Link to article here. Oh, now I get why Rick Perry is suddenly so fond of states rights…

State guvs to US on P3s: “Bug off, the roads are ours”

Posted on Tue, 2009-10-06 19:44

Regardless of party, state governors are opposing moves in the US Congress to second guess their arrangements for privatization of roads, toll concessions, or public private partnerships.Apparently without dissent the National Governors Association has adopted a formal ‘Policy Position’ on surface transportation that says that they oppose any federal restrictions on states’ ability to enter into toll concessions or other public-private arrangements.

The draft reauthorization bill produced by the House transportation committee provides for a new federal Office of Public Benefit – a newspeak title right out of Orwell’s 1984. This office would have the power to allow or disallow toll concessions and other public-private arrangements entered into by states.

NGA official policy

The governors take a firm line against the OPB proposal saying in their official policy, and we quote them in full on this subject:

“13.2.2 Non-Traditional Financing

“Governors urge the development of flexible, innovative, accountable, and alternative financing mechanisms that support the mobility goals of the states and oppose any federal restrictions on states’ ability to pursue public-private partnership arrangements to address their own infrastructure needs.

“Governors support the removal of federal restrictions on states’ authority to toll federally-aided highways.

“State and local authorities, as the owners and operators of the surface transportation system, must determine the appropriate level of private sector participation in their surface transportation programs.

“Governors oppose any efforts to condition federal financial investment in state surface transportation programs to any mandate for a particular level of private participation.”

Bill stalled

The new transportation bill championed by chairman James Oberstar has made little progress due mostly to lack of funding. Short term extensions are keeping money flowing under the old SAFETEA-LOO formulae.

Oberstar has lost respect among colleagues for his buckpassing on funding this next six year transportation bill. The Obama administration seems to have has other priorities than transportation.

Oberstar’s moves to exercise federal control over P3s at the same time federal financial support is hand-to-mouth over a protracted period seems calculated to exacerbate frustration in state capitals at US Government incompetence in transportation.

see text of National Governors Association policy:

http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.8358ec82f5b198d18a278110501010a0/?vgnextoid=289a9e2f1b091010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD

TOLLROADSnews 2009-10-06

Link to article here.

Greenville Southern Connector headed for bankruptcy – default likely Jan 1 2010
Posted on Mon, 2009-10-05
Toll Road News

• bankruptcy
• default
• greenvile
• South Carolina
• southern connector

US Bank, trustees for the bondholders of Connector 2000 Association, the owner of the Southern Connector tollroad in Greenville South Carolina have issued an official notice that they expect a default Jan 1, 2010 with insufficient funds being available from the pike to make debt service that’s due. They say the Association concluded that converting the not-for-profit into a for-profit toll concession to avoid default – as occurred with the Pocahontas Parkway in Richmond VA – is not feasible.

In or outside bankruptcy there will be a forced “restructuring” of the bond capital, the US Bank trustees say. Investors will take a hit. (NOTE: US Bank would like us to note that they did not use the word “forced” of the capital restructing, though that’s what we think it is! Also we have corrected the second sentence to reflect that the Association concluded sale to a for-profit concession was infeasible ahead of bankruptcy restructuring, not US Bank – editor 2009-10-07)

South Carolina DOT has already declared “an insolvency Event of Default” in a letter of June 12 which called on the not-for-profit owners to seek a “plan of adjustment.” SCDOT says it reserves the right to terminate the Association’s License Agreement under which the Connector Association operates the tollroad. Macquarie Capital is working for the trustee.

Accountants blast Association

Things may be worse than the official reports. Association accountants Bradshaw Gordon & Clinkscales in a statement accompanying an Update on the association’s financial condition say that accounting standards board (GASB) requirements have not been met, and warn that the effect of the pike’s departure from accounting standards has not been determined.

They say in one passage: “Management has elected to omit substantially all of the disclosures and statements of cash flows required by accounting principles generally accepted in the US….”

Deficiency of $163m

The statement reports as of June 30  liabilities of $322m against assets of $160m for a net deficiency of $163m – comically they report cents as well as individual dollars. The largest liabilities are bonds of $304m but the Association also owes  the state DOT some $8m in unpaid license fees and interest.

Interest ten times operating profit

Toll revenues in the first half of the year were running at barely $5m/yr against operating expenses of $3.2m for an annual operating surplus of just $1.8m. Interest expense was ten times that and net loss was running at $22.8m after interest, depreciation and amortization.

Accumulated deficits are $163m, and they are being added to at about 14%/year.

Toll revenues for the first half of 2009 were running at 4% below year-ago levels, pretty much within the normal range for tollroads around the country. Since then they have been flat or slightly above year ago monthly levels.

Trouble from the get-go, traffic below half forecast

The Connector looked to be in trouble from virtually the day it opened in March 2001.

Traffic had been forecast after ‘ramp-up’ at the end of the first year to be around 28k/day so traffic of 20k was expected in the beginning.

Traffic has always been below half forecast levels, starting at 10k and rising at about expected annual percentage rates, but from the disappointing base.

Eight years after opening traffic is 15k to 16k/day versus 33k forecast when the original financing was done in 1998.

The original traffic studies seem to have been fundamentally flawed.

Law suits on forecasts

Robert Bain – UK-based author of the recent book on toll road forecasting – tells TOLLROADSnews that he has been engaged as an expert witness twice in the last 18 months by lawyers contemplating taking legal action against traffic forecasters for over-optimistic predictions.  Neither engagement resulted in lawsuit to date.  “It’s only a matter of time”, says Bain.

Why forecasts failed

Our analysis is that the Connector (I-185) simply does not serve major commuter flows within the 540k pop metro area. These flows are on a southeast-northwest axis Simpsonville, Mauldin, Greenville and along US276 and I-385. This is mostly to the north and east of the Connector.

The Connector including the toll-free portion of I-185 swings too far south, southwest and west to compete for major internal metro area traffic.

Located to serve development, not to relieve congestion

The pike was loccated to serve new industrial and residential development on the southern and southwest fringe of the area, development which has occurred, but more slowly than the tollroad promoters predicted.

Higher paying truck traffic is tiny. 96% of vehicles are 2 axle.

Slower employment growth than predicted in the area has meant that for the most part the free roads have adequate capacity even for peaktime work trips. The exception is I-385 northbound through Mauldin in the mornings weekdays.

But trips on the Connector are too much longer in distance to be an attractive alternative for most motorists.

Studies show the  Connector corridor generally has good developmental potential still, although portions are handicapped by lack of utilities like sewer.

New Stantec T&R study

A traffic and revenue study by Stantec published in May this year found toll rates were too low to maximize revenues. Toll rates should be increased 50 to 75%, it recommended.

The Association has since gotten SCDOT permission for three 25c toll increases, the first immediately, a second Jan 1 2012 and a third Jan 2016. 25c toll increases could be implemented every four years thereafter. Ramp tolls would be increased proportionately.

Stantec now project toll revenue of $10.2m by 2016 based on 16.3k daily traffic and $20.3m in 2026 based on traffic of 25k/day.

The Stantec report contains no analysis or suggestion as to why the 1990s study was so wrong.

Indeed they don’t even mention the existence of that report.

Maybe the bankruptcy court can exhume it?

Southern Connector website:

http://www.southernconnector.com

BACKGROUND: Greenville Southern Connector is a 2×2 lane expressway with interstate designation I-185. The not-for-profit called Connector 2000 Association was the idea of Bob Farris, a former Federal Highway Administration chief who formed Interwest to develop the project. It entered into a design-build contract with a large local builder Thrift Bros.

26km or 16 miles long the Connector connects the end of an existing free I-185, a southward spur from central Greenville to I-85 the big east-west interstate through the area, to I-385 in the southeast completing a loop or belt route around the southern portion of the metro area. The project has end interchanges with I-85 and I-385 and four intermediate interchanges of a simple diamond design.

The Connector has two mainline toll plazas and two pairs of ramp toll plazas.

The mainline toll plazas have 4 toll lanes each direction. In one direction of traffic the left two lanes are unattended. The far left is highway speed electronic tolling signed for 45mph (72km/hr) while the next lane is coin machine. There are toll collectors in the third and fourth lanes.

On the ramps there is a single unattended lane for transponder or exact change in a coin machine.

Electronic toll collection was introduced as an option when the pike opened in Mar 2001. Brandnamed PalPass (Palmetto Pass) it is an IAG standard Mark IV system, but the Connector has not joined IAG so there are no provisions for interoperability. It has TransCore readers with IAG read capability.

Electronic tolling has not achieved high usage and 75% of transactions are cash, suggesting a lot of occasional use.

34 toll collectors are employed on the pike.

COMMENT: Not-for-profit (NFP) tollroads, a unique manifestation of the 1990s now have a perfect score: two failures out of two.

First Pocahontas Parkway in Richmond VA, now the Southern Connector in Greenville SC.

Although well-intentioned it’s a bad, bad model, which skews all the incentives the wrong way – toward road developers and builders and financial and legal brokers who make their money before the pike opens and leave all the obligations and risks to bondholders.

When all the profit is upfront and there is no skin in the game longterm, it’s only natural that you get too much road built,  at too much expense, where it’s not really needed.

A product of the great financial bubble period, NFP tollroads have their analog in the no-money-down mortgage, where people get more house they can afford and walk away from it when the debt burden proves too great for their income. Hopefully we’ve seen the last of this irresponsible financial structure.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-10-05 BACKGROUND, COMMENT added 2009-10-06 12:00

Link to article here. As a reminder, “managed lanes” means toll lanes that presumably “manage” the flow of traffic by pricing the poor and middle class off public roads in the name of a congestion-free commute for those who can afford the extra tax. What’s even more of an outrage is the fact that stimulus money will be used to build the road, but you won’t be able to drive on it without paying a DOUBLE TAX! So much for stimulus money going to help the economically distressed…

Huge DFW Connector in Dallas has small toll component
Posted on Fri, 2009-10-09

• 114
• 121
• DFW Connector
• Texas

DFW Connector, a huge new expressway complex on the northern and northwestern edge of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) will have a small toll component, but construction of the $1.02b project is being financed with tax revenues. Previously known as the TX114/TX121 project, it involves a complete rebuild and expansion of some 13.5km, 8.4 miles of these two expressways centered on where they merge and diverge, including modernization of six interchanges, two of them big 3 and 4 level jobs.

6.4km (4 miles) of the combined roads and TX114 will contain 2×2 toll “managed lanes.”

TxDOT calls the contract for the DFW Connector a “comprehensive development agreement” (CDA), their infinitely elastic Orwellian term covering any arrangement whatever from minor project development consulting and environmental permitting, through regular construction, design-build, through to full blown 50 year DBFO toll concessions.

TxDOT announced they this week “executed a comprehensive development agreement” – actually this one is a plain vanilla design-build contract – for the DFW Connector Oct 6 with North Gate Constructors, a consortium led by Kiewit and Zachry construction companies.

These companies were conditionally awarded the contract back in March while arguments raged about financing and the role of the private sector.

TxDOT announces: “While the DFW Connector is a CDA project, it is being built without private funds.”

(TERMINOLOGY: one benefit of the demise of Trans Texas Corridors, we hoped, would have been the end of their CDAs ‘comprehensive development agreements.’ But sadly this mangled, accursed term lives on at TxDOT – editor)

Funding for the DFW Connector “CDA” is $250m of ARRA ‘stimulus’ funds from the Feds, $107m in bond borrowings, and the rest unspecified “public funds.”

24 lanes wide

It is a magnificent and vast piece of engineering. The heart of DFW Connector is a 4km (2.5mi) stretch of cosigned highways TX114 and TX121 presently 8 main lanes and 4 frontage road lanes (2/4/4/2). The new construction will go to to 13/14 main lanes, 4 toll lanes and 6/7 frontage road lanes (3/6/7/4). That’s an average width of 24 travel lanes, plus 8 breakdown shoulders in each of the four roadways, plus a pair of ‘green’ lanes (bicycles) on the left side of the frontage roads.

The western ends of the project split into TX121 and TX360 south and TX114 north.

At the eastern end the big cosigned 24 lanes connects to the northern entrance to the airport and TX114, I-635 LBJ Freeway and TX121 Sam Rayburn Tollway break off. The sprawling DFW airport complex has forced all these traffic routes together for a distance along its northern periphery in an area named Grapevine.

Present traffic on TX114/TX121 is around 189k veh/day and the $1.02b of improvements are designed to cater for 2030 projected traffic of 359k veh/day.

North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) will operate the toll lanes, collecting tolls all-electronically. Revenues will go towards defraying operations and maintenance costs.

TxDOT say traffic volumes and speeds will dictate the tolls within each peak period and the rates will be set to allow speeds of 50mph (80km/hr) or more. Modeling suggests average toll rates of 16c/mile (10c/km) in 2014 when the facility opens rising to 24c/mile (15c/km) in 2029.

Carpoolers may get a discount. Transit buses will go free and trucks will be admitted but at higher tolls relative to axle count.

A later stage will extend work for another 9km (5.6 miles) and bring project cost exclusive of right of way to $1.5b.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-10-09

Link to article here.

Editorial: End reliance on toll roads
October 8, 2009
Dallas Morning News blog
In 2004, Gov. Rick Perry announced his plans to build the Trans Texas Corridor, and in 2009, it cost him an important endorsement from the Texas Farm Bureau. The TTC would have been funded using comprehensive development agreements, a form of privatized toll road arrangement. Opposition to the governor’s plan has been so widespread and heated that five years later, the Texas Department of Transportation has declared the TTC “dead.”

Road privatization offers a hard-to-resist “quick fix” for state politicians. But without adequate public protections, privatization can have hidden costs and big potential downsides. Private infrastructure deals are fraught with problems and often characterized by the same leveraging of debt, conflicts of interest and reckless shifting of risk that triggered the recent financial crisis.

To protect the public, Texas and its local governments should avoid privatization of existing roadways, and allow for private deals to construct new roadways only with the strongest protections to ensure transparency, full value for taxpayers and continued public control of transportation policy.

In case the taxpayers need any more reasons to dump the current leadership at TxDOT, here’s the most blatant one yet. In the Express-News article below about the supposed demise of the Trans Texas Corridor, Commissioner Ted Houghton, ya know, the one who called TURF Board member Hank Gilbert and TURF supporters “bigots” (watch it here) for opposing the sale of Texas roads to foreign corporations in sweetheart deals, accurately claims:

“I am Ted Houghton, the most arrogant commissioner of the most arrogant state agency in the history of the state of Texas.”

Rick Perry is using his Transportation Commission appointee as a diversion from his own arrogance in ramming his Trans Texas Corridor down Texans’ throats. Who better to take the knocks for Perry than his most despised Commissioner who picked up where former Chairman Ric Williamson left off. While the circus was distracting from the real issue of Perry repeatedly wielding his veto pen to benefit his cronies when Texans, through their elected representatives, attempted to shut the TTC down, few understand the technical significance of the method Perry is using to continue TTC-35 despite the announcement.

Rather than simply send a letter to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to close the Trans Texas Corridor file for good, Perry is taking 4-6 months to take public comment (I guess over 10,000 people against at the hearings weren’t enough) and seek a Record of Decision on the project depsite the claim they’re not going to build it. What this does is allow TxDOT to change its mind and come back later to resurrect the project (after the Republican primary perhaps?) at any time.

Also, nowhere does the article below or any of the others we’ve seen question how TxDOT can possibly claim the taxpayers are only out $16 million for environmental work when a State Audit report in 2007 said the taxpayers had already paid $60 million (for engineering, environmental work, and legal fees, and it was found 21 of 32 invoices pulled were mismarked engineering when it was really spent on PR!) for TTC-35 just through 2006.

So, we’re supposed to believe Cintra just walks away from a potential $186 billion deal, for which it paid $3.5 million to develop? Considering Senator John Carona saw to it that a STATE LAW was changed to lift the cap on payments to LOSING BIDDERS earlier this year just so Cintra could get paid $3.6 million for losing its grip on the 121 toll deal in Collin/Denton counties, how can anyone expect us to believe that buried among the 1,000 pages of financial documents and termination clauses in the TTC-35 contract that Cintra is going to get NOTHING but the two segments on SH 130, a loop around Austin, when the State kills the deal? Yeah right! Somewhere there’s a BIG, FAT taxpayer liability looming on the horizon that we’re not going to hear about until AFTER the next election…

The only sure way to be rid of this looting? Dump Rick Perry!

____________________________________________
Link to article here.

Money flows on road that went nowhere

Here’s the REAL reason Rick Perry’s highway department killed the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 project after five years of fierce opposition from the people of Texas.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 7, 2009

Contact:  Mae Smith, President/Mayor, 254-657-2460

Holland, Texas – Five local mayors took a stand 27 months ago and formed the state’s first sub-regional planning commission to stand up against and stop once and for all the governor’s massive land grab known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. No one thought they could.

Today, the Texas Department of Transportation and the governor announced that the State of Texas has officially killed the project by selecting the “No Build” option under the environmental impact statement study. Selecting that option was exactly what the Eastern Central Texas Sub-Regional Planning Commission (ECTSRPC) forced the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) into choosing.

“Believe me, it wasn’t what they wanted to do, it’s what we forced them to do,” stated Mae Smith, Mayor of Holland and president of the ECTSRPC. The planning commission began a series of what is called coordination meetings in the fall of 2007, by utilizing a little known state statute that forced the behemoth agency to come to Holland, Texas.

TxDOT came to Holland on three different occasions where they were asked to explain why they were going to destroy five towns and their school districts with a 1,200 foot-wide, 146 acre per mile toll road.

“Through coordination, we forced them to our table and then we used the federal NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) statute to box them in a legal corner out of which they could not escape,” stated Ralph Snyder, a local Holland businessman and board member of the ECTSRPC. “That’s what forced TxDOT to recommend ‘No Build’ to the Federal Highway Administration because we had shown how TxDOT, as the agent of the federal government, had violated the federal statute in at least 29 ways,” Snyder continued.

Fred Grant, president of American Stewards of Liberty, is the originator of the coordination strategy that brought TxDOT to their knees. “Had we not had five courageous mayors who represent a total of 6,000 people stand up to the governor and his rogue state agency, the Trans-Texas Corridor would have destroyed hundreds of thousands of private acres of prime and unique farmland, as well as, the economies of every community it dissected,” stated Grant.

The TTC-35 is just one of the 4,000 miles of toll roads that nine state planning commissions are fighting.

“TxDOT can still continue to build 130, TTC-69, and the Ports-to-Plains toll roads, but defeating the TTC-35 is a major victory for the rural people of Texas.”

To obtain a copy of the petition filed by the ECTSRPC showing the federal violations of TxDOT, please contact American Stewards of Liberty at 512-365-2699.

Read blog with more on this story here.

By Terri Hall
Express-News / Houston Examiner
October 6, 2009

If you believe Rick Perry, today he’s finally conceded the death of the initial Trans Texas Corridor foreign-owned toll road, land-grabbing superhighway that would have paralleled I-35, called TTC-35. However, there’s LOTS more to this story.

Perry would have us believe the announcement was because of the lack of political support, but since when does he care a flip about whether his toll road policies have political support? Look no further than his veto of eminent domain reform legislation, HB 2006, and the private toll moratorium bill, HB 1892, passed by a supermajority of the Texas Legislature in 2007 for proof.

There’s never been grassroots support for his hefty toll tax increases nor the Trans Texas Corridor. The REAL reason Perry’s highway department, the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT), put the nail in the coffin of TTC-35 was because it was under the threat of a federal lawsuit by a local government commission, the Eastern Central Texas Sub-Regional Planning Commission, which was formed to stop TTC-35 dead in its tracks.

There’s nothing that puts more fear in a politician up for re-election than a messy, well-publicized federal lawsuit against one of his most controversial, polarizing policies. So rather than risk certain death at the polls, Perry opted for the death of his beloved special interest TTC-35. Of course, the Texas Farm Bureau’s endorsement of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison for governor played a role in the timing of the announcement.

Hutchison said in a statement today: “The Trans-Texas Corridor will not be officially dead until Rick Perry is no longer governor and his political appointees are no longer running TxDOT. Texans can’t trust Rick Perry when it comes to protecting their land from the government, ceasing to lease our highways to foreign companies or ending the Trans-Texas Corridor.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Trans Texas Corridor #2 still alive & well
To demonstrate the point that Texas isn’t safe from Perry’s policies until he’s kicked out of office, the Trans Texas Corridor plan #2, known as TTC-69/I-69 in the hands of Spanish company ACS, is still on the table.

“Officials said that project (69), which unlike the I-35 plan would mainly involve expanding existing highways, remains alive,” according to the Austin American Statesman on October 6, 2009.

When over 28,000 Texans went on the record AGAINST TTC-69, it goes to show Perry’s same ol’ stubborn indifference to the people of Texas in regards to the Trans Texas Corridor.

He throws the public a bone over here (saying the “TTC-35 is dead”) in order to distract from an equally controversial debacle over there (TTC-69) that threatens to damage the environment, private property rights, and the economic prosperity of thousands of Texans.

Bottom line: Texans can’t trust Rick Perry to keep his word or to truly KILL his destructive, detested toll road agenda. The only sure way to keep Texas safe is to give Perry the boot!

Link to article here.

Aggressive traffic projections are coming home to roost these days, as motorists shun the extra toll taxes to get to work. Now toll operators are turning on the their own industry and suing companies who overpromise and underdeliver traffic for toll roads. The blood is in the water…here come the sharks!

Leighton starts lawsuit against ConnectEast
BY MARTIN COLLINS: John Durie | September 09, 2009

Link to article here.

Rick Perry brought public private partnership toll roads to Texas in 2003. Now public private partnerships are spreading to real estate. Even worse, this version allows China to buy-up distressed U.S. real estate using public money.

China Ramps Up To Buy Cheap U.S. Real Estate
Thursday, September 10, 2009 3:29 PM
By: Julie Crawshaw and Dan Weil
Newsmax.com

China Investment Corporation, China’s $300 billion sovereign-wealth fund (SWF), is preparing to buy distressed U.S. real estate assets.

It will do so using the U.S. Treasury Department’s Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) to fund the investments, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, several Chinese officials warned that Wall Street isn’t taking the recession seriously, and that much more pain is in store for U.S. investors in the near term.

The PPIP program, which limits investments by any single investor to no more than 9.9 percent of each fund, is designed to help U.S. banks get rid of toxic mortgage assets by financing investors’ purchases of such securities.

CIC officials reportedly have held talks with U.S. private-equity fund managers, including BlackRock, Invesco, and Lone Star Funds, about buying securities backed by office buildings, hotels, strip malls and other commercial property, and about buying ownership interests in buildings as well.

Though CIC spent only $4.8 billion in global financial markets last year, it invested that much in a single month recently, CIC Chairman Lou Jiwei said last month.

He said that if future returns are good enough, it might ask the government to let it invest more of China’s $2.132 trillion foreign-exchange reserves.

CIC recently invested in a real-estate trust in Australia and in an owner and developer of office towers and retail stores in London.

The SWF also is considering investing in Hollywood production firms, the Times of London reports.

The move could give Beijing a direct stake in a variety of foreign media content “from South Korean television dramas and Japanese game shows to Hollywood blockbusters.”

The Chinese onslaught against the United States over economic issues continues, with Bank of China Vice President Zhu Min criticizing Wall Street for complacency in the wake of the financial crisis.

Bank of China is the country’s third largest bank.

“You go to Wall Street, the people feel the crisis never happened,” Zhu told Bloomberg. “It’s not only overconfidence, it’s over-myopic. This is too much.”

Much of China’s criticism has focused on the growing U.S. debt burden and the dollar’s role as the sole reserve currency.

In March, Premier Wen Jiabao said he was “worried” about China’s investment in U.S. Treasuries, now $776.4 billion, and wanted assurances that they were safe, Bloomberg reports.

As for Zhu, he told Bloomberg that the credit crisis isn’t over yet. “It’s sort of stabilized from a cliff drop,” he said. “But the real economic crisis has just started.”

Zhu expressed some concern about China’s economy too.

“The potential risk is that a lot of liquidity goes to the asset market,” he said. “So you see asset bubbles in commodities, stocks and real estate, not only in China, but everywhere.”

The Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index has soared 61 percent this year, topping the MSCI World Index by 41 percentage points.

China’s concern about the United States apparently hasn’t spread to its sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. The fund is looking at plowing some of its $300 billion kitty into U.S. real estate.

© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

TxDOT inks LBJ toll deal with foreign toll operator, Cintra
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
September 10, 2009

Is there ANY elected official looking out for the taxpayers anymore? So much for taxpayer protections and oversight from Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott. Even after Abbott held-up several controversial comprehensive development agreements (CDAs, also known as public private partnerships, PPPs) for months declaring them unconstitutional, he recently gave final approval to allow a contract with Spanish toll operator, Cintra, to takeover parts of the LBJ freeway, I-635, in Dallas. The deal will use Dallas Police and Fire Pension System and will charge 75 cents PER MILE to use toll lanes, and even worse, a half a billion in gas taxes will subsidize the deal with Cintra, in a massive DOUBLE TAX scheme.

It’s the hefty amount of public money in the deal that caused Abbott to deem it an unconstitutional – to have one Legislature bind a future Legislature with its obligations. Wasn’t this a major objection to the Wall Street bailouts? Privatizing profits and socializing losses?

Governor Rick Perry, who has grown fond of criticizing Washington, has taken a page out of their playbook and applied it to Texas toll road. There’s a reason these deals are called public private partnerships.

Read the complete Examiner article here.