tickets.)

Conversely, the contract makes TxDOT pay the consortium if the state raises the speed limit on I-35, leading to a decline of toll road profits.

The contract’s incentives for a high speed limit on Texas 130, the first leg of which which will run from north of Austin to Seguin, are more precisely calculated.

If the speed limit is 70 mph, Cintra will pay TxDOT $25 million upfront. At 80 mph, the payment would be $92 million.

And for 85 mph: a cool $125 million.

Or TxDOT could choose a set of profit-share percentages bumped up for higher speed limits.

TxDOT says it would never adjust speed limits to enhance revenues. Speed limits are determined by considerations of highway design, driver habits and safety concerns.

Well, yes, and the state of Texas signed a contract with the donors of the Christmas Mountains saying they would never sell the land to a private owner without the donors’ written permission. Now Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson says that promise is “unenforceable.”

I’ll bet Cintra’s lawyers were smart enough that the toll road contract’s penalties if TxDOT makes nearby free roads too nice are quite enforceable.

That’s one of several problems with privatizing public roads. The public interest can be subordinated to the private interest.

If the public gets angry enough at the Harris County Toll Road Authority, Commissioners Court will slap the agency upside the head and make it behave.,/span>

But Cintra’s lawyers have crafted a 50-page contract that largely shields the firm from public passions.

The contract, for example, provides a complex formula that allows the consortium to charge tolls no elected official would vote to approve.

For 50 years.

Like cable TV companies, they will set their rates on what the traffic will bear.

Except that they won’t have to worry about satellite competition or AT&T.

How do you feel about that?

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Link to article here.

Noncompete clauses ensure toll operators will be richly rewarded
11/06/2007
By Carlos Guerra
San Antonio Express-News

Ever wish you weren’t right?
In 1997, the notion of selling off publicly owned infrastructure to private sector operators was coming into its own.

After the city hired a consultant to determine the value of the publicly owned CPS Energy, it raised red flags.

CPS consistently charges some of Texas’ lowest utility rates while providing a significant chunk of the city’s revenue, I argued. Profit motives can produce wondrous results. But uncontrolled, they can also produce costly disasters.

Some things — especially those that efficiently deliver services that are essential — are best kept in the public sector to assure accountability and to prevent gouging.

“We would never consider selling Loops 410 and 1604, Interstates 10, 35 and 37 to private investors,” I wrote at the time. “Does anyone doubt that they would not turn them into toll roads and render us subject to their price demands?”

But hey, what did I know.

Despite massive public opposition, by 2004, plans for a massive system of privately operated toll roads were already well developed at the Texas Department of Transportation. Agency officials answered critics of toll-road proposals by insisting that toll roads were absolutely necessary. They were, in fact, inevitable because the state’s fuel taxes simply weren’t generating the revenue for badly needed highways.

And besides, they said, free, un-tolled alternative lanes will always be provided for those who don’t — or can’t — pay.

They did, however, concede that private-sector operators would receive some sort of “noncompete clauses” to assure investors that their toll roads would actually be profitable.

When pressed for details, they said that public roads already planned for construction over the next 25 years could still be built or improved. But if roads that compete with toll roads were built or widened, the state would have to reimburse operators for the lost revenues.

As transportation writer Patrick Driscoll reported Monday, TxDOT very quietly inked a deal in March with a consortium composed of Spanish financial behemoth Cintra and San Antonio-based Zachry Construction to build a 40-mile section of Texas 130 and collect tolls on it for 50 years.

The four-lane road will be built roughly parallel to I-35 from Austin to Seguin. In time, it will be part of a statewide system of pay-as-you-go lanes that will supposedly fund construction of other highways.

Details of the contract’s noncompete agreement, however, provide disturbing insights into what is likely to be part of future public-private deals.

In essence, a complex system that will richly reward TxDOT has been set up to encourage drivers to take toll lanes and fines the state for encouraging them to use free lanes.

An essential element of the noncompete agreement involves manipulating speed limits on both Texas 130 and I-35. Through either of the options, the state gets more money for setting higher speed limits for the toll lanes and keeping current speed limits, or even lowering them, on the free lanes.

If TxDOT sets the speed limit on the toll roads at 70 mph, for example, it will get a $25 million payment upfront. But if it allows traffic to zoom on tolled lanes at 80 mph, it will get $92 million, and $125 million for allowing 85 mph. This, however, is only part of this convoluted tale.

Under a second option, TxDOT will also receive a significantly larger percentage of the tolls collected if it allows higher speed limits on the toll road.

In year eight of the 50-year contract, for example, the agency will get only 4.65 percent of the first $82 million collected, and 9.3 percent of the next $47 million that comes in.

If, on the other hand, it allows traffic to move at 80 mph, those percentages will rise to 9.05 percent and 18.1 percent, and to 11.05 percent and 22.1 percent for allowing 85 mph.

Since TxDOT is also empowered to set speed limits on highways that are not tolled — such as I-35 — guess what is likely to happen on that highway?

Link to article here. Our highway department and Legislature has handed their authority over road safety and efficient travel to a FOREIGN COMPANY! Ric Williamson actually said the private companies will determine the where the roads go (not Texas citizens and communities), now these HOGS AT THE TROUGH will determine the speed limits, too. In the Governor’s counterfeit private toll moratorium bill, SB 792, the Legislature allowed the State to make money if they drive more traffic to a foreign-controlled tollway! The reason the non-compete agreement (mentioned below) doesn’t prohibit the planned expansion of I-35 is because they plan to TOLL IT, too! Therefore, it’s not a “competing” FREE alternative!

Slower I-35 part of deal on toll road
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News
11/04/2007

A recent toll road contract that shoehorns market incentives into a government monopoly would reward the state for lowering speed limits on Interstate 35, effectively steering drivers to the toll road.

The privatization contract for Texas 130 from Austin to Seguin, cutting a parallel path east of I-35, was quietly signed in March amid a legislative furor over whether to freeze such agreements. It includes a controversial clause that penalizes the state for widening or building competing roads.

If a project over the next 50 years — with some exceptions — interferes with Texas 130 toll traffic, the Texas Department of Transportation would have to pay Cintra of Spain and Zachry Construction Corp. of San Antonio for their lost profits.

But the state can also get credit, though not payment, for driving traffic to the tollway, including by lowering posted speeds on I-35.

Not that TxDOT would do that, and certainly not for financial gain, spokeswoman Gaby Garcia said.

“We don’t expect to be reducing speed limits on I-35,” she said. “They are set by traffic engineering studies and not by economic gain.”

But toll critics say a gate is open to the manipulation of I-35 traffic to ensure toll profits, and they don’t trust TxDOT as the sentry.

“Our highways are being hijacked for private interests,” said Terri Hall of Texans United for Reform and Freedom. “Who’s going to rein in this agency? It just baffles me.”

To change a speed limit on a road, TxDOT usually follows a complex formula based on the fastest pace set by 85 percent of motorists. But conditions such as crash rates could warrant lower speeds.

Laws and policies can also lower speeds, for reasons such as conserving gas.

“Speed limits are not arbitrarily set,” Garcia said.

But just as a speed limit giveth, sometimes it taketh away.

If TxDOT raises the speed limit on I-35, it must pay Cintra-Zachry for any toll losses, according to a maze of requirements in the 192-page toll contract and its 476 pages of support documents.

Oddly, any improvements to the freeway are exempt from the competition clause. Also exempt are projects in existing 25-year plans.

The contract doesn’t stop there — it also covers speed limits for the 40 miles of Texas 130 that will run from Seguin to south of Austin, where it’ll hook up with another segment that now loops around the city.

Cintra-Zachry will pay TxDOT $25 million upfront if the limit is set at 70 mph but will fatten the offer to $92 million for 80 mph and $125 million for 85 mph, which state law allows. The agency could opt instead to take a growing bite of profits.

Under the privatization deal, TxDOT’s first, Cintra-Zachry will finance, build and operate the $1.3 billion tollway in the hope of eventually turning a profit.

Motorists in cars will pay about 15 cents a mile, with rate increases capped to the annual growth of state domestic product. There will be no tollbooths — collections will be done with electronic tags and cameras.

Cintra-Zachry recently began a process to buy the land, and it expects to start construction in a year or two and open the roadway in 2012. The state will handle property disputes.

Link to Chronicle article here.

Kudos to TURF supporter Jenny Hurley for speaking up and questioning why this meeting with our elected officials and the Chamber of Commerce was going to be SECRET (which is standard operating procedure for Perry and his highway department)! Once again, it’s BIG BUSINESS teaming up with BIG GOVERNMENT to STEAL our land and hard-earned money to benefit multi-national corporations.

Turning U.S. 59 into I-69: controversial project is in motion
By Zen Zheng
Houston Chronicle
November 01, 2007

A controversial state plan to turn U.S. 59 into Interstate 69, which would run from Laredo to Texarkana, is gaining momentum.
On Oct. 26, I attended a workshop at Sugar Land City Hall held by the I-69 Alliance featuring Texas Transportation Commissioners Ted Houghton and Ned Holmes.

The meeting gathered engineers and planners from Texas Department of Transportation, county judges, county commissioners, municipal officials, economic development council and chamber of commerce heads from communities along the proposed I-69 corridor, as well as a few local residents concerned about the project.

Houghton on Oct. 3 told me that the meeting was closed to the public without giving me an explanation. I decided to go anyway. And it turned out that I had a free pass that day. Jenny Hurley, an officer of the Fort Bend County Democratic Party, said she called the state after reading my article asking why the meeting would be closed to the public. One resident at the workshop also posed the question to Houghton. Houghton said:

I joked with Zen when I told him he couldn’t come.

Well, I need to begin cultivating my sense of humor.

Fort Bend County Commissioners Tom Stavinoha and Andy Meyers were among the local officials at the workshop. County Judge Bob Hebert sent his executive assistant D’Neal Krisch instead of making his personal presence.

Hebert on Oct. 3 said “we need the road” but later through Krisch clarified with me that he doesn’t have a formal stance on the issue or support the project. Krisch said the county chief welcomes the state effort in seeking local input on the project.

Houghton and Holmes urged local support to the project that they said would bring economic prosperity to the region through speedier cargo delivery to create more robust trade and thousands of new jobs along the route.

But the few residents at the meeting expressed skepticism and concerns about the impact on their quality of life with the creation of a gigantic network of highways, freight and high-speed commuter rails and infrastructure for water, electricity, oil and gas pipelines.

I-69 is part of the Trans-Texas Corridor plan that would eventually link Mexico with Canada through the U.S. heartland.

U.S. 59 is one of the two corridors picked by the state to form the I-69 network. The other corridor extends from Michigan and Illinois south through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and ends at the terminus of U.S. 77 and U.S. 281 in the Rio Grande Valley.

An environmental impact study for the project is being completed by the state before a series of town hall meetings and public hearings will be scheduled next year.

Houghton said his commission will form advisory committees to assist with the project’s planning and development. Each committee would have a maximum 24 members comprising the state transportation agency’s staff, local government leaders, port heads, economic development and chamber of commerce officials, and representatives of metropolitan planning organizations.

According to guidelines being considered, committees will be required to mobilize support from the community for the project and to sign agreements to not disclose confidential information furnished them.

Houghton said the goal is to begin I-69 construction within two to three years.

Link to article here.

Remember that this same law firm, Bracewell and Giuliani is the sole law firm representing the Spanish company Cintra who won the rights to build the Trans Texas Corridor. His firm also advised Cintra on the US 121 privatized toll road deal in the Dallas area that was later snatched from Cintra due to the controversy of gouging citizens with high tolls to drive on public highways and losing control of our public infrastructure to foreign companies.

Giuliani Still Working at Firm He Promised to Leave
By John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 30, 2007; A06
Ten months into his presidential bid, Rudolph W. Giuliani continues to work part time at the security consulting firm he promised to leave this past spring to focus on his pursuit of the Republican nomination.

Giuliani’s continuing involvement with a firm catering to corporate clients makes him unique among Republican contenders. It also complicates the task of separating his firm’s assets from his campaign spending.

Several of the firm’s employees do volunteer work for his campaign. And Giuliani did not decide until mid-June, six months after he entered the race, to bill his campaign for the cost of the security detail traveling with him on campaign trips; before then, the firm paid the expense.

Aides at Giuliani Partners in New York and with his campaign confirmed that he continues working part time at the firm. They declined to answer specific questions about the nature of his efforts, his compensation or the amount of time he spends there.

“Mayor Giuliani spends the majority of his time on the campaign,” Giuliani Partners spokeswoman Sunny Mindel said, declining to be more specific.

Federal election laws prohibit Giuliani’s firm from absorbing costs or providing services that legally should be covered by political donations, campaign experts said.

“This is a lawyer’s nightmare,” said Republican political consultant Scott Reed, who ran the 1996 presidential bid of then-Sen. Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) but is not aligned with a presidential campaign in this race. “I don’t think the vulnerability is with voters on the level of his commitment to the race. The concern is really about FEC violations and whether anything this corporation does to help him essentially is making a contribution to run for president in the form of staff time, materials, travel billing or security.”

Giuliani’s aides said the firm and the campaign comply with all federal election rules and laws.

Giuliani formed the firm after he left the New York mayor’s office in 2002. He built upon the reputation he earned while helping the city recover from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to advise clients across the world on security issues.

The clients have included civic leaders in Mexico City, who sought Giuliani’s expertise on law enforcement strategies; companies that wanted to build a post-Sept. 11 security plan; and those that sought strategic advice on how to win business in the growing homeland security sector.

Giuliani’s firm has grossed more than $100 million since its formation. It has employed many of the same political insiders who worked around Giuliani during his mayoral years, such as former chief of staff Anthony V. Carbonetti, former fire chief Thomas Von Essen and former corporation counsel Michael D. Hess. It also includes former FBI executive Pasquale J. D’Amuro, a highly regarded terrorism expert.

Last year, Giuliani earned about $4.1 million from the firm, according to the presidential campaign financial disclosure report he filed in May.

Because the firm represents many security interests, some of which might have business before the federal government, Giuliani faced questions about his continuing employment there. He announced in April that he planned to leave the firm to concentrate entirely on the campaign.

“I’m largely out of it, and I’m pretty much going to be out of it at some point pretty soon,” he told reporters on April 4 while campaigning in South Carolina.

Six months later, he continues to do some work at the company.

Aides refused to discuss the exact nature of the work, but Hess, in an interview with The Washington Post earlier this year, provided some insight into Giuliani’s role in the firm since he became a candidate.

“When Rudy is here, he is hands-on,” Hess said in late April. “He does discuss all the different matters. When we get a client, sometimes they are people Rudy knows and sometimes others of us know or hear about them. Invariably, a new client will want to meet with Rudy, and this was frequent a while ago, and it has become less frequent as he is going around on his campaigning.”

Hess said Giuliani also tries to attend the firm’s strategic meetings when he is in New York, gatherings that resemble the early-morning staff meetings he held as mayor.

“Over the years since we’ve been here, we do have frequent meetings. They varied with the time Rudy has. Sometimes Rudy is in New York a lot, and sometimes he is here less,” Hess said. “They are reminiscent of staff meetings that we had in City Hall. He was somewhat famous for having the 8 a.m. meeting with about a dozen or 15 commissioners. Likewise, we have staff meetings here.”

During an interview in June with CNBC‘s Larry Kudlow, Giuliani said that he was spending no more than 10 percent of his time doing work for the firm while he was campaigning and that he planned to take a leave of absence.

“I would have thought during the general election, but it seems to me nowadays, with all these things moving up, probably sometime during the primaries,” Giuliani said about the timing of his leaving. “But right now I’d say I’m 95 percent campaigning, maybe 5 to 10 percent trying to settle up last-minute things.”

Giuliani has ended another of his more lucrative private ventures — giving paid speeches. The former mayor, popular on the motivational speaking tour, earned about $11 million in speech and book fees last year but stopped giving such speeches in February.

Giuliani falls in the middle of the presidential field when it comes to job commitments. Several candidates have full-time jobs as members of Congress, such as Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), GOP Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), and Republican Reps. Duncan Hunter (Calif.), Tom Tancredo (Colo.) and Ron Paul (Tex.).

But the two Republicans closest to Giuliani in the polls — former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney — are multimillionaires who have no private-sector jobs.

Reed said if he were managing Giuliani, another multimillionaire, he would have advised the candidate to step aside from his firm as soon as the race started.

“I think it always is wise to close down all of these other efforts . . . so that, one, you give the campaign 100 percent, and two, you don’t give your political enemies possible ammunition,” he said.

One concern among ethics experts is that Giuliani’s continuing affiliation with the firm might create a public perception that clients with business that could be affected by a Giuliani presidency might hire the firm to curry favor.

The firm’s past clients had many connections to government. They include:

• Purdue Pharma, which resolved a lengthy Drug Enforcement Administration investigation into the security of its OxyContin painkiller with only a fine, with the Giuliani firm’s help.

• A confessed drug smuggler who hired Giuliani to help ensure that his company could do security consulting business with the federal government in the post-Sept. 11 period.

• The horse-racing industry, which hired Giuliani’s firm to review the security of its betting systems after a wagering scandal shook public confidence.

• BioOne, a company that can do biological cleanups, such as its cleaning of a Florida media building after the 2001 anthrax attacks.

• Energy giant Entergy, which hired Giuliani’s firm to help tighten its security.

In addition, Giuliani’s firm created a spinoff called Giuliani Capital Advisors, which advised companies on bankruptcies and expansion in the homeland security marketplace. Giuliani sold that arm of the firm earlier this year.

Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Link to article here. Considering China’s provocative military actions (militarizing space by demonstrating their ability to explode satellites, stalking our ships off the coast of Japan, stealing military secrets most recently by hacking Pentagon computers and trying to buy the company that makes the Pentagon’s software to protect it from hackers) and its aggressive push to make the U.S. dependent on its steady stream of cheap goods (hence the reason for the Trans Texas Corridor and NAFTA superhighways), it’s foolish and dangerous to allow the Communist Chinese to control our infrastructure, too! This also highlights the problem of countries (like Australia, U.S., and China) investing public pension funds in these controversial and risky infrastructure deals when gas prices have risen unabated since Katrina.

State funds and banks lead China’s hunt
By Richard McGregor in Beijing
Published: October 30 2007 22:03

Link to article here.

Data add to gloom on US economy
By Francesco Guerrera, Jonathan Birchall and Daniel Pimlott in New York
Published: October 30, 2007

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

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Link to article here.AP
Dollar Hits New Lows on Economic Data
Tuesday October 30, 2007
By Tali Arbel, AP Business Writer

Dollar Sinks to 26-Year Low Vs. Pound, Record Low Against Euro As Economic Data Disappoints

NEW YORK (AP) — The dollar fell to a new record low against the euro and a 26-year low against the British pound Tuesday after lower-than-expected consumer confidence data was released and ahead of Wednesday’s Federal Reserve interest rate decision.The dollar slid against the euro throughout the afternoon, as the euro peaked at $1.4440, the latest in a string of all-time highs against the dollar, before settling at $1.4434. The euro had finished at $1.4424 in New York late Monday, the same day it hit its last record of $1.4438.

The pound rose to $2.0679 in late New York trading Tuesday — a level last seen in 1981, when Diana married Prince Charles and Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.

The British currency was powered by expectations that the Bank of England will keep its benchmark interest rate at 5.75 percent next week. The pound had finished at $2.0619 in New York late Monday.

The Canadian dollar hit a new 47-year high of $1.0510 Tuesday, according to Dow Jones’ Interbank foreign exchange rates, before settling at $1.0488, down from $1.0495 in late New York trading Monday. The U.S. dollar bought 95.35 Canadian cents.

The Canadian dollar is a commodity-backed currency, benefiting when prices of its exports rise. Canada is a major producer of oil, and crude prices have risen 35 percent since August, hitting a string of record highs.

The euro and the Canadian dollar have been climbing steadily against the dollar, regularly touching new highs since August amid fears over the health of the U.S. economy — worries stoked by the subprime credit crisis and disappointing economic reports — and rising oil prices.

Tuesday saw the release of more disheartening economic data, as the Conference Board reported that its Consumer Confidence Index fell to 95.6 — its lowest level since October 2005 — from a revised 99.5 in September. It is the index’s third consecutive monthly drop and signals consumers’ insecurities over the economy and their jobs.

Other critical economic reports scheduled for the rest of week include an advance report on gross domestic product and the releases of figures on third-quarter manufacturing activity and October employment.

Markets expect the U.S. Federal Reserve to cut its key interest rate from its current level of 4.75 percent Wednesday — adding to an unexpectedly bold half-point cut last month.

Although lower interest rates can jump-start an economy, they can weaken a currency as investors transfer funds to countries where their deposits and fixed-income investments bring higher returns. Higher rates can boost a currency.

“The weakening of the dollar today came after the consumer confidence numbers came in. The market’s focusing more on economic data and what its implications are for December rather than tomorrow’s rate cut,” said Bob Sinche, head of global foreign exchange strategy at Bank of America Corp., adding that investors have already priced in a 25-basis point cut for October, and the dollar probably would not react strongly to tomorrow’s rate cut announcement.

The decline of the dollar makes U.S. exports cheaper abroad, which could boost corporate earnings and may increase tourism at home. However, prices of foreign-made goods, such as French wine and Canadian maple syrup.

In other trading, the dollar rose slightly against the Japanese currency to 114.77 yen from 114.59 yen, but fell against the Swiss franc to 1.1600, from 1.1651 Swiss francs late Monday.