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The NAFTA Superhighway yet to be built
By Terri Hall - Examiner.com
April 27, 2012
With the appointment of House and Senate conferees for the Federal Highway Bill this week, there’s renewed hope that Congress may be able to pass a bill this year. The House passed an extension of the current federal highway program known as SAFETEA-LU April 18; however, the Senate previously passed a two year bill called MAP-21, or S. 1813, paving the way for the one remaining interstate highway yet to be built in America to be completed. That interstate is I-69, also known as high priority corridors 18 & 20.
However, it won’t be built as a freeway, the Senate has ensured it will built as a foreign-owned tollway using a public private partnership (P3) due to the structural shortfall in traditional road funding encompassed within the bill as well as the reliance on tolling to make-up the shortfall. The House lacked the votes to pass its long-term federal highway bill, HR 7, and opted to pass a straight extension of SAFETEA-LU in order to set-up a conference committee to hash out the differences on a short-term fix.
Does it have ta be NAFTA?
There’s been much ado about NAFTA superhighways ever since Texas Governor Rick Perry made them the central plank of his transportation platform when he stepped into the Governor’s mansion after George W. Bush became President.
In 2001, Perry already had a pivotal Constitutional Amendment on the ballot in Texas that ended the State’s pay-as-you-go system and opened the door to debt financing. It also paved the way for the Texas leg of the NAFTA superhighways, the Trans Texas Corridor, to be built.
By 2003, the foundation was in place for passage of a loaded omnibus highway bill (the sort no lawmaker actually reads), HB 3588, that created the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) in statute along with quick take eminent domain and a shift to tolling everything that moves, using massive public debt. The 2006 federal highway bill, SAFTEA-LU, created the blueprint for the national push of controversial new ‘innovative’ financing tools and the sale of America’s transportation infrastructure to private entities. SAFTEA-LU also relied on public debt (through the TIFIA loan program) to build roads, most of which would benefit private special interests through P3s.
Congress has until June 30 to work out the differences between the Senate’s MAP-21 and the House extension bill, HR 4348. The House and Senate are worlds apart except for one thing -- the reliance on tolling through ‘innovative financing‘ tools -- the TIFIA loan program and P3s. In MAP-21, Texas scored big by securing an increase in its rate of return of federal gas taxes from 92 percent to 95 percent. But that won’t be near enough to bridge the gap in road needs versus the available funds to build them.
MAP-21 is also chalk full of big daddy government, Agenda 21-style provisions like mandating black boxes be installed in ALL vehicles from 2015 forward (found in Section 31406), opening the floodgates to government tracking of private citizens, as well as mandating vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications -- a blueprint for connecting vehicles and infrastructure together using wireless technology that could eventually be used to dictate actual travel patterns and to charge motorists road taxes by the mile. The Senate bill also grants the IRS the ability to revoke passports (hence inhibit the freedom of travel) of anyone it deems a tax cheat.
Killing the beast they say is already dead
The public backlash to debt financing, foreign-owned toll roads, and these NAFTA superhighway trade corridors has been swift and sure. But most politicians refuse to get the message. When 28,000 Texans put their opposition on the record against Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69/I-69 in 2008, politicians swung into action to try to convince Texans the TTC was DEAD. But it was dead in name only.
Lawmakers failed to repeal it during the 80th session of the Texas Legislature in 2009, and even tried to grandfather the TTC under a different name in a bill that eventually died (due to a fight over a local option gas tax). Though grassroots Texans managed to achieve a total repeal of the Trans Texas Corridor from state statute in 2011, the TTC lives on as the ‘innovative connectivity plan’ through P3s in Texas.
One standout against P3s, is Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, who learned the hard way over the I-85 toll HOT lane snafu, that the public will not go along quietly. He pulled the plug on Georgia’s P3 program earlier this year calling P3s an “ill-conceived sell-out of state sovereignty.” He’s exactly right. P3s virtually ensure that the international trade corridors or NAFTA Superhighways will be completed.
MAP-21‘s TIFIA expansion from $122 million/yr to $1 billion/yr will give states the ability to fund the NAFTA Superhighways beyond I-69. It's no surprise Texas leads the nation in TIFIA awards since there are seven (7) NAFTA trade corridors from Mexico into Texas:
1) Camino Real
2) Spirit
3) La Entrada
4) Ports-to-Plains
5) TTC-35
6) Gulf Crescent
7) TTC-69
The trade corridors ultimately are to connect the United States with Canada and Mexico -- to fulfill the purpose and vision of NAFTA. Though the many special interests who will benefit from these trade corridors have found an easy ‘in’ with Texas politicians, the push certainly isn’t limited to Texas. There’s a battle raging in Michigan over whether a competing bridge at an international border crossing into Canada will be built.
Currently, a private toll bridge, the Ambassdor Bridge, enjoys a monopoly over commercial truck traffic in the area and its owner, Manuel Moroun, is fighting off competition by the Michigan and Canadian governments who are contemplating building a public toll bridge nearby. Dubbed the Detroit International Trade Crossing, the public toll bridge would require $1 billion in public financing to get it built. It would no doubt receive a TIFIA loan, considering a similar project is on the short list to receive a TIFIA loan to replace the Gerald Desmond Bridge at the Port of Long Beach in California, which also boasts a pricetag of nearly $1 billion.
A bill like MAP-21 signed into law would assure the completion of the NAFTA Superhighway trade corridors over the coming decade. Killing these anti-sovereignty, anti-freedom, and anti-taxpayer provisions in MAP-21 is a must if we’re to preserve what’s left of our sovereignty and freedom to travel.