View KVUE TV coverage here and CBS-42 TV coverage here.

Today’s Senate hearing was a tremendous success. Senator Carona’s office told us that aside from the redistricting controversy several years back, today’s hearing had record attendance for a Senate Hearing with 800 witnesses! I’d like to thank Senator Carona for the honor of being the very first person called to testify at today’s hearing. Considering the many experts he could have called ahead of me, he chose to hear from the GRASSROOTS first and foremost!

There’s too much to tell, but we’ll do our best to do a quick summary. But let it be known…your LOUD OPPOSITION has been heard and the message got through!

NOT TOO LATE TO SUBMIT COMMENTS!
You can still submit your opposition to Senator Carona and get on the record here. For ideas on what to say go here

SENATOR NO SHOW

Ask Senator Jeff Wentworth (210) 826-7800 what was more important than attending this hearing on the committee on which he sits. Is there any more controversial project in his district right now than tolls on 281 and 1604…and yet he doesn’t show up to hear from them?

WHAT HAPPENED

• BOMBSHELL OF THE DAY! State Auditor gave a summary of their audit report of the Trans Texas Corridor released last Friday, and said out of 32 invoices, 21 were allocated to the wrong project and some coded “engineering” but were actually spent on public relations!!! Remember the Governor unequivocally stated NO TAXPAYER money would go to fund this corridor and yet the Auditor revealed $90 million has already been spent with potentially billions more in the hopper!

They also found projects that were financially unsustainable with tolls that would require taxpayer subsidies to build. THIS IS THE SMOKING GUN THEY TRIED TO HIDE BY KEEPING THE CONTRACT SECRET FOR 18 MONTHS and released upon threat of a lawsuit by citizens 30 days prior to the election. Read more of the Auditor’s details on the appalling MISUSE of taxpayer money and gross abuse of power by TxDOT on the TTC here.

• Carona called an expert witness on Public-Private Partnerships (PPP, or to you and I, PPP stands for “Perfect Pick Pocket”), Dennis Enright with NW Financial, who has analyzed the recent PPPs for the toll road sales to Cintra-Macquarie in Chicago and Indiana…he UNEQUIVOCALLY STATED PPPs COST THE STATE 50% MORE than if the public/govt. operated the toll road. He also stated it was ALWAYS BEST to keep toll roads in the public’s hands.

He also said this gem: “Toll roads by their very nature are monopolies.”

Enright was asked about the deal just inked with Cintra-Zachry on 121 in Dallas and he said: “I haven’t analyzed it yet because you can’t get access to them in Texas.” TELLING! Our Dept of Transportation chooses to broker back room deals and keep its contracts SECRET from the taxpayers in order to HIDE the FAVORABLE terms they’re giving these private interests! Enright also stated there was ZERO risk to the private entity on the 121 deal and said it was a perfect investment for the developer (but horrible for the public).

The private entity also has no motive reduce congestion by maximizing cars that take the toll road since they can hike the tolls and reduce the number of cars that take it and reduce their maintenance cost. They have a economic incentive for high tolls and ghost town tollways…they only need enough travelers to cover their cost and desired profit, the rest of us can go take an access road!

If they used the same toll formula Cintra-Macquarie used for the Chicago deal, it would cost $185 to travel the 121 toll road in it’s most expensive year! Once again, all TxDOT could tout was how they’d charge whatever the market will bear. They said the market would bear 28 cents a mile on 121. Compare that to 1-3 cents a mile we pay in gas taxes and you can see this is a public fleecing!

• TxDOT grillin’ – the HOT SEAT, it’s about time! In a nutshell, TxDOT’s Chief Financial Officer, James Bass, couldn’t answer the senators’ most basic questions on what the maximum toll rates would be in the most expensive year of the 50 year contract on 121 which begs the question…if their Chief Financial Officer doesn’t have a clue about the most basic details of these contracts, then what is our Dept. of Transportation busy doing? It became abundantly clear that they’re nothing more than an extension of the corporate special interests that stand to make BILLIONS on the backs of the taxpayers!

Carona had two questions of Williamson. Why not expand I-35 and why build the Trans Texas Corridor? Then, when Williamson took the HOT SEAT, after much back and forth, Carona finally got him to agree with him that expanding EXISTING I-35 is the BEST scenario vs. erecting the Trans Texas Corridor. Carona also caught he and TxDOT in a number of misleading figures about I-35’s ORIGINAL plan calling for 16 lanes in the urban areas and the true costs. They tried to say it it would cost more today to expand I-35 by two lanes than the cost of the ORIGINAL plan that called for 16 lanes. Nobody buys it!

• Michael Stevens, who Chairs the Governor’s Business Council and who hired A&M to do the study that showed we don’t need tolls to meet future transportation needs, testified that they didn’t even study the TTC or count that as one of the State’s unmet “needs” because they determined it wasn’t a need! HE STATED THE TTC WOULD NOT RELIEVE ANY CONGESTION IN URBAN AREAS so it’s NOT NEEDED! That’s right…the TTC, though the Governor and TxDOT have repeated claimed the need for it is to relieve I-35 congestion, will do ZIP, ZILCH, NADA to relieve I-35 traffic!!!!! He finished by saying EVERY analysis of public versus private toll roads showed that public toll roads were cheaper, sometimes significantly cheaper than private ones.

CALL FOR IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION OF TXDOT!
If our government builds the Trans Texas Corridor after that declaration, we need to call for a public flogging of our officials! Folks with testimony like we heard today, I rest my case. We’re right, this Governor and his Transportation Commission are WRONG, and we need to call for immediate investigations by our Attorney General into TxDOT cooking the books and INSIST this Legislature pass legislation to redirect TxDOT’s completely wrong-headed fiscal mismanagement of a public agency forcing the MOST EXPENSIVE options upon the taxpaying public with NO OVERSIGHT or ACCOUNTABILITY with no justification WHATSOEVER except corporate enrichment!

Find out who your representatives are here.The Attorney General needs to investigate TxDOT for cooking the books NOW, heads need to roll for this gross misuse of taxpayer money! How do we do it? Ask your representatives to ask the AG to open an investigation IMMEDIATELY!

Link to article here and here.

Note how the reporter buries the FACT that 121 was already built with gas tax dollars and has now been hawked by Perry’s little council to the highest bidder…no surprise that it’s Cintra. This is DOUBLE TAXATION and Senator Carona notes it does include a non-compete clause prohibiting the government from expanding or improving any surrounding roads (for 50 years) that would “compete” with Cintra’s precious toll revenue. These sweetheart deals negotiated in SECRET outside the pubic purview will cost the taxpayers $100 BILLION over the next 50 years. (See article below where it estimates that’s the figure Cintra will make off our PUBLIC assets).

Tax and spend Republicans under Rick Perry’s spell crow about the $5 billion deal that gives them more play money to build roads….how is this a good deal when the taxpayers will be fleeced for $100 billion in the long run for a road they’ve already built and paid for with gas taxes??? Is it any wonder the arrogance of the Governor-appointed Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson when his boss talks like this? “‘It seems to me it’s working as advertised,’ Perry said. ‘It seems to me the power has devolved away from Austin to the local officials you see behind me. If the folks in Austin want to take away the power of the RTC (Regional Transportation Council), I will let them have that fight with y’all.’”

Private firm to operate Hwy. 121 toll road for 50 years
By GORDON DICKSON
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

ARLINGTON — The Spanish firm Cintra has been selected to build and manage the Texas 121 toll road in Denton and Collin counties, in a $5 billion, 50-year deal that includes payment of $2.8 billion into North Texas coffers for other highway work.

Cintra is also the majority partner in Cintra Zachry, which is planning the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor.

Cintra operates toll roads and parking areas worldwide, and often uses private investment funds to make large, up-front payments to public agencies in exchange for the right to collect tolls for many years.

Metroplex officials on Tuesday stood side-by-side with Gov. Rick Perry, who visited the North Central Texas Council of Governments’ Arlington office to announce the plan.

“I think we can boil it down to five words,” said Michael Morris, council of governments transportation director. “Austin: We have a solution.”

Under Perry’s administration, decisions about where to spend much of the state’s highway funding have been transferred to a group of 40 mostly elected leaders known as the Regional Transportation Council. Those regional leaders backed the concept of using private funds to build and manage roads, to make up for a lack of tax-supported highway funds.

“It seems to me it’s working as advertised,” Perry said. “It seems to me the power has devolved away from Austin to the local officials you see behind me. If the folks in Austin want to take away the power of the RTC, I will let them have that fight with y’all.”

If, as expected, the selection by the Texas Department of Transportation’s Dallas district office is approved by the Texas Transportation Commission on Wednesday, Cintra will collect tolls on Texas 121 from Lewisville to McKinney for 50 years. The deal is also contingent upon completion of an environmental study.

The total value of Cintra’s bid is just over $5 billion, TxDot Dallas engineer Bill Hale said.

It includes:

• $2.1 billion up-front for regional leaders to spend as they see fit.

• $716 million paid in annual installments over 49 year, also for regional needs.

• $560 million to extend Texas 121 main lanes in Collin County.

• $1.7 billion to maintain and rehabilitate the road over 50 years, including any future lane additions.

Tarrant County will likely receive several hundred million dollars in benefit, which will help ensure that Interstate 35W, Loop 820, Airport Freeway and the Grapevine Funnel are improved, North Richland Hills Mayor Oscar Trevino said. However, the bulk of the funding will go toward projects closer to Texas 121, including improvements to Interstate 35E.

No additional public dollars will be used on the Texas 121 project. However, public money was already used to build the Texas 121 frontage roads in Denton and Collin counties, and main lanes in Denton County.

Spanish company wins North Texas toll road contract
Houston Chronicle/Associated Press
Feb 27, 2007

MCKINNEY, Texas — A Spanish transportation company contracted to build Gov. Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor won a critical recommendation Tuesday to turn state Highway 121 into a toll road through Collin and Denton counties.

Officials from the Texas Department of Transportation plan to recommend Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte as the developer of the toll road during a Wednesday meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission.

If the commission approves the deal, Cintra will pay $2.8 billion to the Regional Transportation Council, a North Texas group responsible for transportation planning in the region. In exchange, Cintra will operate and collect tolls on the highway for the next 50 years.

Collin County officials hailed the deal as one solution to its traffic problems.

“At a time when budgets are stretched thin to meet every transportation need in North Texas, this project can be a valuable source of income to help us pay for other projects needed in this county,” Collin County Commissioner Joe Jaynes said.

But some state lawmakers are starting to get frustrated with the state’s pursuit of privately financed toll roads and wonder about the ultimate cost.

Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security, said the Cintra deal includes provisions that bar the state from building its own roads in the area during the 50-year contract. That puts the state in a financial bind if it wants to build roads to help a growing population.

“The advantage is roads will be built sooner,” Carona said. “What you won’t hear about is toll rates will be raised unlike anything we have seen today.”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, who pushed the 2003 bill that helped set up the toll road initiative, said he was “asleep or not smart enough” to recognize potential problems.

“We are giving away a public asset and don’t have much say about it for 50 years,” said Ogden, R-Bryan.

Cintra-Zachry, a Spanish-American consortium, plans to build the Trans-Texas Corridor, a state-owned toll road. The consortium, made up of Spain-based Cintra and San Antonio-based Zachry Construction, would get to operate the road and collect tolls.

Link to article here.

Road Kill
by Eileen Welsome
Texas Observer
Feb. 27, 2007

Although the current Legislative session is only a few weeks old, Ric Williamson, the embattled chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, has already incurred the wrath of numerous state lawmakers intent on curbing the Department of Transportation’s plans to pave the state with toll roads and a network of superhighways known as the Trans-Texas Corridor.

If recent incidents are harbingers, the road warriors at TXDOT will be forced to jettison their own aggressive agenda this session and focus on protecting the new powers they were handed just four years ago to radically alter the way roads are financed and built.

The showdown began a few weeks ago when Williamson, a friend of Gov. Rick Perry and an ex-legislator himself, failed to appear at a budget hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. One senator, pointing out that it’s customary for department heads to be present when their budgets are being considered, asked Mike Behrens, TXDOT’s executive director, where Williamson was. Behrens explained that Williamson’s schedule was too full, a remark that touched off an angry round of muttering. “Make sure he’s here on March 1st,” snapped one senator.

On March 1, the Lege will hold its first public hearing ever on the Trans-Texas Corridor and the plethora of privately operated toll roads being planned for the state. TXDOT has spent millions of dollars on advertising and consultants trying to convince the public that the best solution for Texas’ massive traffic jams is allowing private investors to build toll roads. But its public relations campaign has backfired, managing to enrage not only large segments of the driving public, but also state legislators, congressmen, and scores of local officials who sit on city councils, county commissions, and transportation councils. The chickens, as Malcolm X once said, have come home to roost.

Nearly a dozen bills have been introduced to rein in TXDOT’s plans, and more are expected. Leading the effort is Republican John Carona, a Dallas businessman and chairman of the Senate’s Transportation and Homeland Security Committee. Said Carona, “The Transportation Commission and the governor’s office are so focused on short-term cures that they have not studied the long-term ramifications of what they’re doing. And I think the long-term ramifications are disastrous for this state.”

Carona has filed several bills that would severely curtail the profits that toll-road operators can make on their pay-as-you-go highways.

Under one measure, tolls could only be raised to cover the cost of repairs and maintenance. A second would ban noncompete clauses that basically prohibit TXDOT from building free roads that might reduce traffic on the tolled highways. A third would forbid TXDOT from signing contracts for more than 30 years. (Currently the department has signed deals for 50 to 70 years and wants to enter into contracts that could stretch into the next century.)

A week after his no-show before the Senate committee, Williamson did appear in front of the much friendlier House Transportation Committee. (Under the direction of the current chairman, Round Rock Republican Mike Krusee, that committee hammered out the mammoth transportation legislation in 2003 that spawned the current toll-road binge.) While Williamson was testifying before Krusee’s committee, Carona walked up onto the dais and took the seat of a member who had just left the room.

Carona listened patiently for a while. Then Krusee asked the senator if he had a question. Carona glared down at Williamson and said, “I’ve been trying to get an appointment with this gentleman, and I understand his calendar is booked up through March. I’m just wondering if I could ask you, Chairman Williamson, if we can meet this week on important transportation issues?”

Williamson, who has a boxer’s thick neck and a military-style buzz cut, gazed at Carona in disbelief. His face reddened. “You are a clever guy,” he finally stuttered.

Carona pushed on: “I think you and I recognize we have a difference of opinion. But we might find we have more in common than we realize. I’d be grateful for the meeting. And I know my colleagues in the Senate would, too.”

Williamson told Carona that he’d call him, but emphasized that he couldn’t commit to a meeting. Then Carona exploded: “You say you have one boss that you work for, but you really don’t. You’ve got the people of the state and 181 members of the Legislature. This kind of lack of commitment and artful dodging has created the hostility and friction that exists right now. The fact that you would sit there and be so arrogant as to not meet with me is very troubling.”

Williamson sunk into a stony silence. Carona pressed him again for a meeting. Williamson finally said, “I’m speechless.”

“Thank you,” responded Carona, who then got up and left the room.

Another senator gunning for TXDOT is Steve Ogden, a tall, angular Republican from Bryan Station who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. With his thick accent and white hair, Ogden seems like a good ole boy who’s got nothing more on his mind than the Friday night football game. But the U.S. Naval Academy graduate spent nine years as an officer in the nuclear submarine force. He knows how to operate in tight quarters and keep his feelings tamped down.

But when the subject of TXDOT comes up, Ogden can hardly restrain himself, in part because it was Ogden who encouraged his Senate colleagues to pass the massive transportation bill that freed TXDOT from the old rules and soon had the department’s stodgy road builders lunching with Wall Street financiers.

Ogden now feels he was duped, and said as much at the Senate Finance Committee hearing. The 2003 transportation bill arrived in the Senate two weeks before the session ended, Ogden recalled, and was sold as a way to get roads built quickly without any public money. (In reality, the toll roads that will be operated by private companies will still be subsidized by taxpayers through tax breaks, low-interest loans, tax-exempt bonds, outright grants and in some cases, the actual pavement itself.)

In 2003, there also was no talk of privatizing the roads, he added. “The fact that it wasn’t brought up and we never got an opportunity to chew on it has created a huge political problem for us.”

Ogden glared at the cluster of TXDOT operatives. In another time, he might have ordered them to walk the plank or had them lashed to the sails. As it was, the only punishment he had available was a tongue lashing. “It’s not what TXDOT tells you. It’s what they don’t tell you,” he complained. He chided the department for its sneakiness and encouraged its bureaucrats to be more open about what they’re doing. “Running your own plays and hiding them from us is no way to run state business.”

TXDOT’s not saying anything publicly about the frontal assaults. (“I never comment on what legislators do,” Williamson said of Corona’s ambush.) But it’s safe to say that they’re not happy. Just a few months ago, the department rolled out its own legislative wish list. High on the list was getting a revenue stream for the Texas Rail Relocation Fund so the state and its private partners can build several new billion-dollar-plus railroad projects, which one industry insider collectively referred to as a “huge fat pig.”

But TXDOT will have its hands full fending off Carona, Ogden, and a raft of Democratic legislators aiming to take down the imperious department and its autocratic commissioners. Joe Pickett, a Democratic representative from El Paso who once was virtually the only legislator willing to speak out against the behemoth department, welcomes the backup. “The whole agency needs a complete work-over from top to bottom,” he said.

Pickett has introduced a measure that would replace Perry’s five-member Transportation Commission with an elected transportation czar. State Rep. David Leibowitz, a Democrat from San Antonio, has drawn up a bill that would do away with Perry’s coveted Trans-Texas Corridor, a network of superhighways that will stretch from the Mexican border toward Canada. The TTC is being sold to Texans as a way to reduce congestion, but in reality appears to be a system of trade routes designed to circumvent the glutted West Coast ports and get foreign goods into the United States by way of Mexico. A third Democratic state representative, Houston’s Garnet Coleman, is sponsoring legislation that would place a two-year moratorium on the further construction of toll roads. (Coleman is fuming over TXDOT’s plan to replace the high-occupancy vehicle lanes on some Houston freeways with toll lanes, which he calls “Lexus lanes.”)

Meanwhile, Carona, a bespectacled and mild-looking businessman, is quickly gaining rock-star status on the Internet, and recently was featured on YouTube. Carona, who has the ability to speak in paragraphs and can read spreadsheets with ease, has been projecting the numbers into the future and sees a day when the state’s free roads will be potted and pitted, the billions in up-front concession fees will be spent, and Texas motorists will still be forking out millions of dollars in tolls to foreign corporations and bankers. “This is the most reckless transportation policy this state has seen in its history,” he said.

He continued, “While the Transportation Commissions likes to tell you that all transportation issues have now been decentralized and now reside in local communities, in fact that’s not the case. TXDOT allows local decisions as long as those local decisions agree with the philosophy and direction of the Transportation Commission. If local decisions made through local transportation authorities differ from what the commissioners would like to see, they simply withhold funds. They leverage the outcome by controlling the purse strings in Austin. You see that in issues like toll equity where the Transportation Commission determines what portion of money it will make available to subsidize a road project in a region. Virtually every major roadway under consideration today in Texas is being advanced as a toll project.”

The toll-road developers, Carona said, have claimed that they will need a 12 percent return on their investment. Using that figure, Carona calculates the tolls on the private roads will be 66 percent higher upon opening than what tolls on state-constructed roads would cost. What’s more, he said, the private toll operators will be able to raise their rates to whatever the market will bear. By contrast, toll hikes on state-owned roads are limited to recovering the cost of maintenance and repairs. “The reality is, we’re building roads in the most expensive fashion of all—through tolls—instead of calling it taxes,” he said.

Carona favors raising the gasoline tax so that it keeps pace with inflation. (The tax has been unchanged for the last 15 years—20 cents for the state and 18.4 cents for the feds per gallon.) That way, the state would have enough money to build all the roads it’s going to need over the next 25 years. The average motorist would probably wind up paying an extra dollar per month for fuel, but Carona said in the long run it’ll be cheaper for drivers.

Even with an increase in gasoline taxes, it’s unlikely that toll roads, and perhaps even the loathed Trans-Texas Corridor, will vanish from the map. Carona is confident, however, that the Legislature will be able to enact some meaningful reforms in the coming weeks. “We’re at a crossroads in transportation policy,” he said. “We can either get it right or get it wrong.”

Link to article here.

It’s one thing to build and maintain roads, it’s another to engage in sweetheart deals that enrich private corporations while infinitely sticking it to the taxpayers who own the aforementioned assets. TxDOT is clearly no longer about building and maintaining roads and facilitating getting people from Point A to Point B as quickly and safely as possible. Now they’re about how to hawk our public assets for quick cash while selling us into toll tax slavery to foreign companies who couldn’t care less about Americans, the American economy, or American quality of life.

There are abundant examples of how these deals fail the taxpayers and end up with toll rates causing more than a little pain and tax revolts wherever they’re tried.

MIG awaits green light to take its toll on Texan roads
By David Nason
New York correspondent
The Australian
February 27, 2007

THE Sydney-based Macquarie Infrastructure Group will know tonight if it has garnered an early slice of the vast toll road riches up for grabs in Texas.

The announcement by the Texas Department of Transportation of the winning bidder for State Highway 121 – a planned 42km toll road in northern Dallas, one of the fastest growing areas of the US – shapes up as the first big test of MIG’s decision to all but jettison its Australian routes for a shot at the far larger but less developed US markets.

Texas, which is forecast to double its population to 50 million by 2030, is regarded as the toll road El Dorado, with the SH121 project the first in an estimated $US250 billion ($315 billion) worth of roadwork and toll road administration to be privatised in the Lone Star state over the next decade.

The biggest prize is expected to be the new Trans-Texas Corrider, a toll road that would stretch from the Mexican border to Oklahoma and utilise some existing freeways and toll roads.

An MIG-led consortium is one of five shortlisted bidders for the rights to build and operate the toll road for 50 years. The deal is expected to net Texas an upfront payment of about $US2 billion and a share of toll revenues.

Like many states, Texas is reluctant to raise taxes to address its chronic shortfall in transportation infrastructure and has been forced to go to the private sector.

All up, more than 20 states are considering the sale or lease of major highways. They include Oregon, Indiana, California, Utah, Colorado, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

But opposition to public-private partnerships, also known as PPPs, can be strong, especially in the case of public assets that are debt-free.

In New Jersey overnight the state legislature’s transportation committee was due to debate proposed legislation that would require voters to approve the sale or lease of any state asset worth more than $US100 million.

The legislation would also ban foreign companies from any involvement.

MIG has expressed interest in the state’s busy New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway which could earn the state $US15 billion for a 75-year lease.

At last year’s Merrill Lynch’s Australian Investment Conference in New York, MIG chief executive Stephen Allen warned that US-based competitors would exploit xenophobia to keep foreign companies from lucrative US toll-road opportunities.

“It is a real issue and it’s one we need to deal with,” Mr Allen said at the time.

“The market here is going to get more competitive. All the major investment banks are all starting infrastructure funds. In the marketing, they’ll be promoting the US side of the business.”

Ironically, MIG’s main opposition for SH 121 is expected to come from two foreign consortiums – one led by Sweden’s Skanska BOT, the other by the Spanish Cintra group.

MIG’s consortium partners are Kiewit Texas Construction LP, a division of leading US transportation contractor Kiewit Corp, and Texas highway constructor JD Abrams.

MIG currently has an interest in four US toll roads. In 2005 Chicago leased its I-90 Skyway to an MIG-Cintra consortium for $US1.83 billion to pay off city debt and fund non-transportation projects. In 2006, Indiana leased the partners the Indiana Toll Road for $US3.85 billion.

Earlier this month the Macquarie Media Group paid $US80 million for American Consolidated Media which publishes 40 community newspapers and shopping publications serving nine communities in Texas and Oklahoma – many of them along the proposed route of the Trans-Texan Corridor.

The sale has drawn criticism the newspapers will become propaganda vehicles for MIG.

Link to article here.

For those who are tired of hearing “this is a state” problem from our senators and congresspeople, here’s more evidence that this is being foisted upon the taxpayers from both the federal AND state levels. Note: Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is a MAJOR toller…

Critics bash Mexican truck decision
By LESLIE MILLER
Associated Press
Feb 23, 2007

WASHINGTON – The news that Mexican trucks will be allowed to haul freight deeper into the United States drew an angry reaction Friday from labor leaders, safety advocates and members of Congress.

They said Mexico has substandard trucks and low-paid drivers that will threaten national security, cost thousands of jobs and endanger motorists on the northern side of the Mexican border.

The Bush administration on Thursday announced its plan to have U.S. inspectors oversee Mexican trucking companies that carry cargo across the border.

“This program will make trade with Mexico easier and keep our roads safe at the same time,” Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said Friday. She announced details of the plan to let 100 Mexican trucking companies travel beyond the border area while she was in El Paso, Texas, at the Bridge of the Americas, which connects to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Said Teamsters President Jim Hoffa: “They are playing a game of Russian roulette on America’s highways.”

Access to all U.S. highways was promised by 2000 under the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, as was access through Mexico for U.S. carriers.

That aspect of NAFTA was stalled by lawsuits and disagreements between the two countries, though Canadian and U.S. trucks travel freely across the northern border.

The Bush pilot project will let Mexican truck companies travel from Mexico throughout the United States and back. No hazardous material shipments will be permitted.

According to the Transportation Department, U.S. inspectors will inspect every truck and interview drivers to make sure they can read and speak English. They’ll examine trucks and check the licenses, insurance and driving records of the Mexican drivers. Inspectors will also verify that the trucking companies are insured by U.S.-licensed firms.

The first Mexican trucks are expected to drive into the United States beyond the border area in about 60 days, the Transportation Department says.

National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman questioned how the U.S. could spare sending inspectors to Mexico when only a tiny percentage of the hundreds of thousands of U.S. truck companies are inspected every year.

“They lack the inspectors to conduct safety reviews of at-risk domestic carriers,” Hersman said. “That situation only gets worse if resources are diverted to the border.”

One-fourth of all U.S. trucks are taken off the road after random inspections because they’re so unsafe, she said. An even higher percentage of Mexican trucks are taken off the road at Texas border crossings, she said.

Mexican carriers insist their rigs meet U.S. standards. And according to the Transportation Department, 240 federal and 300 state government employees deal with Mexican truck issues.

Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, said inspections will be meaningless because the trucks won’t have black boxes that record how long a driver has been behind the wheel.

“They have no way of telling how many hours these truck drivers have been driving before they get to the U.S., let alone when they get here,” Claybrook said.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, announced a March 8 hearing to determine whether the arrangement meets safety requirements.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chair of the House Highways subcommittee, said Congress will keep a close eye on the program.

Mexico responded to the U.S. announcement by saying it will allow trucks from 100 U.S. companies to travel across the border.

Business groups have wanted the border opened to avoid middleman costs of transferring goods from Mexican to U.S. trucks.

The American Trucking Associations said it supports the program, but wants to make sure that U.S. and Mexican truck companies are held to the same standards.

“We also are waiting to see that when US carriers are allowed to travel into Mexico that the regulatory and permitting process that U.S. carriers undergo is fair and transparent,” the ATA said in a statement.

Link to article here.

MIG turns US tollroads to gold
By Nick Lucchinelli
Herald-Sun (Australia)
February 22, 2007

PROFITS were expected to keep rolling in for international tollroad operator Macquarie Infrastructure Group, as it capitalised on exposure to the growing US market. The group today announced a half year net profit of $1.44 billion, up 76 per cent on the previous first half, while also predicting double digit earnings growth over the next twelve months.

This would be largely driven by the US tollroad sector, said chief executive Stephen Allen.

“We have been very clear that we see much of the growth in the tollroad sector coming from the United States,” Mr Allen said.

“Private investment represents a practical response for US legislators to the significant issues generated by the combination of growing congestion and under-investment in road infrastructure, in an environment where there is increasing competition for the available public funding sources.”

MIG will look to co-invest in more US assets with fellow Macquarie Bank spin-off, Macquarie Infrastructure Partners.

One such project MIG has bid for is the SH 121, a new 22 kilometre tollroad to be built near Dallas, Texas.

MIG expected to learn whether its bid had been successful by the end of the month.

US assets were very solid performers for the company in the first half.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) on MIG’s Indiana toll road increased 57.7 per cent during the period, while the Dulles Greenway tollroad in northern Virginia increased 45.7 per cent.

The Skyway in Chicago was less impressive, posting EBITDA growth of 2.3 per cent, which the company attributed to roadworks. Non-US assets generally performed less impressively.

EBITDA for the 407 ETR in Toronto was 9.7 per cent higher, while the M6 in England rose by 27.5 per cent.

MIG also spun off Australian assets including the Eastern Distributor, M4 and M5 during the period into the Sydney Roads Group, which is now the subject of a Transurban takeover bid.

Mr Allen said the move represented an important evolution of the business.

“The purpose of the demerger was to enhance value for MIG security holders and we believe this has been realised: MIG achieved a 27 per cent internal rate of return for the divested Sydney toll roads.”

The company was happy, too, with its on-market buy back, with $303 million of $1 billion acquired since October, representing 11.1 per cent by volume of the securities traded since the buy back began.

The company maintained previous distribution guidance of 20 cents per stapled security for 2006/07 and gave preliminary guidance of 20 cents for 2007/08.

Link to article here. From the Washington Times article he notes below, the best quote is this by U.S. Rep. James Oberstar: “Mr. Oberstar said it is disingenuous to promote privatization of toll roads as a way of keeping taxes down. ‘I spell toll t-a-x,’ he said. ‘Don’t sugarcoat it or say it’s something else.'”

Doubts cast on privatization
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News
February 15, 2007

Two ranking Congressmen on the House transportation committee said they’re skeptical about how well privatizing highways works.

The issue was taken up at a hearing Tuesday (see background) by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.

Subcommittee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., said in a statement that he’s not against privatization but some deals, such as the Indiana Toll Road and Chicago Skyway, are better for investors in the long run than they are for motorists.

“Unless protections are built into the lease agreements, these deals allow private companies to make decisions to dramatically increase tolls or decrease road maintenance based on what generates the most profit for stockholders, not what’s best for the traveling public,” he said.

In another statement, DeFazio said a U.S. Department of Transportation official admitted that the agency should disclose potential problems such as monopoly pricing and agreements that limit competition from non-toll roads.

And a NW Financial Group witness said government itself could generate up-front cash, a big selling point in privatization deals, while still holding on to future profits for public use.

(See blogs on non-compete agreements and a recent NW Financial Group report.)

Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., said government should encourage private sector innovations to speed up complex projects, but he’s not convinced a scattered approach using numerous public-private partnerships by states will produce a coherent highway system, according to a statement.

“Such a national system can only emerge with strong federal leadership, as when the interstate system was being proposed and subsequently launched,” he said.

Also testifying Tuesday was Robert Poole, a longtime researcher and advocate of road privatization for the Reason Foundation. He said in a statement that gas-tax funding has run into serious problems, but the U.S. is lucky to be able to draw the best from privatization models in Europe and Australia.

“We should also be grateful that the global capital markets have discovered the U.S. highway market, just when we need to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild and expand our highway network,” he said.

For more coverage, see this Washington Times story.

Link to YouTube video on Texas Toll Party site here.

Link to blog here.

Someone needs to tell “Hugh” in the comment section of Driscoll’s blog that the “senseless muck” he says toll opponents have spewed here locally is the same exact arguments these guys made in their press conference. Hugh needs to tune-in a bit closer…what he calls well reasoned arguments of this national coalition are all over our web site and SO ARE THE PROPOSED ALTERNATIVES!

Profits over motorists?
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News blog
February 12, 2007

A national push to privatize roads will help ensure profits for private companies and quick cash for governments, but motorists will be the losers, says a new coalition of highway user groups.

Americans for a Strong National Highway Network sent a letter dated Feb. 8 to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters, raising concerns about a recent federal blueprint to make it easier for state legislatures to jump into privatization.

As long as making money is the top priority, safety and mobility could get worse, it states. Non-compete clauses — which are often required in public-private toll deals — skew market forces, and it’s likely that some of the funds gained would be diverted to non-transportation uses.

“The administration appears to be promoting unlimited growth in public-private partnerships without fully considering the impact,” the letter says. “We have serious reservations about whether these deals are being structured in the public’s long-term best interest.”

The letter is signed by officials with …

AAA
American Highway Users Alliance
American Motorcyclist Association
American Trucking Associations
NATSO Inc.
Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association
Recreation Vehicle Industry Association

The coalition held a press conference Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, Land Line Magazine reported.

“The companies investing in our roads want to induce congestion on the roads they profit from, not reduce it. Their profits are derived from high traffic volumes and high tolls,” Todd Spencer of the Independent Drivers Association is quoted as saying. “We recognize elected officials are confronted with difficult funding decisions, but these deals are akin to a pawn-shop mentality of hocking your assets for cash now.”

“Under the worst of these deals, highway users and the public are ignored or purposely locked out from negotiations while politicians salivate over filling state-coffers with billions in fast cash,” Greg Cohen of the American Highway Users Alliance said in a statement. “As part of these deals, brokerage firms charge massive transaction fees and private road operators earn massive profits over time by scheduling increasing tolls and opposing competition.”

Meanwhile …

The U.S. House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit has scheduled a Tuesday hearing on public-private partnerships.

“For the Bush Administration, the rush to promote public-private partnerships is based in ideology, not a critical evaluation of how public-private partnerships might help meet the goal of an improved, integrated national transportation system,” subcommittee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., is quoted as saying in a NATSCO statement.

And from ranking member John J. Duncan, Jr., R-Tenn., in the same statement: I share this coalition’s concerns about the recent waive of long-term leases of existing toll roads by private entities. I believe we need to understand the impacts that tolling can have on the traveling public, private industry and the economy before we enter into any more of these agreements.

This coalition was announced at the National Press Club Friday. For a bit of irony, Mitch Daniels, the Governor of Indiana who is responsible for the sale of the Indiana Toll Road to 2 foreign companies, Cintra-Macquarie (the same two bidding for the San Antonio toll network), also addressed the National Press Club Friday pushing for MORE public-private partnerships and the sale our nation’s PUBLIC infrastructure to PRIVATE interests for PRIVATE gain, not the public good. If these guys have their way, they’ll sell our whole country to the highest bidder! If only our enemies knew how easy it is to conquer America, they’d get on board with this push to privatize and they’d bring their checkbooks instead of bombs in an effortless takeover of America.

But too bad, Mitch, Rick, and Ed (Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania who is also pushing this garbage on us), you’re in for a FIGHT!

View the Press Conference

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Tiffany Wlazlowski

Feb. 9, 2007 (703) 838-1717

Highway Users Form Coalition to Oppose Privatization of Toll Roads
Group Says Government Must Be Held Accountable for Financing

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Trucking Associations, in conjunction with the American Automobile Association, the American Highway Users Alliance, the National Association of Truck Stop Operators, the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association today announced the formation of a coalition of highway user groups to combat the growing trend toward the privatization or leasing of existing toll facilities to private investors.

Known as “Americans for a Strong National Highway Network,” the coalition is designed to advance the rights of American motorists to travel on safe, reliable public roads; maintain a robust national highway network for the efficient transport of goods and the military; and to hold government accountable for ensuring financing is transparent, motivated by public good and dedicated to transportation purposes.

The announcement was made at a press conference held at the National Press Club.

“The sale or lease of existing toll facilities generates revenue at great expense to taxpayers and the trucking industry and carries potential negative impacts on highway safety, security and the motoring public,” said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. “We must consider the long-term impact privatization will have on our nation’s transportation system and explore all available financing options to ensure that the government is motivated by public good and transportation purposes.”

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, stated: “For the Bush Administration, the rush to promote public-private partnerships is based in ideology, not a critical evaluation of how public-private partnerships might help meet the goal of an improved, integrated national transportation system and further the public interest.”

ATA strongly opposes the lease or sale of existing toll roads, bridges or tunnels to private parties and has called upon the government to abandon these financing techniques.

The trucking industry supports the objective of a toll-free national highway system where funds to finance highway improvements primarily come from highway user fees, such as the fuel tax.

The American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of other trucking groups, industry-related conferences, and its 50 affiliated state trucking associations, ATA represents more than 37,000 members covering every type of motor carrier in the United States.