TxDOT overhaul advances in TX legislature

Link to article here.

Texas transportation overhaul bill advances

By Keith Goble, Land Line state legislative editor

May 4, 2011

A major transportation bill nearing passage in the Texas Legislature includes provisions to overhaul the Texas Department of Transportation, authorize private toll roads, transfer permitting for oversize and overweight vehicles, and restrict use of ticket cameras.

House lawmakers voted 121-24 on Monday, May 2, to approve the bill after discussing more than 100 amendments. SB1420 will now go before a conference committee made up of select members from the House and Senate to hash out differences in the bill.

If the chambers reach agreement on the provisions in the bill, it would advance to the governor’s desk.

The “sunset” legislation authorizes a review of TxDOT every four years.

The Texas Transportation Commission would also get a makeover. The five-member board has the final say on which roads to build, which companies to hire, and which policies to set for the agency.

Instead of the highway chiefs being appointed solely by the governor, one would be recommended by the House speaker, and one would be appointed by the lieutenant governor.

Most Texans credit those commissioners with starting the state down the path toward toll roads.
Other changes would include the following: having an inspector general appointed to offer independent scrutiny of operation; firing employees found to have lobbied the Legislature; and creating a 20-year transportation plan.

Changes have been sought for the past few years in retaliation for the board turning a deaf ear to public sentiment about the Trans-Texas Corridor, which was the controversial pet project of Gov. Rick Perry. At one time the corridor plan called for private contractors to build and operate billions of dollars of toll roads in the state.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has criticized the corridor plan since it was unveiled in 2002. The Association cited reasons that included the proposed toll rate of 50 cents per mile for large trucks.

Rep. Jodi Laubenberg, R-Rockwall, lauded the transparency created by the bill.

“Any tools we can give citizens to help hold government entities accountable is good policy,” Laubenberg said in a statement.

Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, said he welcomes the changes to TxDOT included in the bill; however, more still needs to be done.

“Additional state scrutiny of the agency is definitely warranted,” Anchia stated.

A separate provision in the bill would allow about 20 private toll roads to be built. The so-called comprehensive development agreements would include work on a 28-mile segment of Interstate 35 East between Interstate 635 and U.S. 380; a nine-mile portion of state Highway 183 between state Highway 161 and I-35 E; five segments of the North Tarrant Expressway project; and the Grand Parkway, state Highway 99, in Houston.

Opponents say the state should not give up control of its roads to corporate interests, which often are foreign-owned.

“I think it’s a fragmented approach to how we deal with what our needs are for the state,” Rep. Yvonne Davis, D-Dallas, told lawmakers during floor consideration. “It just looks pretty shabby.”

Another provision calls for shifting from TxDOT to a new Texas Department of Motor Vehicles the permitting for oversize and overweight vehicles. The transfer would include all personnel and other functions associated with regulating oversize and overweight vehicles.

TxDOT would continue to be responsible for determining routes for affected loads.

Also included in the bill is a provision to prohibit ticket cameras on state roads, unless approved after a public hearing. Towns with fewer than 40,000 residents would be forbidden to use the technology to issue tickets.

To view other legislative activities of interest for Texas, click here.

– By Keith Goble, state legislative editor

Editor’s Note: Please share your thoughts with us about the legislation included in this story. Comments may be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Feeding Frenzy: Texas House makes a mockery of TxDOT Sunset Review


Friday, the Texas House passed the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Sunset Bill, substituting the House language for the Senate bill,  SB 1420. The biggest news is that this bill will revive parts of Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69/I-69 and that the House made virtually no change to the way TxDOT is governed -- a status quo five member appointed commission, after a long string of scathing reviews and audits. The only change was allowing the Lt. Governor to appoint one and the Governor to choose one from a list provided by the Speaker. Even the addition of the Inspector General was watered down from he/she ‘shall’ report suspected illegal activity to law enforcement to ‘may.’

Despite the author’s insistence that in no way does the bill revive the Trans Texas Corridor, the House indeed adopted multiple amendments that would allow portions of the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69/I-69 project, now referred to as the innocuous I-69, to be built as a foreign-owned toll road controlled by private developers.

Trans Texas Corridor sneaks by without the name

Of course, politicians claim it's not (the Trans Texas Corridor). They know how radioactive those words are. They think we are too stupid to connect the dots. The proposed Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69/I-69 route (see map) shows several of the projects the House adopted that would sell-off Texas roads to foreign toll operators are indeed Trans Texas Corridor projects.

One of the primary issues 28,000 Texans objected to on TTC-69 was the fact it would sell our public roads to a private, foreign corporation, which involves eminent domain for private gain, a loss control over public infrastructure, non-compete agreements, higher toll rates, profit guarantees, public subsidies, etc. So while the footprint may not be 1,200 feet wide and the authority not derived from Transportation Code Chapter 227 (but Chapters 370 and 223 instead), the authority for these Trans Texas Corridor projects have been granted in this bill.  It's being done segment by segment as TxDOT announced it would pursue.

"Major corridor projects will now be comprised of several small segments closer to 600 feet wide and will no longer be called the Trans-Texas Corridor. Instead, the department will use the highway numbers originally associated with each segment, such as I-69, SH 130 and Loop 9." (Source: http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/37149004.html).

A Spanish company, ACS (who partnered with Zachry), already bid on some of these same segments in the Valley under a prior proposed public private partnership (or PPP called CDAs in Texas) which expired in October of last year (see press release here). ACS/Dragados states the: “The I-69/TTC (Trans Texas Corridor) will connect the Mexican border with the Gulf of Mexico coastline, Houston and major industrial and logistics centres in Texas with the north of the country.” So many of the projects in the list of CDAs make these logistics and port connections.

Selling Texas to special interests

I knew they were going to sell-out Texas when they adopted Alonzo’s amendment right out the gate that allows TxDOT to hire an ‘emerging fund’ manager. So we’re firing teachers over our state’s fiscal crisis, but hiring ‘emerging fund managers’ that specialize in juggling multi-leveraged debt, high finance accounting tricks, and private equity deals that sell our Texas roads to foreign companies. Those are the priorities of the Texas House.

These fund managers are the very same people responsible for the subprime mortgage crisis and the financial meltdown in Greece. The GOP dominated Legislature has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of special interests, not the people’s representatives and guardians of the public interest.

Over 100 amendments got tacked onto what is supposed to be a TxDOT reform bill. Based on its actions Friday, the priority of this Legislature is not fixing an agency run amok, but rather handing Texas’ roads to private, foreign corporations using concession CDAs that will greatly increase taxes on driving. Even worse, it places the power to tax in the hands of private corporations that taxpayers cannot hold accountable. With toll rates of 75 cents a mile, it’s like adding $15 to every gallon of gas you buy.

Rep. Larry Phillips’ HB 2255, was adopted in amendment form and became the primary amendment that lumped all the CDAs into one place to privatize and toll what began as 11 different Texas highways from DFW to the Valley, but then legislators engaged in a feeding frenzy and starting adding project after project once they saw Phillips had the votes.

House ‘made a mockery’ of TxDOT review

It was like watching kids in a candy store, giddy to sell-off Texas to the highest bidder and get to be the next one to do it. The Texas House made a mockery of TxDOT sunset review process. What they did was a disgrace and makes me ashamed to be a Texan.

Andy Hogue of the Lone Star Report reported: “...it became a free-for-all, as legislators lined up to add their own projects to the list of approved CDAs. Five were approved, before Rep. Lois Kolkhorst asked if her colleagues were ‘adding all the highways in Texas’ to the list.”

Rep. Yvonne Davis attempted to sober-up her colleagues at the end saying she was ‘embarrassed,’ and that the way they had conducted themselves was not ‘honorable.’ She chided them that they were misleading the public as to what they were really doing. Davis tacked on an amendment to ensure none of the CDAs could be done with authority from the Trans Texas Corridor chapter of the Transportation Code (Chapter 227), though any CDA authority will lead to essentially the same outcome.

Phillips’ Amendment #90 eventually lumped in George Lavender, Eddie Lucio III’s, and amendments that will revive segments of the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69/I-69 in East Texas and down in the Valley, bringing the grand total to 20 projects before the pandemonium came to an end. The vote to adopt CDAs was 109-27 (1 present not voting, 13 absent). Authors of the other CDA amendments whether stand alone or under Phillips’ amendment #90 were: Allen Fletcher, Mike Hamilton, Linda Harper-Brown, Tan Parker, and Randy Weber.

“This is a tax bill,” said Kolkhorst in Friday’s Quorum Report. “When you put CDAs on there, it is a tax bill, there’s no doubt about it. All those people who voted against fees? This is a fee bill.”

Kolkhorst remained a stalwart against PPPs and led the fight against them on the floor. She won a round, 69 Nays to 65 Ayes, to shoot down design-build CDA authority for Regional Mobility Authorities (contracts that also eliminate competitive bidding like concession CDAs, but stop short of giving the private entities a leasehold and the right to collect tolls), only to have Phillips, author of HB 2574 that he made into Amendment #67 to the sunset bill, take it up for reconsideration and got it attached (by a vote of 109 to 36) the second try after significant lobbying of urban legislators on the floor.

This is what makes voters’ stomachs turn - when the bad guys don’t like the result of the vote, they just keep bringing it to a vote until they win.

House members embrace revolving DEBT BOMB

At least two other major pieces of controversial legislation were adopted in the sunset bill, one by Phillips which is his bill HB 3218 that involves the State Infrastructure Bank (SIB) and multi-leveraging of taxpayer money being loaned to subsidize both public and private toll roads for which the taxpayer will pay back their own money with interest through tolls. It also allows the SIB to guarantee the toxic debt that private bond investors won’t touch -- in the same way Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave home loans to those who didn’t have the ability to pay it back.

The other was HB 2802 by Rep. Joe Pickett that establishes a ‘revolving fund’ using Texas Mobility Fund, Prop 12 and Prop 14 revenues, most of which is borrowed money, and would involve using borrowed money to pay-off and secure more borrowed money. The bill analysis for the revolving fund said it seeks to “mitigate certain project financial risks” and loan money to toll entities who are having trouble securing financing at a reasonable rate. That’s code for private muni bond and toll revenue bond investors aren’t willing to risk their capital on loser toll projects so lawmakers want to risk the taxpayers money to subsidize the toxic debt for toll projects that have no business being built as toll projects.

Mark my words, this will come back to bite us. Politicians are playing games of high finance with other people’s money and we know from experience who loses in the deal...the taxpayers. They’ll be coming to us with draconian tax hikes or asking for an infrastructure bailout or both. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

Sends wrong signal to a rogue agency

The Sunset Committee Advisory Report said: “The Sunset review of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) occurred against a backdrop of distrust and frustration with the Department and the demand for more transparency, accountability, and responsiveness. Many expressed concerns that TxDOT was “out of control”...Sunset staff found that this atmosphere of distrust permeated most of TxDOT’s actions and determined that it could not be an effective state transportation agency if trust and confidence were not restored. Significant changes are needed to begin this restoration; tweaking the status quo is simply not enough.”

This coupled with a scathing 628 page management audit that revealed deep-seated, structural problems in every department division with TxDOT, it’s inexplicable that our legislators are essentially giving this agency a free pass to keep putting the screws to the taxpayers with their unpopular privatized toll road network that are rife with eminent domain abuse and a loss of sovereignty over Texas infrastructure that will cost Texans dearly to move about this state.

The abuse of property rights, the punitive level of taxation, the reckless disregard for the public interest just to get a road built, and the special interest giveaways are simply staggering.

God help Texas if this bill becomes law.

TURF is urging Texans to contact their state lawmakers at (512) 463-4630 to remove CDAs and these controversial debt/loan provisions from the bill and to focus on fixing the highway department.

Complete list of Texas roads eligible to be sold off to private corporations:

(1)  State Highway 99 (Grand Parkway) project (loop around Houston);

(2)  the Interstate Highway 35E managed lanes project in Dallas and Denton Counties from Interstate Highway 635 to U.S. Highway 380;

(3) North Tarrant Express project in Tarrant and Dallas Counties - State Highway 183 from State Highway 121 to State Highway 161 (Segment 2E);

(4, 5, 6) North Tarrant Express project in Tarrant and Dallas Counties  - Interstate Highway 35W from Interstate Highway 30 to State Highway 114 (Segments 3A, 3B, and 3C);

(7) North Tarrant Express project in Tarrant and Dallas Counties  - Interstate Highway 820 from State Highway 183 North to south of Randol Mill Road (Segment 4);

(8) State Highway 183 managed lanes project in Dallas County from State Highway 161 to Interstate Highway 35E;

(9) State Highway 249 project in Harris and Montgomery Counties from Spring Cypress Road to Farm-to-Market Road 1774

(10) Loop 1 (MoPac Improvement) project from Farm-to-Market Road 734 to Cesar Chavez Street;

These projects were added in the feeding frenzy

(11) Highway 288 project in Brazoria & Harris Counties (this coupled with TTC-69/I-69 projects means many connections to our ports and major logistics centers in the Valley and around Houston will be controlled by private, foreign companies, not Texans)

(12) Managed lane improvements to the Grayson County Tollway project, an extension of the Dallas North Tollway in Grayson County

(THIS ONE IS A DUPLICATION OF #10 above) Loop 1 (MoPac Improvement) project from Farm-to-Market Road 734 to Cesar Chavez Street

(13) the U.S. 183 (Bergstrom Expressway) project from Springdale Road to Patton Avenue.

(14) Managed lane improvements to the U.S. Highway 290 Hempstead managed lanes project in Harris County from Interstate Highway 610 to State Highway 99

Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69/I-69 Projects

(15) Outer Parkway Project from U.S. Highway 77/83 to Farm-to-Market Road 1847;

(16) the South Padre Island Second Access Causeway Project from State Highway 100 to Park Road 100; or

(17) a project identified as part of the Hidalgo County Loop System or the La Joya Bypass project.

TTC-69/I-69 Projects added in feeding frenzy

(18) State Highway 550 from U.S. Highway 77/83 to State Highway 48.

(19) The Interstate Highway 69 project in Bowie County from the Sulphur River Bridge to Interstate Highway 30 (see the north-east end of the TTC-69/I-69 map - This uses very vague language, presumably because it will convert parts of the existing right of way of Hwy 59 into TTC-69/I-69 and make it a foreign-owned toll road without saying so. Hwy 59 is the new identified route for TTC-69/I-69 in northeast Texas)

(20) Managed lane improvements to the Interstate Highway 69 project from Interstate Highway 10 to the Tyler County line (northward logistics connection from SH 69 in Beaumont east of the Port of Houston to Tyler County which eventually connects up to Hwy 59 near Lukfin, which is slated to be upgraded to I-69)

Flap over speed limits in Trans Texas Corridor repeal

Link to article here.

85 mph flap much ado about Texas 130

Ben Wear: Getting There

 
Published: 7:19 p.m. Sunday, April 17, 2011

You may have heard or read that the Texas House this month passed a bill that would create an 85 mph speed limit on Texas highways. The widely misreported news sparked unsettling images of SUVs barreling down U.S. 183 or Interstate 35 at 90 or more, given the general assumption that people tend to drive a few miles per hour over the posted limit.

T'ain't so.

What the House did — and who knows if the Senate and Gov. Rick Perry will go along in the coming weeks? — was allow the possibility of an 85 mph speed limit on what amounts to one road. Which isn't open yet. And, oh, by the way, Texas law already allowed that speed on that road.

That highway, it's worth knowing, is here in Central Texas: the southern 40 miles of Texas 130, which has been under construction for a couple of years between Mustang Ridge and Seguin and should open in late 2012.

Actually, the real purpose of the legislation that started all this — House Bill 1201, by Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham — is to drive a final stake into the already inert heart of the Trans-Texas Corridor. The governor, the Texas Department of Transportation and the facts on the ground already have made it obvious that Perry's one-time plan for 4,000 miles of tollways, railroads and utility lines is deader than disco.

Multiple references to the corridor plan still exist in state law, though, and Kolkhorst, who represents an area that was a hotbed of opposition to Perry's corridor brainchild, wants that language gone. But those statutes also include authorization to slap an 85 mph speed limit on any Trans-Texas Corridor road, and officials assumed all along that the new portion of Texas 130 would be designated a part of the corridor.

This is no small financial matter to the state. Its contract with a consortium led by Cintra, a Spanish toll road company that is building and will operate (and, it hopes, profit from) that section of Texas 130 for the next half-century, specifies that TxDOT would get an extra $67 million if the speed limit is 80 mph. Set the limit at 85 mph, and that premium rises to $100 million. TxDOT would have six months from when the road opens to set those higher limits or lose the chance to get that extra money.

The logic is that a faster speed limit, which only the Texas Transportation Commission can authorize, will draw more toll-paying drivers to the road and thus increase Cintra's revenue. Ergo, the state should get some of that bonus cash.

Kolkhorst's bill would let TxDOT adopt that higher speed limit, but only on roads completed after May 31 this year that are specially designed to accommodate those extreme speeds. Which means the roads, among other elements, must be flatter, straighter and better banked in curves than a normal freeway.

The bill goes on to require TxDOT, in order to exceed the "normal" rural freeway speed limit of 70 mph, to conduct studies showing that the bulk of cars are already going faster than the existing limit. The logic is that people, absent the heavy-duty presence of state troopers handing out tickets, tend to drive at speeds appropriate to the road design and amount of traffic.

In other words, you could set a 70 mph speed limit on Lavaca Street downtown, and still the overwhelming number of people probably would never go faster than, say, 45. Or you could tell people the limit on empty and flat Interstate 10 near Ozona is 70, and people would still tend to go something close to 80. Actually, the limit in that section of I-10 is 80 mph already, thanks to legislation passed several years ago.

As for the idea that if you set the limit at 85, people 
will go a death-defying 90, TxDOT officials say that their studies, after I-10 from Kerr County west got that 80 mph limit, showed that 85 percent of drivers were going 81 mph or less. Yes, you could go 85 and probably not get a ticket. But most people had decided on their own that 80 was quite fast enough.

The kerfuffle over Kolkhorst's bill has obscured another bill that would make a much more meaningful change. HB 1353 by state Rep. Gary Elkins, a Houston Republican, would raise that general 70 mph highway limit to 75, and there would no longer be a 5 mph lower nighttime speed limit. That bill has motored through committee and is awaiting a final vote of the House as a whole.

People with safety and gas-guzzling concerns about high speeds should probably be fretting over this bill, not Kolkhorst's handiwork.

Lawmakers to sell TX highways to Spain?

Link to article here.

Though Vic Suhm of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition claims there's no public money in these privatized toll deals called public private partnerships (PPPs), there most certainly is -- they use BILLIONS in public money. See how the North Tarrant Express (I-820) and LBJ private toll deals are financed here (See page 2).

Texas likely to expand authority to lease highways to developers

Posted Friday, Apr. 22, 2011

By Gordon Dickson, Ft. Worth Star Telegram

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AUSTIN -- Lawmakers expect to expand the state's authority to lease out highways to developers -- often foreign companies -- for up to 52 years, despite lingering opposition from some Texans.

A handful of bills on the subject could have huge implications for Dallas-Fort Worth, where some of the first such development deals in the U.S. were signed for projects like the $2.5 billion North Tarrant Express, which will overhaul Northeast Loop 820 and Texas 121/183 in Northeast Tarrant County. Now, Metroplex officials want to expand that project to include Interstate 35W in Fort Worth.

Developers have also been awarded the $2.7 billion project known as LBJ Express -- the construction of toll lanes under Interstate 635 in Dallas. It's a trend that worries residents who object to corporations controlling roads and keeping the tolls from them.

"Here in a session where we have a committee on state sovereignty talking about how we're going to throw off the federal government and exercise state rights, we're at the same time losing our sovereignty over public infrastructure, handing over highways to foreign contractors and handing Texas back to Spain," said Terri Hall, founder of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom.

Hall's group rose to prominence several years ago as Texans rejected Gov. Rick Perry's plan to build a $178 billion toll road network known as the Trans Texas Corridor.

But among lawmakers, the vitriolic opposition to privatization that dominated previous sessions seems to have calmed.

Immersed in attempts to fix the state's budget crisis, elected leaders say that they realize that where local support is broad, it's appropriate to allow the Texas Department of Transportation to turn over projects to outsiders in the form of comprehensive development agreements.

"We're going to get some authorization for CDAs," Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst told the Star-Telegram this week. "Texas has done CDAs, and by and large these have been well-received."

Other candidates for development: Interstate 35E in Denton County and Texas 183 in Irving.

Reluctant support

Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, authored a bill that would expand North Tarrant Express to include I-35W, Texas 183 from Texas 121 in Bedford to Texas 161 in Irving, and East Loop 820 from North East Mall to Randol Mill Road.

"They [lawmakers] are resigned to the fact that at this point a funding mechanism for transportation has not been created, and in limited instances they're willing to accept comprehensive development agreements," Davis said.

Long-term, lawmakers are realizing that once they've solved the budget crisis and settled the redistricting issue, a conundrum is looming over how to pay for the next generation of Texas roads, Dewhurst said.

"For 2014 and 2015, I want to work to increase the different sources of funding so we can continue to build the roads we need to reduce congestion," he said. "No one wants to see free roads tolled, and we're not going to do that. They want to see us fund the essential services."

For 2012-13, he said, the plan is to allow a small number of development agreements and make available $8.1 billion for new road work, construction, maintenance and right of way -- including gas taxes, vehicle registration fees and the remaining $3 billion in Proposition 12 funding approved by voters in 2007. Proposition 12 allows the state to issue debt and repay it over the long term with general revenue.

Several other senators have filed separate bills for each project they wish to build with a development agreement, with most of the projects in North Texas and Houston. Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman, the House Transportation Committee chairman, has filed a single bill with multiple projects -- setting the stage for a debate in the next few weeks.

Some lawmakers are expressing concerns about a lack of competitive bidding for privatized projects. Once a developer is selected as the "best value," the developer has the latitude to hire and make purchases beyond what's normally allowed in bidding laws.

Foreign roots

The team of companies building the North Tarrant Express project is known as NTE Mobility Partners. It includes: Cintra U.S., a huge toll road development corporation from Spain; Meridiam Infrastructure, an investment firm from France; and the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System, which represents 8,500 public safety employees.

The Transportation Department contributed $573 million in public dollars to the project. Cintra is putting in $427 million of its own equity, $400 million in federally backed private activity bonds and $650 million from a federal transportation infrastructure loan.

The four-year job began late last year. Construction should be in full swing by summer in Bedford, Haltom City and other cities along the 13-mile corridor.

In return for its investment, NTE Mobility Partners keeps tolls collected on the new lanes through 2061.

The project will rebuild existing lanes and add toll lanes so motorists can choose to stay on the main lanes for free or pay to go faster on toll lanes. Tolls will range from $1.20 to $6.50 for the length of the project, fluctuating depending upon traffic conditions.

While most of the companies in NTE Mobility Partners are behind the scenes, the on-site construction leader is Bluebonnet Contractors. Although it has a nice, Texas-sounding name, Bluebonnet is actually made up of Spaniards, including Cintra's parent company, Ferrovial; a U.S. subsidiary known as Ferrovial-Agroman; and Webber Llc.

Webber has four decades of engineering and construction roots in Houston, but it's now a foreign company, too, having been bought by Ferrovial Group in 2005.

That arrangement bothers critics such as Hall, who got involved in transportation issues while fighting a toll project in San Antonio.

"I don't think our legislators have a clue that all these companies are front companies for Cintra," she said.

Supporters of North Tarrant Express say they're comfortable with the arrangement. Many critics don't live near the project and don't fully realize how sorely traffic relief is needed, they say.

"They view it as a situation in which public money is subsidizing private interests, when in fact it's the exact opposite," said Vic Suhm, executive director of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition. "These private investors are walking in with money to finance a project, and they get paid back through toll revenue. In fact, the private people are subsidizing us."

Sell out: House Committee passes bill to hand TX roads to private for-profit corporations

Yesterday evening, the Texas House Transportation Committee passed HB 2255 that would sell-off seven Texas highways to private, for-profit companies in 50 year sweetheart toll road deals, WITHOUT competitive bidding.

Sadly, eight other members of the Committee voted with Phillips against stiff public opposition to HB 2255. They were: Drew Darby, Allen Fletcher, Linda Harper-Brown, George Lavender, Armando Martinez, Joe Pickett, Eddie Rodriguez. Representatives Yvonne Davis voted against, Ruth Jones McClendon was present not voting, and Dennis Bonnen was absent.

Phillips had to withdraw his bill Monday due to objections and concerns by Committee members. He brought it up in Committee again Wednesday morning and several members reluctantly voted for it and several voted against -- it was a picture of chaos as Phillips tried to shore-up his Committee to vote against the taxpayer. At that time, the Committee had not even been furnished with a copy of the substitute bill (he had changed the bill) when Phillips called it up for a vote.

By evening when the Committee reconvened, they were handed the substitute bill moments prior to being asked to vote and Rep. Davis brought up significant issues with the authority granted to TxDOT to remove the requirement of competitive bidding. The North Tarrant Express project involves four highways in Tarrant County and the bill would grant TxDOT the authority to enter into a controversial Comprehensive Development Agreement (CDA also known as a public private partnership) without competitive bidding and allow the initial winning team to get the development rights with a right of first refusal on ALL future projects WITHOUT competitive bidding.

One of the concerns with CDAs is it replaces traditional low-bid, competitive procurement contracts with "best value" bidding rather than requiring the lowest price for the taxpayer, a process open to favoritism and cronyism. Despite Davis' concerns, the Committee passed the bill, casting doubt on the so-called "conservative" credentials of many of its members.


 

Why we must keep the current BAN on public private partnerships (PPPs), known as CDAs in Texas, in place:

- Grants private, even foreign, entities MONOPOLIES for 50 years
- Means the loss of control over Texas infrastructure & toll tax rates, Texans can’t go to a corporation’s Board of Directors to request relief from high toll rates as they can with elected officials. It’s taxation without representation and the marriage corporations with the State.
- Eminent domain for private gain -- to take private property in the name of a public use then hand it to a private interest, for a private benefit for a HALF CENTURY
- Terms of contract kept secret from the public until AFTER the deal is signed.
- Ends competitive bidding and even grants the initial winning team right of first refusal on all future segments without competitive bidding.
- Limits the expansion of free roads (to guarantee congestion on the free routes)
- Manipulates the speed limits to drive more traffic to the toll road
- Charges toll rates as high as 75 cents PER MILE (these are PUBLISHED rates for both the LBJ & North Tarrant Express CDAs in DFW) or 80 cents per mile (for I-35 according to Denton Record Chronicle, Feb. 13, 2011)
- Puts the taxpayer on the hook for the losses while the private investors are GUARANTEED PROFITS in the contracts
- Allows private corporations the power to tax
- Use massive amounts of public money & debt to subsidize/prop-up toll projects that can't pay for themselves. This model doesn’t remotely resemble the claim that the ‘user’ pays for the road. On two PPPs in DFW, $500 million dollars in gas taxes, and another $1.5 BILLION in PABS and TIFIA loans are subsidizing the LBJ project and $500 million in gas taxes and $1 BILLION in PABS and TIFIA loans are subsidizing the North Tarrant Express.
- Eliminates due process in contesting fees, interest, and penalties, with the possibility of losing your car’s registration for failure to pay what they say you owe

Rep. Larry Phillips' signature issue this session has been to expand TxDOT and un-elected toll authorities' ability to enter into controversial highway contracts and their ability to use risky financing schemes (like using borrowed money to secure more borrowed money, like building roads with credit cards) to toll Texas roadways, even existing roads. The sheer volume of anti-taxpayer legislation coming out of Phillips' Committee is staggering. The public has been undaunted in its opposition to these anti-taxpayer, anti-sovereignty, anti-property rights policies. Now these bills (HB 1112, HB 2255, HB 2475) go before the full House where the grassroots will work to ensure this legislation ends up on the ash heap. The Senate has already railroaded every CDA bill through its Committee.

Trucker group: Kill any attempts to resurrect TTC and PPPs

Texas House OKs 85 mph speeds, wipeout of Trans-Texas Corridor

By Keith Goble, Land Line state legislative editor, April 8, 2011

A bill halfway through the Texas Legislature would authorize the fastest speeds in the nation and put to rest any lingering uncertainty about a proposed superhighway.

Other bills being considered at the statehouse address public-private partnerships to complete road work.

The House voted unanimously Thursday, April 7, to advance a bill to the Senate that would permit the speed limit on certain new roadways to be set at 85 mph. Such authorization would allow drivers to travel faster than anywhere else in the nation.

Speeds of 85 mph could be authorized on highways built after June 1, 2011. The Texas Department of Transportation would be required to perform engineering and traffic studies to determine whether the speed is appropriate.

Texas has more than 520 miles of Interstate 10 and Interstate 20 in west Texas posted at 80 mph during the day for motorists while trucks are limited to 70 mph. Speeds for all vehicles are lowered to 65 mph at night.

Todd Spencer, executive vice president for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said the uniformity of speeds is truckers’ primary concern.

“The only speed limit policy that makes sense is to have all vehicles traveling at the same speed,” Spencer said.

A separate provision in the bill – HB1201 – would write the Trans-Texas Corridor out of the books.

The corridor was the pet project of Gov. Rick Perry. Approved in 2003, the proposed 4,000-mile network of toll roads was billed as setting the path for a NAFTA superhighway stretching from the Mexican border to Canada.

After years of debate in Austin, the multibillion-dollar TTC was declared dead in 2009, but concern about language still on the books has spurred additional action.

The bill would remove any reference to the failed highway project from statute, which would bring the state in line with the cancellation of the project.

OOIDA has criticized the corridor plan since it was unveiled. The Association cited reasons that included the proposed toll rate of 50 cents per mile for large trucks.

Another toll bill drawing consideration in the Texas House would authorize the use of public-private partnerships to get road work done. Intended to boost projects at the local level, HB3789 would authorize the state or regional tolling authorities to work with private groups to complete projects “identified in the statewide transportation plan.”

Still other bills pursue partnerships with private groups on road work. The Senate voted Thursday to advance three bills that would allow TxDOT to make deals for work on a 28-mile segment of Interstate 35 East between I-635 and U.S. 380, a nine-mile portion of state Highway 183 between state Highway 161 and I-35 E, and five segments of the North Tarrant Expressway project. Senators already approved a separate bill that would authorize a partnership for the Grand Parkway, state Highway 99, in Houston.

SB1007, SB1017, SB1144 and SB1145, respectively, have been forwarded to the House for further consideration.

OOIDA encourages Texas truckers to contact their state lawmakers about these bills.

To view other legislative activities of interest for Texas, click here.

Editor’s Note: Please share your thoughts with us about the legislation included in this story. Comments may be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Private toll road shocker: Raise tolls to pay for transit

Link to blog here.

A shocking revelation

By Dan Malouff, Washington Post

A number of Virginia politicians are shocked and appalled that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority is considering raising tolls on the Dulles toll road in order to pay the extra $330 million needed to put the Silver Line airport Metro station underground.

This is a good learning opportunity for those who think public/private partnerships equate to free money. When you turn over public infrastructure to private groups, you lose your authority to dictate policy, and the new private owners may not have the same priorities as the previous public ones. Virginia’s leaders should have realized when they turned the roll road over to the MWAA that MWAA would henceforth make policy for the road with its own interests in mind.

Apparently the idea that there’s no such thing as a free lunch is a shocking revelation.

Dan Malouff is an Arlington County transportation planner who blogs independently at BeyondDC.com. The Local Blog Network is a group of bloggers from around the D.C. region who have agreed to make regular contributions to All Opinions Are Local.

Texas House votes to finally repeal the Trans Texas Corridor

Finally a story that actually reports what happened Wednesday! The Texas House voted unanimously to REPEAL the despised Trans Texas Corridor statute from the books and the only thing the press reported on was the amendment to that bill, HB 1201, that would allow TxDOT to increase the speed limits on Texas highways to 85 MPH.

Our problem with that amendment is that it was originally structured as a pay-off to Spain-based Cintra for its Trans Texas Corridor contract for SH 130 segments 5 & 6 where it pays TxDOT the maximum payment if it raises speed limits up to 85 MPH on its tollway (to incentivize more drivers to use their high speed toll road, hence Cintra gets higher toll revenues for which its willing to pay TxDOT for the enrichment to its coffers). See Ex 7 of the contract here. TxDOT would also receive a greater share of the toll revenues if it raises the speed limit to 85 MPH on Cintra's tollway. So just when you thought speed limits were about "public safety," private toll road interests come in and hijack the citizens' bill to REPEAL the Trans Texas Corridor to get the last laugh! The amendment, however, was apparently changed to only affect projects built AFTER the law takes effect in June.

Our hats off to Rep. Lois Kolkhorst who has worked with the people of Texas tirelessly since 2005 to KILL this beast that would have left a scar over Texas for generations.

House moves to kill the dead Trans Texas Corridor

Posted on 04/06/2011 by Gary Scharrer
 
  The controversial Texas Trans Corridor has been dead for a few years, but it still lives on in the state statutes.


Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham

All references, however, will be removed under legislation tentatively approved Wednesday by the Texas House. HB 1201 would repeal the chapter providing its statutory authority.

The Texas Trans Corridor remains a controversial legacy of Gov. Rick Perry. Widespread opposition by landowners and others upset about foreign ownership of state highways doomed the massive project that was authorized in 2003. Perry pushed the plan, which included a large network of tolled highways, dedicated lanes for trucks, railways, and rights of way for utilities.

  HB 1201 – approved without discussion – would allow the Texas Transportation Commission to establish speed limits up to 85 miles per hour on a part of the state highway system that was designed to accommodate travel at that speed, following engineering studies.

Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, a fierce opponent of the Trans Texas Corridor, authored HB 1201.

“As our state grows in population, we are facing a pressing need for a more modern, more efficient network of roads and highways to move people and goods.  We do not, however, need the Trans-Texas Corridor, and I thank Speaker (Joe) Straus and my colleagues in the Texas House for working with me to repeal the Trans-Texas Corridor from state law,” Kolkhorst said.

She has been fighting the Trans-Texas Corridor since 2005.



Read the rest of the story here.

Indiana Gov wants sole authority to enter into PPPs

Link to article here.

To show how far gone Texas is, this is basically already the case in Texas. Once the Legislature authorized these contracts, there were no protections or oversight in place. TxDOT, run by the Governor's appointees, could enter into public private partnerships (called CDAs in Texas) at will, in secret, with NO oversight. In 2007, a moratorium was put in place because of the gross excesses TxDOT engaged in -- signing sweetheart deals for a half century effectively signing away the public's rights to access and use their own public road system unless they can pay 75 cents a mile in tolls, in deals that guarantee free roads remain congested for the life of these contracts using non-compete agreements.

Currently, there are nearly 30 bills to re-authorize these PPP contracts in the Texas Legislature, whether on a limited basis or indefinitely. HB 3789 by Larry Phillips would remove any protections PPPs used to have in place under the moratorium, like having the Attorney General and State Auditor review PPPs prior to them being signed. No elected officials would see the terms of the deal nor ANY member of the public prior to them being signed. Phillips' bill also gives the private corporation control of the surrounding free lanes and the facilities in the public' right of way just like the universally despised Trans Texas Corridor.

Texans beware: your Governor, Rick Perry, wants sole authority, too, and he's already shown what he'll do with that authority...rip-off generations of Texans with these government-sanctioned monopolies that conservative Michelle Malkin calls "corporate welfare."

Bill would remove legislature from toll road equation

Lawmakers' approval would not be required


By Heather Gillers
Indiana Star
April 1, 2011

The governor would have the sole authority to create toll roads under a bill that has been quietly advancing through the Indiana legislature.

The measure, which would expire in 2015, is up for a vote in the House Roads and Transportation Committee next week. It passed the Senate 37-12 in February.

"It's that whole thing about striking while the iron is hot," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Tom Wyss, R-Fort Wayne.

Private companies are "not going to invest a million bucks into a project and then have to wait for the General Assembly to approve it," he said. "They'll go to a state where they can do it (more expediently)."

For a four-year period, the bill would allow the governor and the Indiana Department of Transportation to launch public-private projects, including creating or converting existing highways to toll roads, without the approval of the legislature. Opponents worry it would shut voters out of government deals with private companies.

In public-private road partnerships, companies typically work with government to build or maintain a road in exchange for some benefit, such as toll collection.

The requirement that lawmakers sign off on such projects was a part of Gov. Mitch Daniels' Major Moves package, approved in 2006. The project marked the beginning of the state's use of public-private partnerships to launch major road developments.

The following year, the Commerce Connector project -- Wyss' push to create a second highway loop around Indianapolis' I-465 -- drew public opposition, and Daniels urged Wyss to pull the proposal rather than put it to a vote in the House.

The idea of the governor making private highway deals without consulting other elected officials troubles Rep. Terri Austin, D-Anderson, who held hearings on the 2007 Commerce Connector proposal. If Wyss' measure had been in effect at that time, she pointed out, the governor could have simply ignored public opposition.

"This would basically remove any General Assembly oversight whatsoever," Austin said. "He just gets to say, 'I want to do that. This is how I want to do it.' "

Under Wyss' bill, any proposal for a public-private road project would get a review -- but not a vote -- by the State Budget Agency, which includes the state budget director and one representative from each of the four caucuses: the House and Senate Republicans and
Democrats. Before that, the proposal would undergo feasibility and economic impact studies, and the public could comment on it in a hearing -- all special requirements for public-private partnerships that lawmakers approved last year.

"All this was done so that none of these projects could be developed in secret," INDOT spokesman Will Wingfield said.

About 30 other states do not require lawmakers' approval for a public-private road project, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some of those states, however, do require approval from a transportation board or commission.

The measure allowing public-private partnerships is tucked into a larger transportation bill, Senate Bill 473, and has mostly escaped public attention. It passed the Senate Feb. 22, the first full day of the House Democrats' walkout.

Wyss said he hopes the House amends out the 2015 expiration date, making the exclusion of legislators from the process permanent. The expiration date was inserted to appease lawmakers who are lukewarm to the measure, he said.

It's B-A-C-K...the Trans Texas Corridor rears its ugly head

Link to article here.

FROM JEROME CORSI'S RED ALERT
It's b-a-a-ck! Trans-Texas Corridor rises from dead

Plans revived to build public-private partnership toll roads

Posted: April 03, 2011
9:46 pm Eastern

© 2011
 

Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium online newsletter published by the current No. 1 best-selling author, WND staff writer and senior managing director of the Financial Services Group at Gilford Securities.

Believe it or not, the Trans-Texas Corridor is back, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.

Texas state Rep. Larry Phillips has introduced in the state Legislature H.B. 3789, a bill designed to allow public-private partnerships, better known as PPPs, to develop toll roads throughout Texas.

"The only thing missing is the name 'Trans-Texas Corridor' and the comprehensive development agreement, or CDA, that specifies the private partners involved in building the new generation of Texas toll roads," Corsi wrote.

In all, some 26 bills have been introduced into the Texas Legislature that would sell a wide variety of public infrastructure, including highways, mass transit facilities, hospitals, schools, recreational facilities, public buildings, technology architecture and even parking lots to private corporations in some fashion.

"Texas, like some 40 other states facing budget deficits that could lead to significant cut-backs in public services, has gone the route of 'America for sale' in the enthusiasm to convert freeways into toll roads and government infrastructure into PPP projects that would permit, if not invite, foreign private corporate involvement and ownership," Corsi noted.

But did the Trans-Texas Corridor every really die?


In January 2009, Amadeo Saenz, executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation, or TxDOT, proclaimed to the Dallas News, "Make no mistake: The Trans-Texas Corridor, as we have known it, no longer exists."

Corsi added, "The operative qualifying clause in that proclamation was the phrase 'as we have known it,' given that the Trans-Texas Corridor, or TTC, appears alive and well. Evidence on numerous government and industry alliance websites shows the TTC project is proceeding under the cover of being broken up into two separate projects and rebranded as the I-35 Corridor and the I-69 Corridor."

For more information on plans for a Trans-Texas Corridor, read Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, "The Obama Nation."

Red Alert's author, who received a doctorate from Harvard in political science in 1972, is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-sellers "The Obama Nation" and (with co-author John E. O'Neill) "Unfit for Command." He is also the author of several other books, including "America for Sale," "The Late Great U.S.A." and "Why Israel Can't Wait." In addition to serving as a senior staff reporter for WorldNetDaily, Corsi is a senior managing director in the financial-services group at Gilford Securities.

Disclosure: Gilford Securities, founded in 1979, is a full-service boutique investment firm headquartered in New York City providing an array of financial services to institutional and retail clients, from investment banking and equity research to retirement planning and wealth-management services. The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the author are his alone and do not necessarily reflect Gilford Securities Incorporated's views, opinions, positions or strategies. Gilford Securities Incorporated makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability or validity of any information expressed herein and will not be liable for any errors, omissions or delays in this information or any losses, injuries or damages arising from its display or use.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

Remember the Trans-Texas Corridor? It’s baaa-aaack!

 
By Dave Mundy/ This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Posted March 31, 2011 - 9:01am
The Gonzales Cannon

Some things in this world are curious. Other things make sense.

Take air fresheners, for example. They’re designed, marketed to and sold primarily to women. That’s not a critique, ladies, it’s just a simple statement of fact: women apparently have a more delicate olfactory sensibility than men, which is why air fresheners smell like “Summer Rain,” “Apple Cinnamon” and “Fresh Linen.”

We guys, we’re a little more down-to-earth. If they made air fresheners for men, you’d get flavors like “Wet Muddy Dog,” “Stale Laundry” or “Dallas Cowboys Locker Room” (or, even better, “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Locker Room”).

That’s one of those observations about the world that’s curious at first, but later makes sense.
But we seem to have a plethora of things that make you go “Duh!” these days.

Remember the Trans-Texas Corridor? To paraphrase Heather O’Rourke: “It’s baaaaa-aaaaack!”

You’ll recall the state dropped the idea of creating a super-highway for ramshackle Mexican trucks to clatter unimpeded from Laredo to the Oklahoma border a couple of years ago, over the outcry of Texas citizens who objected to the fact that it was a highway for Mexican commerce, using land taken involuntarily from Texas landowners, which would be built by a Spanish company and would be paid for by Texas taxpayers.

Texas Department of Transportation officials bore the brunt of citizens’ ire for the project’s leading proponent (Gov. Rick Perry), including some public meetings where soccer moms threatened to impede progress with shotguns.

Never let it be said our state legislators aren’t a determined lot.

After placating fundamentalists with a bill to allow anti-abortion messages on license plates, State Rep. Larry Phillips (R-Sherman) has done what so many other Texas Republicans have done — gone back to business as usual, spending taxpayers’ money like a Democrat.

Phillips has now introduced HB 3789, relating to the development of toll roads through public-private partnerships — the underlying concept of the “abandoned” Trans-Texas Corridor.

HB 3789, along with several others which allow the state to privatize and/or turn existing highways into toll roads, began hearings in Austin this week. All of the bills take the whole concept of government transparency and chunk it out the window, giving the state the authority to charge you extra money for using the highways you paid for already and, conceivably, giving the roads and the land they sit on to foreign corporations. Among the roads targeted to become a tollway: US Highway 183 coming out of Austin.

The Legislature has given us one positive gem this session, of course. The House recently passed legislation requiring voters to present a valid ID when they go to cast ballots in an effort to prevent fraud. A conference committee will iron out differences before the bill goes to Gov. Perry for his signature, and you can bet that all the acronym organizations (ACORN, SEIU, LULAC)  are already mustering their forces for a legal challenge

Many of the legislators made statements that their driving concern was to guarantee honesty and integrity in our voting system. And many of them cast their votes for this and other bills by having a colleague cast their vote for them -- sometimes when they’re not even in town.

It’s called “ghost voting,” a practice which has developed primarily because of Texas’ unusual legislative set-up: 140-day sessions once every two years. To be fair, lawmakers can’t be on the floor of the House or Senate at all times, and sessions are very busy. But we live in an age when any third-grader can use an iPhone to keep up with the latest happenings in Timbuktu; surely, our legislators could find some lobbyists to supply them with the requisite communications devices.

Of course, there’s communication and there’s communication.

Over in my old stomping ground, the Katy ISD, the local school board is, like many others around the state, wrestling with projected budget cuts in state funding. Among the ideas to save the district some dough is elimination of the bilingual program -- an idea which apparently frightens some parents there.

Bilingual education teaches kids in two languages at once -- usually English and Spanish -- rather than having them learn English first. The idea is that by being taught in their native language they can slowly transition into the all-English world without being too far behind others their age. It is one of those edu-theories that administrators and ethnic activists love.

In practice, it doesn’t work quite so well — one California study a few years back found that a lot of kids (some of whom spent their entire school careers in bilingual education) still could not communicate in English and were two or three years behind counterparts in other subjects, although they were well-versed in Central and South American culture.

The California study recommended complete immersion, especially for younger students, as the most effective way to have kids be able to learn English in order to be competitive academically and in the workforce. Early immersion, in fact, put more non-native speakers on a par with their classmates.

The Katy bilingual debate is but one of many developing around the state. The Legislature is trying hard to lessen the impact of the state budget shortfall, but the only thing it could do to avoid cutting funding across the board is to raise taxes — and if you thought there was going to be a shooting war over the Trans-Texas Corridor, watch what happens if they try to sneak a tax increase through.

New American: Bill resurrects TTC


Trans Texas Corridor: Here We Go Again
Written by Kelly Holt       
The New American
Wednesday, 30 March 2011 12:27

Battle-weary Texans who spent much of the last decade working to defeat the proposed — and hugely unpopular — gigantic north-south highway through Texas up to Canada, known as the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC), are being called to take a deep breath and gather forces once again. New bills have been introduced in the biennial Texas Legislature that would revive the old conflicts for sovereignty.

A June 2007 article in The New American dubbed the Corridor the modern El Camino Real, or King’s Highway, an ancient network of trails used by 17th-century Spanish explorers to transport goods and missionaries from Mexico to the new colony. Many Texans believe such an appellation doesn’t seem too far off at all.

The TTC was proclaimed dead two years ago by nearly every public official; however, Texas Governor Rick Perry declared at the time, "We'll build it, but we'll just change the name." Now the Corridor, which has always been the cynosure of Perry's transportation policy, is getting a new push.

State Representative Larry Phillips has introduced H.B. 3789, one of several related bills affecting infrastructure — a reincarnation of the old legislation that enabled the Corridor projects, but without the old name.
 
Though the history of the Trans Texas Corridor has been well-documented by The New American, and activists in the state are already putting up a fierce struggle, a refresher course doesn’t hurt. The multi-modal, 4000-mile network of highways and toll roads, which would have required over 500,000 Texas acres, gained national attention when Texans learned the real agenda behind the project and sounded the alarm. Even Oklahoma stepped up and enacted its own legislation to prevent the road from jumping the Red River — the Texas/Oklahoma state line.
 
In January of 2009, Texas Department of Transportation official Amadeo Saenz issued a statement for Governor Perry that declared the TTC dead; in August of that year, the Legislature refused to extend authority for the Texas Department of Transportation to contract with private firms — specifically CINTRA, a publicly-held company headquartered in Spain.
 
But Governor Perry has never given up. Because with budget shortfalls and a growing population, public funding isn’t enough to fund road projects, Perry turned once again to Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). And with a new legislature, he went to work again on the Corridor. According to Michael Lindenberger of the Dallas Morning News,
 
Immediately after the last session adjourned, Perry's chief transportation aide promised a hard push to restore the authority to enter into so-called comprehensive development agreements in 2011. And in an interview with The Dallas Morning News just before his re-election in November, Perry said he would ask lawmakers to renew authority for the state to partner with private toll firms.   
 
“The fact of the matter is that we don't really care what name they attach to building infrastructure in the state of Texas. The key is that we have to go forward and build the infrastructure so that the state of Texas and our economy can continue to grow." He noted that the most important part of the plan to him, its reliance on private capital to help finance toll roads, remains a key priority and an approach he expects will be continued: "We'll continue to use all the tools available to build the infrastructure.”
 
The new bills serve to reauthorize the old enabling legislation and the dangerous PPP. For Texas this means that existing roadways will be converted to toll roads, and that everything even touching the roads will be under the authority of the tolling entity. Terri Hall, founder of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF), explains:
 
It would grant the private toll road developers control of not only the toll lanes/road, but also non-toll lanes, frontage roads, buildings on the tollway, parking areas, rest stops, ancillary facilities, etc. It’s eminent domain for private gain all over again, which is what caused a Texas-sized backlash against the TTC in earnest in 2007, when a moratorium on PPPs was put in place.
 
The bill would also allow contracts to be negotiated confidentially and not be revealed to the public until late in the game. The conversion of existing roads to toll roads would burden Texas drivers with excessive tolls; furthermore, if events proceed as previously, there will be no free road alternatives, property will be seized for the project through fraudulent eminent domain procedures, non-compete clauses will be in place, and Texans will have no recourse. Through the PPP’s toll revenues the coffers of the private partners will be filled, and with partial ownership goes control of the project.
 
The main focus of this new transportation agenda will be the I-69 plan. Two years ago, this project was forced to keep a lower profile and reduce its footprint; however, H.B. 3789 will renew attention to that corridor.
 
All of this pales when one knows the bigger picture. The Trans Texas Corridor, a portion of which is in operation and funded by taxpayers (the tolls are really only a tax), serves as part of a national system of corridors designed to facilitate the movement of a gigantic amount of goods coming from foreign countries. The TTC was intended to be the Texas portion of the NAFTA Superhighway, commencing on the west coast of Mexico, and ending up in Canada. Ultimately, the integration of Canada, Mexico and the United States into a North American Union (NAU) must have infrastructure. And these corridors are intended to link the countries.
 
Texans flat-out do not want the corridors. Opposition to the TTC at every session of the Texas Legislature in recent years has made clear their hearty disapproval. And once Americans in other states have understood the threat to national sovereignty posed by such corridors, they have also expressed their outrage.
 
It is understood that when it comes to NAFTA, as Texas goes, so goes the nation.
 
So saddle up and tighten the surcingle for another bumpy ride.
 
Photo: David Zachry (standing on the left) president and CEO of Zachry Construction Corp., shakes hands with Texas Gov. Rick Perry (standing on the right ) after the state and a private company signed a transportation contract on March 11, 2005, in Austin, Texas: AP Images

Dannin: Toll Road to Serfdom

Link to article here.

The Toll Road to Serfdom

By Ellen Dannin
March 15, 2011
Guest Post
American Constitution Society

By Ellen Dannin. Ms Dannin is the Fannie Weiss distinguished faculty scholar and professor of law at Penn State Dickinson School of Law and author of "Crumbling Infrastructure, Crumbling Democracy: Infrastructure Privatization Contracts and Their Effects on State and Local Governance."

If you want to experience a real disconnect, find out how highway privatization actually works and then read the glowing raves by infrastructure privatization boosters.
They claim that privatization transfers risk to the private contractor, while providing high quality infrastructure that a cash-strapped public cannot otherwise afford. They say that the public will have easy drives with new roads and new lanes, all assisted by the installation of the latest tolling and messaging technology.

But when you look into the history and details of infrastructure privatization, reality differs. Take the VirginiaBusiness.com story, "Public project, private risk: Virginia looks to partnerships to tackle major jobs" that praises the 1995 California State Route 91 private toll lanes built in the median of a public road. Those private lanes have atroubled history that is still relevant to today's privatized infrastructure. The SR 91 deal forbade the state from doing repairs and maintenance on the public lanes in order to herd drivers to the private toll lanes. As the public lanes were left to deteriorate, potholes led to car damage and dangerous road and, eventually, public anger that toppled politicians.

Today's deals still include similar terms intended to make the toll road drivers' only alternative. Commonly found "noncompete" terms forbid building or improving "competing" road or mass transit systems. They may also require what is called "traffic calming" but which means by narrowing lanes or making other changes to make alternative routes unpleasant or less useful. Other contract terms require that the government "partner" compensate private contractors for "adverse actions," such as promoting car pooling to lower air pollution and urban congestion that could affect revenues. For the next 40 years, the HOT lanes contract with Transurban of Australia and Fluor Corporation of Texas requires Virginia to reimburse the private companies whenever Capital Beltway carpools exceed 24 percent of the traffic on the carpool lanes - or until the builders make $100 million in profits.



Infrastructure privatization proponents often tout their high-tech innovations, such as embedded sensors to monitor road conditions, communication cables, wireless networks, and flashing electronic signs to warn drivers about traffic volume and accidents, and the use of transponders to debit accounts. They also tout using variable tolls that rise during rush hour as promoting choice.

However, because the contracts last generations and forbid competition, defined broadly, they will severely limit transportation innovation and public choice in the US.

The VirginiaBusiness.com article also says: "The private companies are assuming heavy financial risk upfront." But the reality is that the public bears the greatest financial risk. For the 50, 75, or 99 year life of the contract, we the people must be concerned that our state and local governments take any actions that could be claimed to compete with a private road or be an adverse action affecting the private contractors' revenues - no matter how much they would benefit the public. Just as concerning is that the prospect of facing decades of worry about violating the contracts and fighting claims means that governments will try to buy out the private contractors. We have no idea how that process would unfold and what that price might be.

Freedom of Information Acts require governments - but not private entities - to provide information the public requests. However, increasingly, infrastructure privatization contracts are not made public. When I requested a copy of the now bankrupt San Diego South Bay Expressway (SR 125), I was told it was not available to the public.

According to the VirginiaBusiness.com story, "The [toll road] companies plan to pay down the debt through tolls collected on the Beltway." However, tolls are not the only source of financing used to fund private infrastructure. The story not only overlooks revenue from adverse action and noncompeting claims, it omits the important role of tax breaks to the private contractors. Those tax breaks include highly accelerated amortization of the investment for deals that last longer than the useful life of the infrastructure. If you were ever puzzled why the contracts last so long, now you know that the answer can be found in the tax code.

Those tax breaks impose two major costs on the public. Government budgets receive less tax revenue. And when the multi-generation contracts required to qualify for the tax breaks expire in the 22nd century, we will still be locked into early 21st century technology and will have traded freedom of choice for antique transponders.

The ultimate argument made by infrastructure privatization proponents is that cash-strapped states have no other choice. But that is also untrue. Alternatives exist or can be made to exist by governments letting bonds to investors and through taxes. State and federal fuel taxes have not been raised in many years. And, particularly those who benefit from improved infrastructure should pay their fair share. Rather than imposing taxes - and tolls are essentially a tax - just on those who actually drive on the toll road, taxing those who benefit from transportation more broadly would spread and share the burden in a fairer way.

If we continue down the infrastructure privatization road, we will learn that the real price is lost democracy and true freedom of choice. The real cost - and it is a heavy one - is the creation of 21st century serfdom and the loss of democratic control that lets us chart our future as a people.

Letter to Texas House Transportation Committee

Letter to Texas House Transportation Committee:

Public Private Partnerships & Comprehensive Development Agreements with non-competes, debt, and public subsidies abhorrent to taxpayers

By Terri Hall on behalf of Texas TURF
April 1, 2011

At Wednesday's public hearing, two issues were brought up that we feel need clarification.

First, about the non-compete language in HB 2186, to hand parts of Hwy 183 in North Texas over to a private corporation for the next 50 years. In the original bill as filed, it had language that somewhat restricted non-competes, but the substitute bill removed that language. The discussion seemed to lead people to believe that removing that language meant there would be a prohibition on non-competes for that project, when actually it means there would now be NO restrictions on non-competes since the original language that was a form of a restriction on non-competes is now gone. Therefore, HB 2186 would now have NO restrictions on non-compete clauses that prohibit or penalize taxpayers if free roads are expanded surrounding the privately controlled toll roads.

Prior to getting some restrictions on non-competes put in place in 2007, Cintra tried to make the entire counties of Collin and Denton the non-compete zones for 50 years on the 121 toll project (meaning NO free roads could be expanded for the life of the contract without paying Cintra for any lost toll revenues!)! So is this really what our elected officials want? In 2007, the Legislature fought hard to prevent this from happening. What's changed to even have this scenario back on the table? The taxpayers sure haven't changed their minds, They're outraged by it.

Second, Ms. Melissa Cubria of TexPIRG brought up the article in the Statesman about the proposed DFW 183 toll project being 100% funded by TxDOT (ie - with our gas taxes). The article did, in fact, refer to the 183 project in DFW, yet during the Committee hearing it was stated from the dais that it referred to 183 in Austin. Read it here and scroll to the bottom of the story (after my introductory comments).

The fact that a road will be 100% paid for by Texas taxpayers and then handed over to a private corporation to gouge our citizens with oppressively high toll taxes at 75 cents a mile for a HALF CENTURY is a piracy of the public's assets. It is what Michelle Malkin said it is, corporate welfare. Texans oppose tolling existing roads because it's a double tax. How much more egregious when the road is 100% built with gas taxes as our existing roads are, then handed over to a private company in a sweetheart deal that will indebt generations, increase taxes and our cost of goods, impede our freedom to travel, and ensure our free roads remain congested for our lifetimes. We can do better than this!

Multiple generations of Texans will be impacted by these 50 year contracts. Is it really worth indebting so many future generations to build today's roads? Thomas Jefferson didn't think so.

"No generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence." --Thomas Jefferson

The Texas Constitution says that one Legislature cannot financially bind a future Legislature, perhaps based on Jefferson's wisdom.

Please carefully weigh and consider these things in the decisions you face. Represent the interest of all Texans, both this generation and future generations, well. We're counting on you.

Keystone Pipeline protests reach the White House

Link to article here.

The public outcry over the TransCanada Keystone XL tarsands pipeline project picks up a notch amid environmental, eminent domain, and water concerns.

Bottlenecks continue for TransCanada Keystone Pipeline

By MARCIA DAVIS-SEALE - Tribune City Editor

SATURDAY APRIL 2, 2011

Controversy continues to plague the proposed $7 billion TransCanada Keystone XL tarsands pipeline project.

Environmental concerns are mounting - along with economic concerns that the pipeline would raise Midwest oil prices - all overriding, in the public dialogue, pipeline officials’ statements that the project would collectively provide tens-of-thousands of jobs and substantial revenues for cities, states and counties along its route.

The most recent sources of public outcry include a letter of protest sent to Barack Obama signed by a hundred landowners, a State Department decision to call for more public input on the project, a hydrologist’s study of the project’s potential impact on Texas’ Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer declaring the pipeline hazards a prescription for disaster, a policy passed by the National Farmers Union against the pipeline, and, more locally, a plea from the Stop Tarsands Oil Pipelines group (STOP) for the regional water board to take a public stand against the pipeline.



The TransCanda Keystone XL pipeline, according to State Department information, could transport as much as 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, with up to 200,000 barrels a day shipped to existing delivery stations in Nederland and Moore Junction, Texas. According to the State Department report, pumping capacity could be increased to as much as 900,000 (bpd).

TransCanada plans for the pipeline to pump oilsands bitumen from the Athabasca tar sands in Northern Alberta, Canada to the U.S. Gulf, where the oil would compete in the marketplace with other imported heavy crudes from Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, and U. S. offshore production.  The proposed Keystone XL pipeline route crosses six states: Montana, South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas; running 370 miles through 18 counties of Texas:  including Hopkins, Franklin, Wood, Upshur, Smith, and Jefferson counties.  TransCanada plans for the Keystone XL pipeline to intersect the Keystone pipeline at the point of origin in Canada, and in Nebraska and Oklahoma.

The project consists of approximately 1,707 miles of new 36-inch diameter pipeline, with approximately 327 miles of pipeline running through Canada and 1,380 miles in the United States. The first leg of the Keystone pipeline began moving oil last June across Saskatchewan and Manitoba and through the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois.

Points of contention along the Keystone XL pipeline route include planned crossing of the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in Texas and the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska.

Because the pipeline route crosses international boundaries, The U.S. State Department holds authority for issuing the official permit for the project, and is reportedly reviewing environmental impact and the pipeline company’s emergency response plans. Yet, without a permit, pipeline officials have exercised eminent domain against landowners along the proposed route, and began surveying and digging the route. Wood and Franklin counties are among the counties where landowners are experiencing this activity.

A decision on the pipeline isn't expected until the fall, but environmental groups and many political leaders have reportedly been urging Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to put the brakes on the pipeline, arguing vital aquifers in several agriculture-dependent states will be made vulnerable.

Debate in D.C.

The pipeline fueled a vigorous debate on Capitol Hill Thursday that pitted economics against the environment, and left the matter unresolved, with partisan feathers ruffled, and passions reportedly raw among both Republicans and Democrats.

Protest letter to President

That same day a letter sent to President Obama and the Secretary of State - signed by 100 landowners including 39 Texas property holders of which nine are Winnsboro and five are Sulphur Springs landowners. The letter purports the dangers of the tarsands pipeline, reporting abuses of eminent domain by the pipeline company, and asking for the president to put a plug in the pipeline plans.

The letter also details concerns that the pipeline will boost gas prices in the country’s Midwest.

According to a press release sent out by the Stop Tarsands Oil Pipelines (STOP) special interest group, “By sending this letter, landowners hope that a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that the United States State Department is expected to release in April goes into serious detail noting the difference between the tar sands oil this pipeline would carry and conventional crude and the safety risks that come along with it.” Landowners from four other states along the proposed pipeline route signed the letter: Nebraska, Oklahoma, Montana, and South Dakota.

In East Texas

And on Thursday in Longview, two Keystone XL engineers from TransCanada reportedly spoke with LeTourneau University engineering students, admitting new details centering on safety concerns. According to news reports, one of the engineers told students their teams will respond within four hours in the event of a spill, meaning 150,000 barrels worth of diluted bitumen, a thick oily substance, could escape into the environment before anyone arrives on scene. But a Keystone spokesperson said the pipeline would mean more jobs, and more revenue for the state, and has a lot to offer the United States.

Here, in late March, STOP coordinator Brittany McCallister, asked members of the Northeast Texas Regional Water Planning Group to publicly oppose construction of the pipeline, following presentation of a report by a Houston-based hydrologist and attorney warning that the toxic substances pumping through the pipeline and the proposed pipeline route’s proximity to drinking and irrigation water supplies for 10-12 million Texans could prove “disastrous.” The report can be found online at: http://www.sierraclub.org/dirtyfuels/downloads/2011-03-hydrology-report.pdf .

The State Department

In mid-March the U.S. Department of State sent a media note that they are requesting more public comment on a Supplemental Draft Environmental impact State for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, beginning in mid-April and extending for 45 days, with more details on that to come.

National Farmers Union

Other public voices against the pipeline include the National Farmers Union, which passed a resolution last month at their national convention in San Antonio adopting a new pipeline policy in response to concerns about the pipeline.

According to Graham Christensen, in public affairs for the Nebraska Farmers Union, the policy that originated in the Nebraska Farmers Union organization and was later adopted by the National Union “stemmed from reported abuses by TransCanada regarding eminent domain, and environmental concerns.”

He told the Tribune, “The policy basically addresses a couple of components,” Christensen said. “One is protection of water resources, particularly the Ogallala Aquifer and also, in general other freshwater resources that could be affected. We don’t want a tarsand pipeline built straight through the Aquifer, which supplies 80 percent of Nebraskans drinking water - overall two  million people drink from this; and supplies 30 percent of the nation’s irrigation, when, there hasn’t been any kinds of studies on what the chemicals would do to the aquifer.…

“The policy,” he said, “also deals with domain threats. We don’t support eminent domain threats from entities that don’t have the authority to exercise eminent domain. The pipeline company doesn’t have that right. The policy also deals with who is actually responsible for clean up.”

Christensen referred to a pipeline spill in the Kalamazoo River last year by a Keystone competitor company named Enbridge. “Enbridge would not claim liability, so it came back to the local community. We adopted a policy that the farmers are not going to be responsible for damages.

“The union is completely grass roots driven, 40,000 due-paying members, so when this delegation unanimously approves this policy, it calls to action to the National Farmers Union. Can we stop a pipeline?” he said. “No, but we can jump into the battle and help people understand what’s wrong here and try to protect our landowners…all the way across the county. An official policy like this gives The National Farmers Union the ability to jump into the conversation.”

“The policy sets certain criteria, that unless the pipeline meets certain criteria, we are going to have an issue, and we cannot support it – this one and all pipelines that want to come in the future that do not meet the criteria.”

A statement by The Nebraska Farmers Union opposing the pipeline referred to the contents of the pipeline “diluted bitumen, a thick, heavy corrosive and toxic form of crude oil is associated with pipeline ruptures at 16 times the rate of conventional crude.”

In Mount Pleasant

According to Walt Sears, administrator for the Regional Water Board, the board took no action on STOP’s recent request for them to publicly oppose the pipeline. He said, “It’s uncertain as to when an official statement would be issued. That information is probably more important to citizens and landowners in the immediate area of the proposed pipeline route.”

He said he was not foreseeing that the water board would have a major role in the public conversation.

“One of the things I anticipate,” Sears said, “is that they [STOP} group will talk to the Sulphur River Basin Authority (SRBA), a governmental entity charged with the water quality in the basin, because some of the pipeline routing goes through that basin. They are the more appropriate forum than this association of water planners. I left the [regional water board] meeting thinking STOP would be making a similar presentation to the SRBA.

A spokesman for the SRBA was not available for comment.

The water board was asked to protest the pipeline after hearing a report drafted by hydrologist Lawrence Dunbar, on a study which Dunbar has been quoted as saying the Sierra Club funded. In the conclusion of his report, Dunbar states,  “a spill in a subsurface aquifer like the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer could reduce or eliminate agricultural or domestic use of the groundwater and contaminate groundwater discharges to other waters, “which could have disastrous results.”

In addition, the report states, the fact that the proposed route goes directly through the Mount Enterprise Fault Zone in southern Rusk County only increases the probability of a spill.

City Councilman in Texas

City Councilman Don Williams of New Summerfield in Cherokee County has publicly come out against the pipeline in a letter posted on the Sierra Club website. In his statement he chastises pipeline officials for wanting “to play Russian roulette with the citizens of New Summerfield, Texas.”

Williams states that New Summerfield gets 100 percent of its water from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer, and contamination to the aquifer could make the water needs of 60 Texas counties unsafe, and possibly eliminate the town of New Summerfield. “…there would be no amount of money or jobs that would justify the risk of one spill.”

The National Sierra Club seems to be undergirding protest across the country. A public protest was staged in Winnsboro earlier in the year, and a meeting on the pipeline, sponsored by the Sierra Club and the STOP group, was also held in Mount Pleasant earlier in the year.

Franklin County

Members of the Franklin County Historical Association have expressed opposition to the pipeline crossing land they have designated as a nature preserve, and have called for a thicker pipeline skin at the Big Cypress Basin watershed crossing near Lake Cypress Springs of 1.5 inches thick over the proposed .5 inch thickness.

The Franklin County Water District (FCWD) took over negotiations with Keystone officials on the historical association land, which the district owns and leased to the association. FCWD President David Weidman has told the Tribune that the water district stands in agreement with the historical association that “the portion of the property taken for the right of way should ne minimized, and that the pipeline should be constructed in a manner so as to permit the continued use of the property as a nature preserve to the fullest extent.”

Us motorists rage over toll rates on foreign-owned road

Link to article here.

Though we're not opposed to completely private roads that use no eminent domain, no public money, and have no non-competes prohibiting the expansion of public free roads, this private toll road operated by Macquarie still draws the same sort of backlash and protest. The most telling part of this story is the very last sentence. Macquarie declares it doesn't need to listen to the public because, "We're not a public entity." That sums up why we cannot let Texas roads fall into the hands of private entities...we lose control over the level of taxation, plain and simple.

US motorists rage against Macquarie toll

By Simon Mann
Sydney Morning Herald
March 28, 2011

Drivers are avoiding the Australian-run Dulles Greenway in Virginia amid anger over its high costs, writes Simon Mann in Washington.
 

Australian investors are being accused of highway robbery by motorists in Virginia who blame Macquarie Group for what they say are exorbitant road tolls.

The complaints have been taken up by a member of the US Congress and Virginia's transport authorities who have agreed to set up a committee to look at ways of making the 22-kilometre Dulles Greenway "more user-friendly".

But the prospect for lower tolls is poor. The road, one of the most expensive in the US, charges up to $US5.25 for car journeys but has not paid a dividend to its owner, Macquarie Atlas Roads, for the past three years. Some residents and local companies have boycotted the road - choosing traffic jams on alternative routes - and week-day traffic volumes fell 3 per cent last year. Despite this, toll increases helped lift income by 1.8 per cent.
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"Either way, residents and businesses lose while a foreign company profits," said Congressman Frank Wolf. "It is my hope that this advisory committee will introduce Toll Road Investors Partnership II [the Macquarie-run local operator] to the concept of being accountable to the people it claims to serve."

The road rage is being reflected in online postings, too. "The only way to affect the way the Aussies conduct business is to Not use the Greenway," one motorist urged.

But the man who runs the road, Tom Sines, chief executive of TRIP II: "We are a toll road and, sure, people don't like to pay tolls and there's probably very little we can do to put lipstick on that pig, so to speak."

Built in the mid-1990s, the Dulles Greenway stretches west from Washington's international airport (named after the 1950s secretary of state John Foster Dulles) to Leesburg, coursing through Virginia's fast-growing Loudon County.

It connects with the state-owned Dulles Toll Road that runs east to the US capital, which levies tolls at much lower rates. Revenues from that road are being used to subsidise the cost of building a rail link from Washington to the airport, and tolls are expected to rise over time. Together, the two roads form State Route 267.

Macquarie bought the Greenway in 2005, subsequently spending big on improvements in return for tolling proceeds through to 2056. Its interest in the road is divided 50:50 between two of its managed funds, Macquarie Atlas Roads and Macquarie Infrastructure Partners. Other assets include toll roads in Chicago and Indiana, as well as private roads in Britain and continental Europe.

The locals' anti-Australian sentiment has not been confined to Macquarie. Transurban Group, part of a consortium building so-called HOT (high-occupancy toll) lanes on Washington's beltway and on interstate highways 95 and 395, has also been caught up in local politics, with councils and residents wary of government dealings over the projects.

So incensed were Arlington County officials that at one point they filed a lawsuit saying that the I95 and I395 legs of the Transurban project were "racist" because they stood to benefit "more affluent, largely Caucasian citizens". Bemoaning a lack of transparency and suspected government subsidies for the road builders, one local editorial observed sharply: "Under current market conditions the private sector would never finance such a risky, uneconomic concept. That means Virginia taxpayers likely will pay a $US250 million subsidy

for the privilege of being tolled by Australians."

The sniping comes amid renewed interest across the US in privately funded infrastructure projects as cash-strapped states battle to balance budgets that have been crippled by the US economic slump.

The downturn, along with petrol prices pushed beyond $US1 a litre by Middle East tensions, is also hurting tollroad operators nationwide. But a prime criticism of the Dulles Greenway is that it does not incorporate distance pricing that would allow it to charge less for short trips. In some cases travelling barely two kilometres attracts the maximum toll. The road has few electronic tag readers and relies heavily on cash collection points.

But TRIP II's Sines says that adding more electronic toll points would cost an estimated $US6.5 million, while distance tolling could ultimately hurt revenues. He says the company might be interested if authorities pitched in upfront and were willing also to "backstop against any lost revenue".

But Wolf says this attitude reveals a loyalty to the operator's foreign masters and that TRIP II is not interested in "protecting current users or attracting new users" of the road. The community advisory committee would aim to "make the road more user friendly and potentially provide [toll] relief''.

However, tolls on the road are set, ultimately, by Virginia's State Corporation Commission, which must approve any increase. They were last raised at the beginning of last year.

Sines is frustrated by the criticism of the six-lane divided roadway, which pays state property tax, leasing charges and is a big donor to community projects. It also pays $US700,000 a year for police patrols. "We're a business, and Congressman Wolf has to realise we're a business," he says.

"We're not a public entity."

National Infrastructure Bank, another boondoggle for taxpayers

National Taxpayers Union Foundation named the National Infrastructure Development Bank Act 2011 the Most Expensive Bill of the Week. Sadly, Texas has a State Infrastructure Bank that primarily loans money to toll entities in order to raise the cost of transportation through DOUBLE TAX TOLLS. These quasi governmental and hybridized public-private ventures caused the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mess. When TxDOT runs the State Infrastructure and loans out money to toll entities, they're not using the same lending standards private lenders would. So TxDOT props up loser toll projects and lends money the private sector wouldn't take the risk on (ie - toxic debt). So how does this serve the taxpayers exactly? It doesn't, it's a way to loan our money to irresponsible, unelected toll bureaucrats who make us pay back our own money through tolls, with INTEREST! What do you think about that government recycling program?

Most Expensive Bill of the Week

The Bill: H.R. 402, National Infrastructure Development Bank Act 2011


Annualized Cost: $5 billion ($25 billion over five years)

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) introduced H.R. 402 to establish a public bank, which "would supplement other federal infrastructure programs, and provide investment opportunities to create jobs, spur economic growth, and help build an infrastructure for the future." As a wholly-owned government corporation, such as the housing entity Fannie Mae, the bank's financing would be backed by the full faith and credit of the US government.

The National Infrastructure Development Bank would issue bonds to eligible lenders, including regional, state, and local entities, as well as commercial banks. Funds would be directed to transportation, environmental, energy, and telecommunications projects, each requiring a different set of standards to be considered by the four committees within the bank.

The bill authorizes $5 billion for each of the next five years. Funds would serve as the base capital from which the bank would issue bonds. In the President's budget proposal, a similar bank was outlined at the same $5 billion annual cost but instead over six years.

Lawmakers push privatized toll roads, putting affordable travel out of reach

These articles show how out of touch our politicians are to the plight of every day Texans.

Lawmakers may like outsourcing the tax hikes to private companies, but taxpayers don't. When these deals mean paying 75 cents PER mile to access our PUBLIC roads, it's like adding $15.00 to every gallon of gas you buy! So when these lawmakers and so-called "fiscal conservatives" tell you they're balancing the budget WITHOUT raising taxes, you'll know they're lying to ya.

How many Texans can afford that? Even if you never take the road, you'll be paying for it. In the the last paragraph of the Statesman article below it says the 183 toll project in DFW will be 100% paid for by ALL Texans' gas taxes, yet they're still going to hand it over to Cintra or some private, for-profit toll road company (using a concession CDA or PPP) to collect the tolls (that will charge 75-80 per mile). If this doesn't tell you that this push to privatize and toll is NOT about a lack of money for roads, but rather a way to MAKE money for roads, then I don't know what would.

No Texan should have to pay a TOLL TAX (a DOUBLE TAX) to access a freeway that's ALREADY PAID FOR nor should a PUBLIC road that's paid for EVER be owned and operated by a private company! It's eminent domain for private gain and highway robbery. We're gettin' fleeced in broad daylight, Texas!

Then there's the toll collection problem. TxDOT has added up to 4000% administrative fees for pay by mail, for those who don't buy into the government TollTag system.

As an example of just what a taxpayer disaster it is to hand control of our public roads to private, foreign toll operators using CDAs, drivers on a road operated by Spain-based Cintra (who has won three Texas contracts already) in Canada receive their first bill totaling thousands of dollars in fines years after they supposedly took the tollway. The government has no power to step-in and protect motorists from runaway taxation nor disputed toll fines.

A 2009 article in the Toronto Star chronicles the nightmare:

"’We, as a government, have no control over that, as a result of the (Mike) Harris government's deal,’ to lease the toll road to a private consortium for 99 years and include a provision in the contract forcing the transportation ministry to deny new plates to anyone who doesn't pay the 407 whatever it demands, said Bradley.

“The 407 ‘negotiated a deal that was very favourable to them and they covered all the aspects of the deal that they would want,’ said Bradley.

“Many readers said they think the 407 deliberately holds back invoices on unpaid balances to allow interest charges to grow, but Bradley noted that it "is responsible for establishing its own business practices, and under its deal ... it has the right to set and collect tolls and administration fees and interest."

___________________________________________________________________________________

Link to Statesman article here.

Law would allow private tollway deals for MoPac, U.S. 183

Legislature warming to long-term leases with private companies after spurning the approach in 2007 session.

By Ben Wear

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Updated: 5:15 a.m. Thursday, March 24, 2011

Published: 7:41 p.m. Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Private toll road contracts, which fell out of legislative favor in 2007, are making a comeback this session.

And that includes at least the potential that two such projects in Austin, the MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) toll lanes and U.S. 183 in East Austin, could end up being financed, built and operated for decades by private firms.

State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, who is carrying a bill that would allow such contracts on those two roads, said it is not necessarily an endorsement of that approach or an indication that the toll projects will end up in private hands.



"I want to make sure all of the tools are on the table," Watson said this week. "But it will be up to the local (metropolitan planning organization) to see if it gets used."
Right now, the local plan is for the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, a toll agency that runs the 183-A tollway in Cedar Park, to build and operate the $248 million MoPac and $678 million U.S. 183 projects.

The Texas Department of Transportation would contribute $70 million in tax money to the MoPac project, which involves adding a fourth, tolled lane on each side between Lady Bird Lake and Parmer Lane, and $130 million to build express toll lanes and frontage roads on U.S. 183 between U.S. 290 in Northeast Austin and Texas 71 near the airport. The mobility authority, in theory, will raise the rest through borrowing.

But the authority's development plans in general were put on hold for at least two years when the 2008 credit crunch hit and it became difficult to borrow money. Carlos Lopez , TxDOT's Austin district engineer, said the ability to bring in the private sector would be an "insurance policy" if something goes awry with the TxDOT and mobility authority approach.

Watson's bill, which he filed March 11, has not yet been given a committee hearing. But four similar bills, allowing TxDOT to reach long-term leasing agreements with the private sector to build tollways in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, made a lightning-quick trip through the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Wednesday .

All were approved unanimously and then channeled to the Senate's queue of uncontested legislation. Such bills are generally approved en masse by the Senate with no debate, meaning that the toll road bills in effect are almost surely halfway through their legislative journey. Similar bills are pending in the House, including one by state Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman , that lists a dozen tollway projects that would become eligible for what are generally called concession agreements.

The Austin-area roads, however, are not included in Phillips' legislation.

This renewed embrace of toll road concessions is a notable departure from 2007, when the public and lawmakers soured on the idea of private companies being in control for a half-century of tollways on the state highway system, and profiting from those leases. Such deals, particularly the participation in them of foreign companies, had become a high profile issue in the 2006 gubernatorial election, and the fervor continued into the new year and the legislative session.

The 2007 Legislature passed, and Gov. Rick Perry signed into law, a bill that put a moratorium on all but a handful of such potential deals. Authority for TxDOT to reach the long-term deals in general expired in September 2009, and the ability to reach agreements on the excepted roads from that 2007 law will die on Sept. 1 this year.

However, with state gas tax revenue stagnant and federal highways grants diminishing, TxDOT officials have said that sometime next year they will have no money available to approve construction of new road projects. That threat has lawmakers taking a fresh look at concessions, but on a case-by-case basis.

Anti-toll road activists on hand for the committee hearing Wednesday let legislators know that time has not diminished their distaste for private toll road agreements. Raising the gasoline tax would be a cheaper approach, said Don Dixon, a retired San Antonio mechanical engineer.

"We're going to these fringe processes" to fund highway construction, he said. "We're going to have a two-tier system: those who can afford to drive the toll roads, and those who can't."

Opponents were also disturbed that TxDOT planned to pour billions of public dollars into projects that likely will lead to private profits by operating companies, according to TxDOT figures. In one of the four projects named in the bills approved Wednesday, TxDOT would supply almost one-third of the $3.7 billion cost for the North Tarrant Express in the Fort Worth area. In another case, the Texas 183 managed lanes project, also in Dallas-Fort Worth, TxDOT would cover the entire $1.3 billion construction cost. The operator would, in theory, be responsible for only the operating and maintenance costs to follow.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Senate transportation panel boosts Dallas-area private toll projects


By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER

Transportation Writer

Dallas Morning News

Published 23 March 2011

The Senate transportation committee took steps Wednesday to speed the development of two major toll projects in North Texas, approving bills that will expand the state’s authority to partner with private firms to build toll roads.

The bills both passed unanimously in the committee, though they still must be passed by the full body and win acceptance in the House. If they become law, the Texas Department of Transportation will be permitted to partner with private firms to build a 28-mile stretch of Interstate 35E between Dallas and Denton and a 9.1-mile segment of State Highway 183 from Dallas through Irving.

The projects would add free lanes and new paid managed lanes. The roads would be financed with public and private funds. In return, the companies would be given rights to toll the paid lanes for decades.

Denton County Judge Mary Horn said privately financed toll roads are essential given that Texas roads funds are running short.

“We keep hearing the message loud and clear from constituents — do something now,” Horn said. “Leveraging private equity through a public-private partnership is the best and perhaps only way to address growing congestion before it worsens further.”

Terri Hall, a San Antonio activist who has spearheaded years of opposition to private toll roads, spoke out. “You remember the dust-up in 2007, and Texans haven’t changed their mind,” Hall said. “It’s public money for private profit, and the public hates it.”

The committee also heard a compromise bill that would significantly limit the late fees charged by the North Texas Tollway Authority, a practice that has left some frequent violators owing thousands of dollars for unpaid tolls.

If the bill passes, the NTTA would have to stop charging $25 for every unpaid toll transaction. Because a single invoice can easily have scores of transactions, the fees can quickly dwarf the original amount owed.

The bill would instead allow the NTTA to assess the $25 for only the first eight unpaid tolls per invoice. After that the bill’s $200-per-invoice cap would apply.

NTTA Executive Director Allen Clemson told senators he supported the bill, written by Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound.

Nelson initially filed a bill that would have capped late fees at $25 per invoice, a move that the NTTA said would cost it tens of millions of dollars each year.

Clemson vowed to work with Nelson at the time to craft a compromise.

Study uncovers dangers of privatizing infrastructure

Link to article here.

There are bills currently before the legislature that would not only privatize our public highways (HB 2255), but would also privatize parking meters, water facilities, and other infrastructure (HB 2432). So as this study points out, it means the taxpayers have to pay private entities penalties for expanding our public roads or closing down a road for a parade.

If it sounds too good to be true. . . What you need to know, but don’t, about privatizing infrastructure

Authored by: Ellen Dannin
Posted By: Ellen Dannin - Pennsylvania State University
Posted March 2, 2011

Remember the old joke about some sharpie who takes innocents by “selling” them the Brooklyn Bridge? By the time the poor guy finds out he was taken, the crook is long gone.

Flash forward to the present. States and cities are being told that they can fix their budgets and have money left over by leasing their infrastructure for 50, 75, or even 99 years. It sounds great, even miraculous. But we all need to slow down and do our homework, because the rule “If it sounds too good to be true, it is” still applies, and there are good reasons why state and local governments should not want any part of these deals.

The truth is that, rather than making money on just tolls and fees, private contractors make their money through big tax breaks and by squeezing state and local governments for payments for the life of the contracts.

In fact, tax breaks explain why the deals last generations. One tax break for leases that last longer than the useful life of the infrastructure allows investors to write off their investment in just over a decade. A second tax break lets private companies issue tax-free bonds to finance their deals. While tax-free bonds and tax breaks make it less expensive to finance these deals, the downside is that governments lose tax revenue. Losing tax revenue puts government budgets deeper in the red and worsens problems privatization was supposed to fix.

But that’s not all. Infrastructure privatization contracts are full of “gotcha” terms that require state or local governments to pay the private contractors. For example, now when Chicago does street repairs or closes streets for a festival, it must pay the private parking meter contractor for lost meter fares. Those payments put the contractors in a much better than the government was. It gets payments, even though Chicago did not get fares when it had to close streets.
Highway contractors can be entitled to payments if there is an accident on the highway and if the police, fire, and emergency crews do not give “appropriate” notice and do not perform their emergency work in a way that is “reasonable under the circumstances”. And, given the vagueness of those standards, states and cities may end up paying just to avoid the costs of litigation.

Highway privatization contracts also often include terms that forbid building “competing” roads or mass transit. Some even require making an existing “competing” road worse. For example, the contract for SR-91 in southern California prohibited the state from repairing an adjacent public road, creating conditions that put drivers’ safety at risk. A proposed private highway around the northwest part of Denver required that local governments reduce speeds and install speed humps and barriers and narrow lanes on “competing” roads to force drivers to use the privatized road.

And worst of all, these deals put a stranglehold on democratic decision making and the public interest. For example, Virginia decided to promote carpooling to cut down on pollution, slow highway deterioration, and lessen highway and urban congestion. As a result, Virginia must reimburse the private contractor for lost revenues from carpoolers, even though not all of the people in a car would otherwise have driven individually. Chicago is not allowed to reduce the number of parking meters for the life of the contract. So when there have been changes that mean parking meters in one location are no longer appropriate, the city has had to install meters where none have ever been.

All of these contract terms put the public safety and well being last and the investors’ profits first. And, although infrastructure privatization proponents claim that the deals transfer risk from the public to the contractors, a fair reading of the contract terms shows that this is not the case. State and local governments lose control of their destinies and communities, while giving private investors power over our new dollar democracies.

These problems will persist even when the private contractor does a good job in maintaining the infrastructure and providing good public access to it. But contractors have not always done a good job in keeping their agreements.

Shortly after it took over the Indiana Toll Road, the private contractor put sand-filled barrels in turn-arounds with no notice to the state. State officials begged and pleaded for the barrels to be removed, so police and emergency crews could get to accidents and deal with other public safety problems as quickly as possible. Those pleas fell on deaf ears, while the turn-arounds remained blocked for months.

Or consider the poor people of Auckland, New Zealand.  Their government had become enamored of privatization, because they had been told that the private sector always provided better service at lower cost. The private company that bought the electrical service for Auckland decided to save costs by eliminating backup power, by not replacing parts of the system that were years past their normal life, by doing no maintenance, by having no electrical cables in reserve, and by terminating its repair crews. When they were terminated, the crews left NZ to find work elsewhere. All these decisions were made to increase company profits.

Those decisions may have lowered the company’s costs, but at a huge price, most of which it did not bear when the power cables to Auckland’s central business district failed. Banks, stock exchanges, restaurants, and all functions that depended on electricity were hard hit. Water, sewage, and all systems went down, and the power outage lasted nearly two months, because it had no repair crews or replacement components on hand.

Auckland's businesses lost millions of dollars. Companies tried to stay open by using generators, office workers climbed stairs in skyscrapers in mid-summer, and generator noise and diesel smoke filled downtown. At one point Auckland was provided power to essential facilities through an electric cable plugged into a large ship in the harbor.

You would think that New Zealand privatization advocates would have rethought their positions after they saw the carnage created by Mercury. But that was not the case. They actually claimed that the problem was caused by not having privatized enough infrastructure. While ludicrous, given what they had experienced, that view is not unique.

Consider, then, that at this very moment, state and local governments are contemplating signing contracts that restrict their rights to inspect infrastructure paid for with public money. Consider that they are agreeing to sign away their ability to protect the public interest and are setting in motion the same sort of disaster that Auckland faced, while the federal government is offering tax breaks to promote privatization.

The lesson and warning for states and local governments who are being wooed by private contractors is to do their due diligence. Read the contracts. Demand explanations and information. Ask for evidence that the public sector cannot do what private contractors do — and at lower cost – since the public sector does not need to pay dividends to investors. Get advisors who are not beholden to the privatization industry. And use common sense.

If you had thought the miracle of infrastructure privatization sounded too good to be true, now you know it is. But if you still have a hankering to give privatization a try, well, I just might have a bridge to show you . . .

You can find more details in Crumbling Infrastructure, Crumbling Democracy: Infrastructure Privatization Contracts and Their Effects on State and Local Governance. It was first published in the Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy at 6 Nw. J. L. & Soc. Pol’y 47 (2011), http://www.law.northwestern.edu/journals/njlsp/v6/n1/2/.

Grand Pkwy design to begin

Link to article here.

Remember this is a greenfield project through the Katy prairie to benefit ExxonMobil (think economic development in the name of a "public use"), not commuters stuck in traffic on 290E on the outskirts of Houston.

Grand Parkway gets green light for design work

But no funding authorized, and foes not swayed

By NOLAN HICKS

Houston Chronicle
AUSTIN BUREAU

Feb. 25, 2011, 5:39AM

 
AUSTIN — The state Transportation Commission on Thursday granted the Texas Department of Transportation authority to begin design work and negotiating contracts to build a key segment of the Grand Parkway.

The unanimous vote did not, however, authorize funds to start work on Segment E of the tollway, which would link the Katy Freeway to the Northwest Freeway, just west of Fairfield.

"The Grand Parkway project is an important project for our region and our state," said state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands. "Having a loop that passes around Houston, whether it's the third or fourth loop depending on where you start counting them, … will help reduce congestion and facilitate economic development."

Williams, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, called the parkway one of his highest priorities.


TxDOT spokesman Mark Cross said the agency estimates it will cost about $350 million to build the 15 miles of toll road linking Interstate 10 to U.S. 290. He said the agency has no construction time frame, but the Transportation Commission wants work under way as soon as possible.

When completed, the parkway would be about 180 miles in circumference - running as far north as Tomball and New Caney, as far south as League City, as far west as Katy, and as far east as Baytown. The total price tag for the project is expected to exceed $6 billion.

Suburban sprawl

Harris County should finish its review of the financial viability of the parkway toll project in the next couple of months, said Mark Tomlinson, director of the Texas Turnpike Authority, which builds and operates the state's toll roads.

Opponents of the long-sought outer-outer loop insist it will do little to reduce commuter congestion and will spur further suburban sprawl.

"Many people are going to move to the region, and we do need to spend money on transportation infrastructure, but this won't help," said Jay Blazek, a researcher with Houston Tomorrow, which favors greater urban planning and expansion of mass transit. "By doing this project, TxDOT is deciding urban planning for us."

He said the low-population densities generated by suburban sprawl promote further congestion and make it much more expensive for cities to maintain infrastructure.

Other critics say the new segment of the toll road no longer is needed with the completion of Fry Road, which roughly parallels the expected path of Segment E.

"If TxDOT is running out of money, one would hope they would take the last of their money and use it to solve transportation problems for real people," said Robin Holzer, who chairs the Citizens' Transportation Coalition, which long has opposed the Grand Parkway project.

"Look at congestion in Dallas, look at what's happening on 290, look at what's happening in San Antonio or Austin - are we really saying this is the best use TxDOT can come up with for $350 million? That's absurd," she said.

Dates back 3 decades

The history of the Grand Parkway toll road has been marked by controversy over the past three decades. In the 1980s, then-Texas Highway Commissioner and future Houston Mayor Bob Lanier came under fire for owning 1,700 acres near the proposed path of the parkway. At least two other lawmakers had to leave their posts at various transportation agencies involved in the project due to similar conflicts of interest.

Jeff Moseley, a former Denton County judge and current CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, rejected the criticism of the proposed toll project, calling it a key to Houston's economic viability.

"The reality is, this 180-mile loop was contemplated in the late '60s as a reliever to the growth for the region," Moseley said. "Some things have come forward that have added to the strategic value of the corridor, and probably the biggest is the tremendous population density that has moved to our region."

He said the toll road will play a key role in allowing shippers to get their goods quickly to and from the Port of Houston, which he said would see a significant uptick in business because the Panama Canal will begin allowing larger ships though.

"When you shift logistics for the mid-continent of America to Houston, you have to have a Grand Parkway," Moseley said.

Corinth pressed to endorse 80 cent per mile tolls on I-35

Link to article here. Lawmakers are leery of re-authorizing controversial public private partnerships (PPPs), or privatized toll road contracts called Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDAs) in Texas. Lawmakers have said regions must show local support for private toll roads before they'll bless it. So bureaucrats at TxDOT and the Regional Transportation Council (RTC) are going around trying to gin-up "support" for 80 cent per mile tolls on I-35E in Denton County by getting cities, counties, and other groups to pass resolutions in favor of a deal that would benefit a private, foreign toll operator. They can't go to the public who doesn't support such draconian taxation nor ceding control of our public roads to a for-profit entity, so they fabricate public support by trying to strong-arm politicians and precinct chairs to pass resolutions against the public interest. Never confuse support of politicians with actual public support in these circumstances. Our politicians have shown time and again they'll sell us out in a heartbeat over our loud objections. Beware of these tactics and DEFEAT every one of them!

Corinth pressed on I-35E widening

County says project funding hinges on cities’ endorsement

06:30 PM CST on Sunday, February 13, 2011

By Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe / Staff Writer
Denton Record Chronicle

CORINTH — Denton County leaders have asked the Corinth City Council to join other Denton-area cities along Interstate 35E in endorsing a plan that would bring in a private developer to widen the highway from the Bush Turnpike to U.S. Highway 380.

County transportation consultant John Polster told the City Council that even if the Texas Department of Transportation devoted all the funding it had for the next decade, it would not be enough to pay for the nearly $5 billion project.

The state has $800 million available for all projects in TxDOT's Dallas district and the county has $500 million available for I-35E from its own bonds and the tolling of State Highway 121.

Even though the county and the state don’t have the money to widen the road, developers such as the Spanish toll firm Cintra consider the project lucrative, he said.

A private developer could charge anywhere from 15 cents to 80 cents per mile in privately managed lanes to recover its investment in the project.


People could still drive in one of the four free lanes, or on the frontage road, but if they wanted to get to their destination faster, they could pay the variable toll to travel in the managed lanes.

“They [the managed lanes] guarantee a travel speed of 50 mph,” Polster said.

In other words, the more congestion there is, the higher the variable toll to guarantee the free flow of traffic in the managed lanes.

Polster also told the council that, while the toll lanes would run the entire length of the expansion, the majority of the revenue from the managed lanes would be expected between the turnpike and State Highway 121.

But the kind of project Denton County is proposing — a public-private partnership — got kicked to the curb by the Texas Legislature in 2009. A few projects in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were grandfathered in, including the reconstruction of Interstate 635, the North Tarrant Express and the DFW Connector, popularly known as the Grapevine Funnel.

In order for the Legislature to revisit the funding mechanism for Denton County, state representatives are looking for endorsements, such as city council resolutions, of the concept, Polster told the council.

Council member John Booher questioned why — funding model aside — Corinth should endorse a project that would change the exit ramps and make it difficult to stop in the city.

Polster told him that the design for the managed lanes would require that drivers travel certain lengths uninterrupted for safety and mobility, but he would look into the design changes and report back.

Booher questioned whether public officials could make an informed decision about the deal, since some of the funding assumptions are private. Toll road developers conduct the research on the profitability of variable tolls but consider their research methodology proprietary, Polster said.

In an interview Friday, Booher said he felt the council wasn’t given enough information about the way the bond package would be set up.

“If the bondholders are getting both the yield of a private sale and the tax breaks of a public sale, that implies the deal is high-risk,” Booher said.

He questioned whether the county would really be protected if the bondholder couldn’t make the payments, even though county leaders have said they could sell the road to another investor.

“If the business model fails, why would someone else buy it, without the county taking more of the risk?” Booher said.

The Corinth council is expected to take up the matter at its regular meeting Thursday.
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