TSA sets-up highway checkpoints

Link to article here.

Ron Paul Calls TSA ‘Jack-Booted Thugs’ in Response to Highway Checkpoints

The Blaze Posted on October 25, 2011 at 10:21am by  Liz Klimas    Liz Klimas
A week ago, Tennessee became the first state to team up with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to implement highway checkpoints for random searches in a move to counter terrorism.

Ron Paul’s response? That the Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) program with its “sinister, military-style acronym“ is violating Fourth Amendment rights with random highway checkpoints by ”jack-booted thugs.” He writes on his website:

So first we are told by the U.S. Supreme Court that American citizens have no 4th amendment protections at border crossings, even when standing on U.S. soil. Now TSA takes the next logical step and simply detains and searches U.S. citizens at wholly internal checkpoints.

[...]

The real tragedy occurs when Americans incrementally become accustomed to this treatment on the roads just as they have become accustomed to it in the airports. We already accept arriving at the airport 2 or more hours before a flight to get through security; will we soon have to build in an extra 2 or 3 hours into our road trips to allow for checkpoint traffic?

VIPR was created in 2005 in response to the 2004 Madrid bombings to increase security at rail and mass transit systems in the United States. By 2007, VIPR had “augmented security” at transportation facilities in cities like New York, Buffalo, Los Angeles and Boston.

So why has VIPR moved to Tennessee highways? Channel 5 reports Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons as saying ”Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate.”

The Examiner goes as far as to liken the checkpoints to “those used in Nazi Germany.” The report also states that these checkpoints were not established based on any specific threat.

TxDOT to pay its execs a million in salaries

The Wall Streetification of TxDOT begins....public service used to actually mean service before Rick Perry. Now it means hire lobbyists and pay them the equivalent of their former private sector salaries at taxpayer expense -- before they've even done one day on the job! All this is with the GOP-led Texas Legislature's blessing (no way one can call them fiscally conservative) in a down economy when every other state agency experienced cuts, TxDOT received 26% more than last biennium. It's all about enriching campaign donors and a Wall Street takeover of a department with access to BILLIONS in state contracts. And this is how TxDOT is spending their windfall...

Link to article here.

Texas Department of Transportation: Salary situation doesn't sit well

Editorial Board

Austin American Statesman
Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011

The Texas Transportation Commission got one right, and they got one very wrong.

Last week, the commission decided not to seek permission to increase the $292,500 annual salary of Phil Wilson, the new executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation, until he's had a chance to prove himself as leader of the state agency.

But then the commission gave Wilson the authority to hire five new managers and pay them at least $250,000 a year.

The commissioners' vote allows Wilson to pay up to $272,000 a year for a deputy executive director and up to $250,000 each for a chief financial officer, a chief planning and project officer, an "innovative financing/debt management" officer, and an unspecified fifth executive officer.

Once everyone is hired and in place, Wilson and his TxDOT executive team will cost state taxpayers more than $1.5 million a year if each new hire is paid the maximum salary allowed.

The executive director Wilson replaced, Amadeo Saenz, was a 33-year TxDOT veteran who was making $192,000 a year when he retired in August.

Other than Wilson, who began his new job Oct. 17, no one at the Transportation Department currently makes more than $200,000 a year.


The Legislature this year authorized TxDOT to pay its executive director and up to five assistants a maximum of $292,500 a year. The Legislature allowed the commission to seek permission from the governor and the Legislative Budget Board, a joint committee of the Legislature led by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus, to pay TxDOT executives above the maximum. The commission asked Gov. Rick Perry and the board if they could pay Wilson $381,000 a year, but Perry rejected the commission's request Oct. 13.

Wilson, commission chairman Ted Houghton and the other members of the Transportation Commission say annual salaries of $250,000 or more are necessary to attract top talent from private companies. We're not sure the talent to manage a state agency or assist in its management is exclusive to the private sector.

At any rate, it's not an argument the commission persuasively could have made when it decided to hire Wilson.

Wilson, 44, was a political aide to former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm for about 10 years, was Perry's director of communications and deputy chief of staff until 2007 when the governor appointed him Texas secretary of state, an agency with about 200 employees. He has no experience running an agency as large as the Transportation Department, which has 12,000 employees. Unlike every one of his predecessors at TxDOT, he is not an engineer.

He resigned as secretary of state in 2008 to become a lobbyist and senior vice president for public affairs at Luminant Energy. That's his significant private-sector experience.

We accept the argument that the Department of Transportation, like any state agency, or any private business for that matter, could stand a shot of fresh blood and fresh ideas from time to time. Institutions find themselves bound by tradition and hemmed in by insular management all the time.

But as we said earlier this month when the commission sought permission to pay Wilson $381,000, in a period of steep budget cuts it's insensitive, to say the least, to pay a new, unproven executive director a salary way beyond what most other state agency directors make — $292,500 is a healthy state salary. To significantly increase the salaries for his assistants compounds the insensitivity.

If you want to pursue a salary that steps toward the mid-six figures in the private sector, be our guest.

Otherwise, don't try to spell "money" from "public service."

__________________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

TxDOT to pay new execs $250,000 or more

By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Published: 8:48 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011

The Texas Transportation Commission, setting aside for now how much more to pay Phil Wilson to lead the Texas Department of Transportation, granted him authority Thursday to pay a quarter-million dollars or more to each of five managers.

At least two of the executive positions would be newly created, and any or all of them could be hired from outside TxDOT.

The salaries for two existing positions that will see pay bumps — chief financial officer and deputy executive director — are currently $165,600 and $192,500.

Wilson, who since becoming executive director Oct. 17 has been making $292,500 a year, said he hopes to name at least four of the subordinates by the end of the year. Their hiring will be part of a face-lift of the 94-year-old , 12,000-employee department that includes creating an "innovation and modernization office" and another new office focusing on the agency's most important projects, and giving TxDOT's 25 district offices more autonomy.

"It'll be a new complexion for this agency," said commission chairman Ted Houghton , presiding over his first meeting after almost eight years as a commission member. "The point is to bring in new talent and thinking." The higher salaries are meant to attract candidates from the private sector.

Change was the overriding theme of Thursday's monthly meeting of the commission. Aside from having Wilson at his first meeting and Houghton in a fresh role, newly appointed Commissioner Jeff Austin III of Tyler was on hand for the first time. And the commission, displaced from TxDOT's state headquarters on East 11th Street for the next year while the building is renovated, met in a large conference room in an agency building on East Riverside Drive.

The board voted 4-0 — Commissioner Ned Holmes , who was absent for the September vote on Wilson's hiring, was once again a no-show — to authorize Wilson to pay a deputy executive director/chief engineering officer up to $272,000 annually. And the board vote allows salaries of up to $250,000 for a chief planning and project officer, a chief financial officer and an "innovative financing/debt management" officer.

Wilson, 44, will also be able to hire a fifth executive, also for as much as $250,000 a year, for an as-yet unspecified position.

"You have to at least be in a conversation that's competitive" with potential hires already making substantial salaries with private companies, Wilson said. "Having those extra resources will allow us to go get the kind of people to manage a multibillion dollar portfolio."

All of those salaries would probably exceed the pay of anyone currently working at TxDOT, Wilson aside, by a considerable amount. Former Executive Director Amadeo Saenz , who retired in August, was making $192,000 .

The Legislature, in the two-year budget passed this spring, authorized TxDOT to pay "Group 8" salaries (which have a ceiling of $292,500 a year) to its executive director and up to five "senior leadership positions." However, that same legislation allows the commission to petition the governor and the Legislative Budget Board — which includes Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, House Speaker Joe Straus and eight other legislators — for salaries above that Group 8 maximum.

The commission, at the time led by Deirdre Delisi , a former Gov. Rick Perry political aide, voted in September to hire Wilson at the maximum $292,500 and later asked for authority to pay him $381,000 a year. Wilson, who was a Perry deputy chief of staff working for Delisi before the governor named him Texas secretary of state in 2007 , was a lobbyist and senior vice president at Luminant Energy beginning in 2008. He left there to join TxDOT.

Perry, in an Oct. 13 letter, rejected the $381,000 figure and suggested that the commission and Wilson agree on something between $292,500 and $381,000. A commission member said in August that Wilson was making "in the high 300s" at Luminant.

Houghton said Thursday that, at least for the time being, the commission will not make a second request to exceed the statutory maximum.

"We're going to be playing that by ear," Houghton said. "Let everyone get to know Phil, and let him roll out his program."

Houghton said the agency has been dominated for too long by managers who have spent their whole careers at the agency, and thus are too steeped in TxDOT's mores and traditions to perceive avenues for improvement. Fresh faces, he said, won't have that problem.

"They'll run it and lead it," he said. "You're going to see some new faces in some important positions."

Houston HOV lanes turned toll lanes cost up to $10!

Link to article here.

What are they thinking? This is runaway taxation without representation! Along I-85 in Atlanta, they had more traffic use the HOV lanes BEFORE they opened them as toll lanes than they do now with single occupancy vehicles paying a toll. Using toll taxes as a means to manipulate drivers' behavior is not only statist and abusive government, it's punitive taxation in the hands of unelected bureaucrats who've been granted monopolies over our public roadways -- our lifeline for daily living. This is Rick Perry's idea of congestion relief and his brand of so-called fiscal conservatism.

Tolls could range up to $10 on Metro's new HOT lanes

By CAROL CHRISTIAN, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Updated 08:21 p.m., Thursday, October 27, 2011

 
Motorists who want to buy their way out of congestion on several area freeways next year should be prepared to pay as much as $10 per trip.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority board Thursday set a range of tolls from $1 to $10, depending on the time of day, for its new high-occupancy toll lanes. The first such lanes are scheduled to open in January in the Gulf Freeway's existing high-occupancy vehicle lanes between Dixie Farm Road and Dowling Street.

Metro officials said they hadn't yet worked out a detailed schedule of tolls. They said it was unlikely that tolls would reach the maximum of $10 when the service begins, but the agency reserves the right to charge that much if necessary to manage traffic congestion.

Metro's maximum tolls will be significantly higher than those charged by the Harris County Toll Road Authority on its Katy Freeway managed lanes, which also charge solo drivers for access. The Katy Freeway tolls range from 30 cents on weekends to $1.60 at certain peak hours.

Metro's tolls will apply only to drivers with no passengers who opt to use the HOV lanes for a price. Single-occupant vehicles will enter the lane through a designated path that allows tolling.

Vehicles with at least two occupants will not be charged a toll.

Metro police will patrol the lanes, which Metro operates through an arrangement with the Texas Department of Transportation.

As first proposed, Metro's HOT lanes were to have "dynamic" tolling that would change throughout the day with the level of congestion, but President and CEO George Greanias said Thursday staff members decided this approach would introduce too much change at the outset. The board can opt to add that feature later.

Through agreements between Metro and other tolling agencies, any vehicle can use the lanes if it has a windshield sticker issued by Metro or by the Harris County Toll Road Authority, Texas Toll Authority, Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority or North Texas Tollway Authority.

Violators who evade the toll will be assessed a $75 fine, while "occupancy violators" (solo drivers who use the lanes when they are designated for HOV use only) will be issued a citation requiring a court appearance.

When complete, Metro's 83-mile HOT-lane system will include tolled lanes on U.S. 59 South, scheduled to open in April; I-45 North, opening in July; U.S. 290, October 2012; and U.S. 59 North, January 2013.

Texas racks up one of biggest debts in the nation


Link to article here.

Former Texas State Rep. Jim Dunnam has also exposed the $31 billion in road debt racked up under Rick Perry and Republican leadership in Texas. We are in crisis right here in Texas while Perry gallivants around the country bragging he's a fiscal conservative and has balanced budgets.

Texas has racked up one of the biggest debts in the nation, report says
Monday, Oct 24, 2011, 12:17PM CST

By Trent Seibert
Texas Watchdog
you

Texas has racked up $282 billion in debt -- one of the highest state debts in the nation -- according to a report released today by a D.C.-area nonprofit.

In total, the nonprofit State Budget Solutions found, the debt of the nation’s 50 states is more than $4 trillion.

“These deficit numbers are staggering and should be frightening to the American public. Due to budget gimmicks, many states fail to give an adequate picture of how much trouble they are really in,” said Bob Williams, president of State Budget Solutions. “This report makes it clear that if legislators in Texas don't act immediately and decisively, their state will be facing a budget crises that we have never seen before.”
 
The report looked at all state debt and future spending obligations. It found that California had the largest deficit with more than $612 billion. In addition to the Lone Star and the Golden states, other top state debtors include New York, New Jersey and Illinois.

Vermont, North Dakota and South Dakota were among the states with the smallest debts.

This report comes on the heels of a Fort Worth Star-Telegram story on budget gimmicks used by Texas lawmakers.

From the Star-Telegram story by Aman Batheja:

By delaying payments and effectively writing IOUs this year, lawmakers kicked billions of dollars in costs to the Legislature that will convene in 2013. At the same time, they arranged to collect hundreds of millions of dollars earlier than expected, preventing that money from being available in the next legislative session.

The financial maneuvers complicate assessments of the state's economic picture. While Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign has repeatedly touted him as having six balanced budgets under his belt, others don't agree, especially when looking at the current two-year budget.

"If he wants to say that, that's fine, but in all reality the budget is not balanced," said state Rep. Garnet Coleman of Houston, a Democratic leader in the House. "I believe it's disingenuous."

Talmadge Heflin, director of the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation's Center for Fiscal Policy and a former House member, is also critical of the one-time fixes and gimmicks lawmakers use to make budgets look good on paper. While this year's budget was technically balanced, Heflin said, "If you look at what will have to be spent in the biennium, you can certainly make the argument that from a practical standpoint ... it is not."

If there is some good news for Texas in the report, it’s that when you divide outstanding debt up per-person in the state, Texas is in the middle of the pack, at $1,568 per Texan, based on state-issued financial reports.

That’s lower than Rhode Island’s per-capita debt of $3,000 or Oregon’s $2,960.

States with the lowest per-capita debt include Nebraska at $21, Wyoming at $78 and Indiana at $196.
 
Read the full State Budget Soutions report here.
 
Editor's note: State Budget Solutions partners with the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, a nonprofit journalism group which has paid Texas Watchdog for training services.

FBI investigates Toll Authority

Link to article here.

NTTA: FBI investigating board members' conduct, possible conflicts of interest
Posted:  10/21/2011 8:53 PM
Michael Lindenberger/Reporter

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the conduct of some North Texas Tollway Authority board members, including possible conflicts of interest, the authority disclosed Friday.

NTTA disclosed the existence of the investigation in two paragraphs on page 59 and 60 of a 596-page statement issued Friday to investors concerning its nearly $700 million bond offering expected to close next month. It said the FBI is concerned about "conduct" of board members, including possible conflicts of interest pertaining to NTTA business.

A spokeswoman for the authority confirmed to a reporter late Friday that the NTTA was cooperating with the FBI and federal prosecutors.

"The NTTA has been made aware of an investigation involving one or more individuals and is cooperating with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office in connection with that investigation," communications director Kimberly Jackson said in an emailed statement to the News. "We do not have  any additional information."

It's not clear what the FBI is asking about, and the disclosure in the bond documents offers a broad range of potential sources of its concern.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation has recently interviewed several officials of the Authority regarding any knowledge the officials may have concerning the conduct of certain current and former Board members, including possible conflicts of interests pertaining to Authority business," the statement reads.

NTTA does not believe that its staff or the entity itself is involved in any of the conduct under investigation, or that the investigation's outcome will significantly impact its finances. Nevertheless, the investigation could subsequently broaden, the disclosure notes.

"The Authority is cooperating fully with the FBI," it says. "There can be no assurance that the investigation will be limited to the matters described above or that the Authority will not become a target at a later date."

NTTA board member Kent Cagle said he had officially been told of the investigation only this past week, but had heard about it informally prior to that. He said he has not been interviewed by the FBI, but said he understands the focus is on two current and at least one former board member.

A spokesman for the FBI would not comment on the investigation or say whether it was related to the ongoing investigation of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price.

"You've probably heard this before, but I can neither conform nor deny the existence of an investigation," said Mark White, the FBI's Dallas spokesman.

Earlier this week, NTTA was urged to strengthen its conflict of interest policies in the wake of a months-long audit of its governance model, a recommendation chairman Ken Barr said would be considered carefully.

Dallas Judge Clay Jenkins, a frequent critic of NTTA's board, said the investigation only reinforces the audit's conclusions.

"Any time there is an investigation there is concern," he said. "But I am confident NTTA will cooperate fully."

Post: Neither more free roads nor public transit can solve congestion

Link to article here.

Ya gotta love economists who try to apply free market principles to government-sanctioned monopolies...highways are not commodities on the open market. They're paid for by forcible taxation. Now the Washington Post tries to make the case from a few studies that 'congestion pricing' (it's congestion tolling, folks) is the ONLY way to solve congestion. We contend even congestion tolling won't solve congestion. It simply displaces traffic to other areas, many times onto neighborhood streets where it's unsafe for high-speed thru traffic to traverse in hurry where they might mow over Grandma and schoolchildren crossing the street. People have to get to work and few can dictate their work schedules. So they're forced onto the road during peak hours. Many cannot switch to another mode of travel, they may have to drop-off their children at school and run errands on the way home taking routes mass transit likely doesn't go.

How dare the government punish workers for driving to work during hours their employers require it in order for them to keep their jobs! Government manipulation of people's speed and driving habits may be something economists in their ivory towers and Europeans are willing to choke down, but not Americans who love hitting the open road and who cherish their freedom to travel.

If you look at the grand experiment in London (which the article leaves out), the 'pricing' got so outrageous, the people revolted and fired their Mayor who proposed DOUBLING the already high toll rates to access downtown London. It killed business in the downtown area, too. How is this free market -- to have the government dictate who can access your business based on (discretionary) income level?


 
Even public transit can’t defeat congestion

By Brad Plumer, Published: October 19

Washington Post

When traffic congestion gets especially nasty, the first thing planners think to do is expand road capacity. More lanes should ease the pressure, right? Except, that doesn’t work. As Eric Jaffe points out over at Atlantic Cities, traffic tends to expand to fill capacity. He cites a new paper in the American Economic Review that finds that traffic “increases proportionately to roadway lane kilometers for interstate highways and probably slightly less rapidly for other types of roads.”

 

Why is this? The demand for space on the roads is high. More lanes just cause people to drive more. Habits shift, too: The guy who’d previously left work at 6 in the morning to beat the traffic now decides to leave a little later, closer to rush hour. Overall congestion stays roughly constant.
A second option for planners, of course, is to expand public transportation. If there are more buses and subways, that should free up space on the roads, right? No again. Here are the authors of the AER paper, Gilles Duranton and Matthew Turner: “We find no evidence that the provision of public transportation affects [vehicle miles traveled. We conclude that increased provision of roads or public transit is unlikely to relieve congestion.”

As it turns out, this is a common finding. A World Bank study by Antonio Bento found that better bus service has essentially zero effect on total vehicle travel. (Boosting rail service can decrease car travel, but only modestly.) A University of California-Davis study by David Heres Del Valle also found no link between the quality of transit options and driving, although it did find that certain land-use policies could cut down on car travel somewhat.

This shouldn’t be so shocking. Road space during rush hour, after all, is a valuable commodity. When a highly valuable commodity is offered for below-market prices (or for free), we should expect shortages and long queues. In this case, the shortages are traffic jams. That doesn’t mean expanding roads is entirely useless. After all, if it means more people can travel on the roads at the times they’d prefer, that’s a tangible benefit. But bigger highways or better public transit shouldn’t be sold as a means of eliminating gridlock. (And, for those keeping score, that means this analysis in my earlier post on the congestion benefits of transit is wrong.)
So is there any way to reduce traffic congestion? Jaffe argues that the only viable option is congestion pricing — charging people a fee to use the roads during peak hours. Stockholm experimented with this program in 2007, Jaffe notes, and the results have been dramatic: “Transit ridership is up, traffic is down some 18 percent, and in some cases rush-hour delays have been cut in half.”

On the other hand, Felix Salmon adds some additional complications. Not only is congestion pricing unpopular — it’s human nature to prefer hidden costs (traffic delays) to explicit costs (fees) — but, over time, the fee starts to lose its effectiveness. Drivers adjust to the rush-hour charge and start clogging the lanes again. The only way to really liberate the roads from congestion is to do what Singapore does and constantly adjust prices until you get the desired amount of traffic. And sometimes that means cranking the fee way up — to painful levels (especially for low-income commuters). Economists love this idea because it’s a genuine market solution, bringing supply and demand into balance. But that doesn’t mean it’s politically painless.

 
© The Washington Post Company

Toll tags that film you INSIDE your car!

Link to article here.

Could Your Freeway Pass Soon Be Used to Film You? You Might Be Surprised

October 14, 2011 by  Liz Klimas    Liz Klimas
The Blaze

Kapsch Traffic Com AG, a transponder (i.e., E-Z Pass and IPass) manufacturer, filed a patent for technology to include  an inward and outward pointing camera.

Technology is not necessarily going to be created.

If it were, it would be used to monitor HOV lanes.

Kapsch signed a 10 year contract to provide transponders for 22 toll systems in the United States.

Kapsch transponders can be found in 41 countries and 64 million cars worldwide.

ipassFirst, it was OnStar tracking users even after subscription to the service was canceled — which they since pulled back on. Now, there’s a patent filed for an in-car device that would be used for monitoring purposes.

MSNBC reports that Kapsch TrafficCom AG, an Austrian company that creates transponders like E-Z Pass, which allows cars to breeze through tolls, filed a patent for technology that would include cameras in such devices. Cameras would point inside the car as well as out:

The stated reason for an inward-pointing camera is to verify the number of occupants in the car for enforcement of HOV and HOT lanes. The outward-pointing camera could be used for the same purpose, helping authorities enforce minimum occupant rules against drivers who aren’t carrying transponders.

But it’s easy to imagine other uses.  The patent says the transponders would have the ability to store and transmit pictures, either at random intervals or on command from a central office. It would be tempting to use them as part of a search for a lost child, for example, and law enforcement officials might find the data treasure trove irresistible.  The gadget could also be instructed to take pictures when the acceleration of a car “exceeds a threshold,” or when accidents occur, so it could be used like an airplane cockpit flight recorder.


HOV
If a transponder including cameras were to be created, its said function would be to catch those violating HOV rules.

Right now, police officers wait at entrances and exits to highways with HOV lanes, pulling over violators. Monitoring these highways takes time and money.

Even still, the manufacturer, which just signed a 10-year contract to provide transponders to 22 toll collection systems, notes that this is just a patent stage protecting the idea, not that they will go through with making it. And MSNBC reports that P.J. Wilkins, executive director of the E-Z Pass Group consortium, as saying he didn‘t know of the company’s camera idea.

Although this may provide some consolation, MSNBC includes the not-so-comfortable snowball effect should similar devices be developed:

And while it’s possible cameras-in-cars technology would be a non-starter in America, that doesn‘t mean Americans shouldn’t be worried, said Lee Tien, a privacy expert with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“I think (drivers) should be pretty concerned,” he said. “You want to make sure any use of that technology is very carefully regulated. People should let the E-Z Pass folks know now what they think about any possible plans to introduce cameras in their cars, now, while it’s being developed, rather than before it’s already a fait accompli, and some agency says it‘s already spent millions on it and can’t turn back now.”

[...]

“You could imagine that they could limit the capacity of devices  — say the images would be destroyed after a very short period of time — so it would not be as powerful a surveillance device. But that’s not the general dynamic,” he said. “Once you have the device out there, someone says, ‘Why not use it for this, or that.‘ That’s usually where the battle between privacy and other social goals is lost.”

An actual IPass user on the Slashdot discussion board expresses his concerns about the patent and infringement of privacy:

“I received a form letter from the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority saying that my first-generation ‘IPASS’ transponder needs to be replaced because the battery is old. I called them for clarification since the first-generation transponders obviously have user-replaceable batteries, and I wanted to keep this version because it beeps when a toll is paid. (This notifies drivers that their battery is still good, unlike the silent second-generation version, which informs them of a dead battery by sending a ticket in the mail.) The woman on the phone explained that they were replacing them just because the electronics are old. This uninformed answer made me research the device. I found that the manufacturer has recently filed a patent application for a new transponder that has a camera in it — a camera pointed inward at the occupants. How long before they make it illegal to cover that camera with tape?”

E-Z Pass customers have been concerned with tracking before, even though the company says it doesn’t use the device for tracking purposes. But to help quell complaints it did release an anonymous version.

Wilkins states, according to MSNBC, that Americans shouldn’t be concerned about E-Z Pass tracking when cell phones companies already admit to tracking customers.

But maybe that means they should worry more.

Perry doesn't learn: Headed down same path that killed the TTC


Link to article here.

Rick Perry doesn't learn. He repeated the HPV vaccine mistake by mandating another vaccine tied to his campaign donors again in the 82nd legislative session, he signed another bill to sell-off Texas roads to foreign companies (SB 1420) and another to sell-off every other kind of public infrastructure to foreign entities (SB 1048), and now he's promoting a Koch Brothers energy plan to push a controversial, eminent domain abusing pipeline tied to the Kochs' to benefit yet another foreign company, TransCanada.

Perry banking on pro-drilling energy plan

By Christy Hoppe and ElizabethSouder  
The Dallas Morning News
First Posted: October 12, 2011

DALLAS — Rick Perry, looking to take the offensive on job creation and revive his struggling campaign, is poised to advance a “drill here, drill now” initiative with a heavy reliance on environmental deregulation and new pipelines.

Perry has been under pressure to release an economic blueprint and his campaign will fully unveil the energy plan Friday in Pennsylvania. He touted it in Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate, without many details, as a way to create 1.2 million jobs and free the country from its foreign oil dependence.

Critics are already dismissing the underpinnings of the plan, saying that any president would lack the authority to implement it, that Perry underestimates the country’s affinity for environmental protections and that he will face the kind of fierce resistance to oil pipelines that dismantled his Trans Texas Corridor.

The plan, as previewed in a column Perry wrote this week in the New Hampshire Union Leader, would ostensibly require no congressional action and would include boosts for renewable energy. The emphasis is on opening oil and gas shale formations to drilling in the Alaska Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, offshore and throughout the continental U.S.

At the same time, Perry would shut off any new federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” or on drilling and toxic emissions, which he calls “job-killers.”

Jim Marston, director of the state’s Environmental Defense Fund, said most voters won’t want to replicate Perry’s Texas record.

“I don’t think Texans want us to be this dirty, and I’m very comfortable that the rest of the nation does not want to surpass us,” Marston said.

The Perry campaign declined to provide any further details of the plan, but many of the jobs Perry cited presumably would come from projected boosts in manufacturing and purchased goods from reduced energy costs.

“Economic growth and security should not be pit against environmental stewardship,” Perry wrote, saying he would create high-paying jobs at the same time continuing to protect the environment.

Texas Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman, who helped the governor craft the new energy policies, told The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday that new Environmental Protection Agency regulations on endangered species and drilling techniques create uncertainty for the industry and slow production.

He called for a “moratorium on new EPA regulations in traditional drilling areas.”

The drilling component doesn’t differ much from President Barack Obama’s decisions in office, said University of Texas professor Michael Webber.

“Perry wants to do the same thing Obama did, only he wants to do it dirtier,” said Webber, associate director for the university’s Center for International Energy&Environmental Policy. He pointed out that U.S. oil production has grown under Obama after decades of contraction.

Smitherman said new pipelines are key to Perry’s energy plan.

“It’s not just drill, drill, drill, because we’re drilling a lot now,” Smitherman said.

He pointed out that consumers are buying high-cost international oil because the country lacks the pipelines to bring U.S. oil to major refineries.

New lines almost always spark protests. Already, more than 800 have been arrested around the country over the massive 1,700-mile Canada-to-Texas proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

The high-pressure, underground pipeline, a $7 billion project that could produce thousands of jobs, is fraught with environmental risk, from extracting tar sand oil — one of the dirtiest sources of energy — to the pipeline crossing private property, aquifers and large populations.

The same private-property right groups that helped upend Perry’s signature transportation idea, the Trans Texas Corridor, have joined with environmentalists in Texas to fight the proposal.

Dave Carney, Perry’s chief political consultant, cast the governor’s plan as a bold one that he could act on immediately as president.

“His energy plan/jobs plan — this sort of a Declaration of Independence — is not just about foreign oil; it’s not just about American production,” said Dave Carney, Perry’s chief political consultant. “It’s things that the president can do in dealing with regulation.”

Marston, the Texas environmentalist, disagreed, noting that the federal lands in Alaska are protected by an act of Congress and can only be changed by Congress. Some of the mandates on lowering emissions have come from recent court orders, including a U.S. Supreme Court decision that says carbon dioxide regulation falls under the Clean Air Act.

“I’m sorry but we’re a country of laws, not one man,” Marston said.

Polls also show there is little public sentiment for rolling back environmental regulations.

And other experts challenge one of the underlying premises of Perry’s plan: the contention that pollution controls cost American jobs.

Bruce Bartlett, a former senior official with the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, has noted that according to federal statistics, just 2,971 jobs were lost in 2010 because of government regulations. Overall, the country lost 1.3 million jobs that year.

“Regulatory uncertainty is a canard invented by Republicans that allows them to use current economic problems to pursue an agenda supported by the business community,” Bartlett wrote this month in The New York Times.

———

(Staff writer Todd J. Gillman in Hanover, N.H., contributed to this report.)

Drop in standard of living means trouble for tolls


Link to article here.

With Americans' discretionary income shrinking, gas prices still well over $3/gallon, and some tollways experiencing a 15% drop in traffic, it spells trouble for toll roads. With tight state budgets and the feds eyeing tolls & selling our public roads to private corporations as the proposed solution, here's a newsflash. Tolls aren't going to solve the problem. There simply aren't enough people with the discretionary income levels to afford 25-100 times more per mile in new taxes to get to work. It ain't gonna work. If we let our politcos get away with this, the misery index will explode, folks. It'll be a TRIPLE hit when they come back to the taxpayer to bailout the failed toll roads on behalf of their Wall Street friends who never have to pay the price for their risky and often greedy schemes.

A Long, Steep Drop for Americans' Standard of Living

Wednesday, 19 Oct 2011
By: Ron Scherer
Christian Science Monitor - CNBC.com

Think life is not as good as it used to be, at least in terms of your wallet? You'd be right about that. The standard of living for Americans has fallen longer and more steeply over the past three years than at any time since the US government began recording it five decades ago.
Bottom line: The average individual now has $1,315 less in disposable income than he or she did three years ago at the onset of the Great Recession – even though the recession ended, technically speaking, in mid-2009. That means less money to spend at the spa or the movies, less for vacations, new carpeting for the house, or dinner at a restaurant.

In short, it means a less vibrant economy, with more Americans spending primarily on necessities. The diminished standard of living, moreover, is squeezing the middle class, whose restlessness and discontent are evident in grass-roots movements such as the tea party and "Occupy Wall Street" and who may take out their frustrations on incumbent politicians in next year's election.

What has led to the most dramatic drop in the US standard of living since at least 1960? One factor is stagnant incomes: Real median income is down 9.8 percent since the start of the recession through this June, according to Sentier Research in Annapolis, Md., citing census bureau data. Another is falling net worth – think about the value of your home and, if you have one, your retirement portfolio. A third is rising consumer prices, with inflation eroding people's buying power by 3.25 percent since mid-2008.

"In a dynamic economy, one would expect Americans' disposable income to be growing, but it has flattened out at a low level," says economist Bob Brusca of Fact & Opinion Economics in New York.

To be sure, the recession has hit unevenly, with lower-skilled and less-educated Americans feeling the pinch the most, says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com based in West Chester, Pa. Many found their jobs gone for good as companies moved production offshore or bought equipment that replaced manpower.


"The pace of change has been incredibly rapid and incredibly tough on the less educated," says Mr. Zandi, who calls this period the most difficult for American households since the 1930s. "If you don't have the education and you don't have the right skills, then you are getting creamed."

Per capita disposal personal income – a key indicator of the standard of living – peaked in the spring of 2008, at $33,794 (measured as after-tax income). As of the second quarter of 2011, it was $32,479 – almost a 4 percent drop. If per capita disposable income had continued to grow at its normal pace, it would have been more than $34,000 a year by now.

The so-called misery index, another measure of economic well-being of American households, echoes the finding on the slipping standard of living. The index, a combination of the unemployment rate and inflation, is now at its highest point since 1983, when the US economy was recovering from a short recession and from the energy price spikes after the Iranian revolution.


In Royal Oak, Mich., Adam Kowal knows exactly how the squeeze feels. After losing a warehouse job in Lansing, he, his wife, and their two children have had little recourse but to move in with his mother. Now working at a school cafeteria, Mr. Kowal earns 28 percent less than at his last job.
He and his wife now eat out once a month instead of once a week, do no socializing, and eat less expensive foods, such as ground chuck instead of ground sirloin. "My mom was hoping her kids would lead a better life than her, but so far that has not happened," says Kowal.


"We have quite a few grandparents who are raising their grandchildren on a fixed income, feeding them and buying clothes for them when they can't afford to do [that for] themselves" Yvonne Womack

Blessings Food Pantry

With disposable incomes falling, perhaps it's not surprising that 64 percent of Americans worry that they won't be able to pay their families' expenses at least some of the time, according to a survey completed in mid-September by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. Among those, one-third say their financial problems are chronic.

"What we see is that very few are escaping the crunch," says Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Income loss is hitting the middle class hard, especially in communities where manufacturing facilities have closed. When those jobs are gone, many workers have ended up in service-sector jobs that pay less.

"Maybe it's the evolution of the economy, but it appears large segments of the workforce have moved permanently into lower-paying positions," says Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pa. "The economy can't grow at 4 percent per year when the middle class becomes the lower middle class."


He would get no argument from Jeff Beatty of Richmond, Ky., who worked in the IT and telecommunications businesses for most of his career – until he hit a rough patch. He and his wife are living on his unemployment insurance benefits (which will run out in months), his early Social Security payments, and her disability payments from the Social Security Administration. Their total income comes to $30,000 a year.

"Our standard of living has probably declined threefold," he says.

Mr. Beatty, who used to make a comfortable income, now anticipates applying for food stamps. He and his wife have sold much of their furniture, which they no longer need because they have moved into a one-bedroom apartment owned by his sister-in-law.

Even people with college degrees are feeling the squeeze. On a fall day, Hunter College graduate and Brooklyn resident Paul Battis came to lower Manhattan to check out the Occupy Wall Street protest. He tells one of the protesters that America's problem is the various free-trade pacts it has approved.

Mr. Battis's angst over trade is rooted in the fact that two years ago he lost his data-entry job with a Wall Street firm that decided to outsource such jobs to India.

When he had the job, he made a comfortable income. Now his income is sporadic, from the occasional construction job he lands. He used to buy clothing from Macy's or other department stores. Now he goes to Goodwill or Salvation Army stores. He has even cut back on taking the city subways, instead riding his bicycle. Separated from his wife and his 15-year-old daughter, he says, "Try making child support payments when you don't have a regular income. I'm constantly catching up."

Even recently some Americans could tap the equity in their homes or their stock market accounts to make up for any shortfalls in income. Not anymore. Since 2007, Americans' collective net worth has fallen about $5.5 trillion, or more than 8.6 percent, according to the Federal Reserve.

The bulk of that decline is in real estate, which has lost $4.7 trillion in value, or 22 percent, since 2007. In Arizona, for example, more than half of homeowners live in houses that are worth less than their purchase prices, according to some reports.


Stock investments aren't any better. Since 1999, the Standard & Poor's index, on a price basis, is off 17 percent. It's up 3.2 percent when dividends are included, but that's a small return for that length of time.

"This is really a lost decade of affluence," says Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard & Poor's in New York.

Among those who have watched their finances deteriorate are senior citizens.

"Given the stock market, they are very nervous," says Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president at AARP, the seniors' lobbying group. "They want to keep their savings."

But Ms. LeaMond also notes that about 2 in every 3 seniors are dependent not on Wall Street but on Social Security. The average annual income for those over 65 is $18,500 a year – almost all of it from Social Security, she says. "This is not a part of America that is rich," she says.

At the same time, seniors are getting pinched in their pocketbooks.

"Our members are watching all the things they have to buy, especially health-care products, go up in price," says LeaMond.


In Pompano, Fla., some stretched seniors end up at the Blessings Food Pantry, which is associated with Christ Church United Methodist.

"We have quite a few grandparents who are raising their grandchildren on a fixed income, feeding them and buying clothes for them when they can't afford to do [that for] themselves," says Yvonne Womack, the team leader.

Others, she says, are forgoing food to pay for their medical prescriptions. "And then there is your ordinary senior whose Social Security [check] has not gone up in the last several years, but food and gasoline [prices] have skyrocketed," she says. (However, Social Security checks will go up 3.6 percent in January.) The Blessings, she notes, is now feeding 42 percent more people than last year. "We also provide food you can eat out of a can," she says. "We do have seniors who are living on the streets."

Researcher Geoff Johnson contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in the Christian Science Monitor

Safety concerns glossed over in rollout of naked body scanners

Link to article here.

U.S. Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners

by Michael Grabell
ProPublica, Nov. 1, 2011, 1:06 p.m.inShare

 
Update (11/01): This story has been updated with a comment from The Chertoff Group, from which ProPublica had sought comment before publication.

Look for a PBS NewsHour story on X-ray body scanners, reported in conjunction with ProPublica, to air later this month.

On Sept. 23, 1998, a panel of radiation safety experts gathered at a Hilton hotel in Maryland to evaluate a new device that could detect hidden weapons and contraband. The machine, known as the Secure 1000, beamed X-rays at people to see underneath their clothing.

Related
New Army Study Says Radiation From Airport Body Scanners Is Minor

by Michael Grabell, ProPublica, July 14

TSA Airport Scanners Wouldn’t Catch an Implant Bomber

by Michael Grabell, ProPublica, July 6

Scientists Cast Doubt on TSA Tests of Full-Body Scanners

by Michael Grabell, ProPublica, May 16

One after another, the experts convened by the Food and Drug Administration raised questions about the machine because it violated a longstanding principle in radiation safety — that humans shouldn’t be X-rayed unless there is a medical benefit.

“I think this is really a slippery slope,” said Jill Lipoti, who was the director of New Jersey’s radiation protection program. The device was already deployed in prisons; what was next, she and others asked — courthouses, schools, airports? “I am concerned … with expanding this type of product for the traveling public,” said another panelist, Stanley Savic, the vice president for safety at a large electronics company. “I think that would take this thing to an entirely different level of public health risk.”

The machine’s inventor, Steven W. Smith, assured the panelists that it was highly unlikely that the device would see widespread use in the near future. At the time, only 20 machines were in operation in the entire country.
“The places I think you are not going to see these in the next five years is lower-security facilities, particularly power plants, embassies, courthouses, airports and governments,” Smith said. “I would be extremely surprised in the next five to 10 years if the Secure 1000 is sold to any of these.”

Today, the United States has begun marching millions of airline passengers through the X-ray body scanners, parting ways with countries in Europe and elsewhere that have concluded that such widespread use of even low-level radiation poses an unacceptable health risk. The government is rolling out the X-ray scanners despite having a safer alternative that the Transportation Security Administration says is also highly effective.

A ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation of how this decision was made shows that in post-9/11 America, security issues can trump even long-established medical conventions. The final call to deploy the X-ray machines was made not by the FDA, which regulates drugs and medical devices, but by the TSA, an agency whose primary mission is to prevent terrorist attacks.

Research suggests that anywhere from six to 100 U.S. airline passengers each year could get cancer from the machines. Still, the TSA has repeatedly defined the scanners as “safe,” glossing over the accepted scientific view that even low doses of ionizing radiation — the kind beamed directly at the body by the X-ray scanners — increase the risk of cancer.

“Even though it’s a very small risk, when you expose that number of people, there’s a potential for some of them to get cancer,” said Kathleen Kaufman, the former radiation management director in Los Angeles County, who brought the prison X-rays to the FDA panel’s attention.

About 250 X-ray scanners are currently in U.S. airports, along with 264 body scanners that use a different technology, a form of low-energy radio waves known as millimeter waves.

Robin Kane, the TSA’s assistant administrator for security technology, said that no one would get cancer because the amount of radiation the X-ray scanners emit is minute. Having both technologies is important to create competition, he added.

“It’s a really, really small amount relative to the security benefit you’re going to get,” Kane said. “Keeping multiple technologies in play is very worthwhile for the U.S. in getting that cost-effective solution — and being able to increase the capabilities of technology because you keep everyone trying to get the better mousetrap.”

Determined to fill a critical hole in its ability to detect explosives, the TSA plans to have one or the other operating at nearly every security lane in America by 2014. The TSA has designated the scanners for “primary” screening: Officers will direct every passenger, including children, to go through either a metal detector or a body scanner, and the passenger’s only alternative will be to request a physical pat-down.

How did the United States swing from considering such X-rays taboo to deeming them safe enough to scan millions of people a year?

A new wave of terrorist attacks using explosives concealed on the body, coupled with the scanners’ low dose of radiation, certainly convinced many radiation experts that the risk was justified.

But other factors helped the machines gain acceptance.

Because of a regulatory Catch-22, the airport X-ray scanners have escaped the oversight required for X-ray machines used in doctors’ offices and hospitals. The reason is that the scanners do not have a medical purpose, so the FDA cannot subject them to the rigorous evaluation it applies to medical devices.

Still, the FDA has limited authority to oversee some non-medical products and can set mandatory safety regulations. But the agency let the scanners fall under voluntary standards set by a nonprofit group heavily influenced by industry.

As for the TSA, it skipped a public comment period required before deploying the scanners. Then, in defending them, it relied on a small body of unpublished research to insist the machines were safe, and ignored contrary opinions from U.S. and European authorities that recommended precautions, especially for pregnant women. Finally, the manufacturer, Rapiscan Systems, unleashed an intense and sophisticated lobbying campaign, ultimately winning large contracts.

Both the FDA and TSA say due diligence has been done to assure the scanners’ safety. Rapiscan says it won the contract because its technology is superior at detecting threats. While the TSA says X-ray and millimeter-wave scanners are both effective, Germany decided earlier this year not to roll out millimeter-wave machines after finding they produced too many false positives.

Most of the news coverage on body scanners has focused on privacy, because the machines can produce images showing breasts and buttocks. But the TSA has since installed software to make the images less graphic. While some accounts have raised the specter of radiation, this is the first report to trace the history of the scanners and document the gaps in regulation that allowed them to avoid rigorous safety evaluation.

Little research on cancer risk of body scanners

Humans are constantly exposed to ionizing radiation, a form of energy that has been shown to strip electrons from atoms, damage DNA and mutate genes, potentially leading to cancer. Most radiation comes from radon, a gas produced from naturally decaying elements in the ground. Another major source is cosmic radiation from outer space. Many common items, such as smoke detectors, contain tiny amounts of radioactive material, as do exit signs in schools and office buildings.

As a result, the cancer risk from any one source of radiation is often small. Outside of nuclear accidents, such as that at Japan's Fukushima plant, and medical errors, the health risk comes from cumulative exposure.

In Rapiscan’s Secure 1000 scanner, which uses ionizing radiation, a passenger stands between two large blue boxes and is scanned with a pencil X-ray beam that rapidly moves left to right and up and down the body. In the other machine, ProVision, made by defense contractor L-3 Communications, a passenger enters a chamber that looks like a round phone booth and is scanned with millimeter waves, a form of low-energy radio waves, which have not been shown to strip electrons from atoms or cause cancer.

Only a decade ago, many states prohibited X-raying a person for anything other than a medical exam. Even after 9/11, such non-medical X-raying remains taboo in most of the industrialized world. In July, the European Parliament passed a resolution that security “scanners using ionizing radiation should be prohibited” because of health risks. Although the United Kingdom uses the X-ray machine for limited purposes, such as when passengers trigger the metal detector, most developed countries have decided to forgo body scanners altogether or use only the millimeter-wave machines.

While the research on medical X-rays could fill many bookcases, the studies that have been done on the airport X-ray scanners, known as backscatters, fill a file no more than a few inches thick. None of the main studies cited by the TSA has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, the gold standard for scientific research.

Those tests show that the Secure 1000 delivers an extremely low dose of radiation, less than 10 microrems. The dose is roughly one-thousandth of a chest X-ray and equivalent to the cosmic radiation received in a few minutes of flying at typical cruising altitude. The TSA has used those measurements to say the machines are “safe.”

Most of what researchers know about the long-term health effects of low levels of radiation comes from studies of atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By charting exposure levels and cancer cases, researchers established a linear link that shows the higher the exposure, the greater risk of cancer.

Some scientists argue the danger is exaggerated. They claim low levels stimulate the repair mechanism in cells, meaning that a little radiation might actually be good for the body.

But in the authoritative report on low doses of ionizing radiation, published in 2006, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the research and concluded that the preponderance of research supported the linear link. It found “no compelling evidence” that there is any level of radiation at which the risk of cancer is zero.

Radiation experts say the dose from the backscatter is negligible when compared to naturally occurring background radiation. Speaking to the 1998 FDA panel, Smith, the inventor, compared the increased risk to choosing to visit Denver instead of San Diego or the decision to wear a sweater versus a sport coat.

Using the linear model, even such trivial amounts increase the number of cancer cases. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a radiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, estimated that the backscatters would lead to only six cancers over the course of a lifetime among the approximately 100 million people who fly every year. David Brenner, director of Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research, reached a higher number — potentially 100 additional cancers every year.

“Why would we want to put ourselves in this uncertain situation where potentially we’re going to have some cancer cases?” Brenner asked. “It makes me think, really, why don’t we use millimeter waves when we don’t have so much uncertainty?”

But even without the machines, Smith-Bindman said, the same 100 million people would develop 40 million cancers over the course of their lifetimes. In this sea of cancer cases, it would be impossible to identify the patients whose cancer is linked to the backscatter machines.

How the scanners avoided strict oversight

Although they deliberately expose humans to radiation, the airport X-ray scanners are not medical devices, so they are not subject to the stringent regulations required for diagnostic X-ray machines.

If they were, the manufacturer would have to submit clinical data showing safety and effectiveness and be approved through a rigorous process by the FDA. If the machines contained radioactive material, they would have to report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

But because it didn’t fit into either category, the Secure 1000 was classified as an electronic product. The FDA does not review or approve the safety of such products. However, manufacturers must provide a brief radiation safety report explaining the dose and notify the agency if any overexposure is discovered. According to the FDA, no such incidents have been reported.

Under its limited oversight of electronic products, the FDA could issue mandatory safety regulations. But it didn’t do so, a decision that flows from its history of supervising electronics.

Regulation of electronic products in the United States began after a series of scandals. From the 1930s to the 1950s, it was common for a child to go to a shoe store and stand underneath an X-ray machine known as a fluoroscope to check whether a shoe was the right fit. But after cases arose of a shoe model’s leg being amputated and store clerks developing dermatitis from putting their hands in the beam to adjust the shoe, the practice ended.

In 1967, General Electric recalled 90,000 color televisions that had been sold without the proper shielding, potentially exposing viewers to dangerous levels of radiation. The scandal prompted the creation of the federal Bureau of Radiological Health.

“That ultimately led to a lot more aggressive program,” said John Villforth, who was the director of the bureau. Over the next decade, the bureau created federal safety standards for televisions, medical X-rays, microwaves, tanning beds, even laser light shows.

But in 1982, the FDA merged the radiological health bureau into its medical-device unit.

“I was concerned that if they were to combine the two centers into one, it would probably mean the ending of the radiation program because the demands for medical-device regulation were becoming increasingly great,” said Villforth, who was put in charge of the new Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “As I sort of guessed, the radiation program took a big hit.”

The new unit became stretched for scarce resources as it tried to deal with everything from tongue depressors to industrial lasers. The government used to have 500 people examining the safety of electronic products emitting radiation. It now has about 20 people. In fact, the FDA has not set a mandatory safety standard for an electronic product since 1985.

As a result, there is an FDA safety regulation for X-rays scanning baggage — but none for X-rays scanning people at airports.

Meanwhile, scientists began developing backscatter X-rays, in which the waves are reflected off an object to a detector, for the security industry.

The Secure 1000 people scanner was invented by Smith in 1991 and later sold to Rapiscan, then a small security firm based in southern California. The first major customer was the California prison system, which began scanning visitors to prevent drugs and weapons from getting in. But the state pulled the devices in 2001 after a group of inmates' wives filed a class-action lawsuit accusing the prisons of violating their civil liberties.

The U.S. Customs Service deployed backscatter machines for several years but in limited fashion and with strict supervision. Travelers suspected of carrying contraband had to sign a consent form, and Customs policy prohibited the scanning of pregnant women. The agency abandoned them in 2006, not for safety reasons but because smugglers had learned where the machines were installed and adapted their methods to avoid them, said Rick Whitman, the radiation safety officer for Customs until 2008.

Yet, even this limited application of X-ray scanning for security dismayed radiation safety experts. In 1999, the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors, a nongovernmental organization, passed a resolution recommending that such screening be stopped immediately.

The backscatter machines had also caught the attention of the 1998 FDA advisory panel, which recommended that the FDA establish government safety regulations for people scanners. Instead, the FDA decided to go with a voluntary standard set by a trade group largely comprising manufacturers and government agencies that wanted to use the machines.

“Establishing a mandatory standard takes an enormous amount of resources and could take a decade to publish,” said Dan Kassiday, a longtime radiation safety engineer at the FDA.

In addition, since the mid-1990s, Congress has directed federal safety agencies to use industry standards wherever possible instead of creating their own.

The FDA delegated the task of establishing the voluntary standards to the American National Standards Institute. A private nonprofit that sets standards for many industries, ANSI convened a committee of the Health Physics Society, a trade group of radiation safety specialists. It was made up of 15 people, including six representatives of manufacturers of X-ray body scanners and five from U.S. Customs and the California prison system. There were few government regulators and no independent scientists.

In contrast, the FDA advisory panel was also made up of 15 people — five representatives from government regulatory agencies, four outside medical experts, one labor representative and five experts from the electronic products industry, but none from the scanner manufacturers themselves.

“I am more comfortable with having a regulatory agency — either federal or the states — develop the standards and enforce them,” Kaufman said. Such regulators, she added, “have only one priority, and that’s public health.”

A representative of the Health Physics Society committee said that was its main priority as well. Most of the committee’s evaluation was completed before 9/11. The standard was published in 2002 and updated with minor changes in 2009.

Ed Bailey, chief of California’s radiological health branch at the time, said he was the lone voice opposing the use of the machines. But after 9/11, his views changed about what was acceptable in pursuit of security.

“The whole climate of their use has changed,” Bailey said. “The consequence of something being smuggled on an airplane is far more serious than somebody getting drugs into a prison.”

Are Inspections Independent?

While the TSA doesn’t regulate the machines, it must seek public input before making major changes to security procedures. In July, a federal appeals court ruled that the agency failed to follow rule-making procedures and solicit public comment before installing body scanners at airports across the country. TSA spokesman Michael McCarthy said the agency couldn’t comment on ongoing litigation.

The TSA asserts there is no need to take additional precautions for sensitive populations, even pregnant women, following the guidance of the congressionally chartered National Council on Radiation Protection & Measurements.

But other authorities have come to the opposite conclusion. A report by France’s radiation safety agency specifically warned against screening pregnant women with the X-ray devices. In addition, the Federal Aviation Administration’s medical institute has advised pregnant pilots and flight attendants that the machine, coupled with their time in the air, could put them over their occupational limit for radiation exposure and that they might want to adjust their work schedules accordingly.

No similar warning has been issued for pregnant frequent fliers.

Even as people scanners became more widespread, government oversight actually weakened in some cases.

Inspections of X-ray equipment in hospitals and industry are the responsibility of state regulators — and before 9/11, many states also had the authority to randomly inspect machines in airports. But that ended when the TSA took over security checkpoints from the airlines.

Instead, annual inspections are done by Rapiscan, the scanners’ manufacturer.

“As a regulator, I think there’s a conflict of interest in having the manufacturer and the facility inspect themselves,” Kaufman said.

Last year, in reaction to public anger from members of Congress, passengers and advocates, the TSA contracted with the Army Public Health Command to do independent radiation surveys. But email messages obtained in a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group, raise questions about the independence of the Army surveys.

One email sent by TSA health and safety director Jill Segraves shows that local TSA officials were given advance notice and allowed to “pick and choose” which systems the Army could check.

That email also suggests that Segraves considered the Army inspectors a valuable public-relations asset: “They are our radiation myth busters,” she wrote to a local security director.

Some TSA screeners are concerned about their own radiation exposure from the backscatters, but the TSA has not allowed them to wear badges that could measure it, said Milly Rodriguez, health and safety specialist for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA officers.

“We have heard from members that sometimes the technicians tell them that the machines are emitting more radiation than is allowed,” she said.

McCarthy, the TSA spokesman, said the machines are physically incapable of producing radiation above the industry standard. On the email, he said, the inspections allow screeners to ask questions about radiation and address concerns about specific machines.

The company’s lobbying campaign

While the TSA maintains that the body scanners are essential to preventing attacks on airplanes, it only began rolling them out nine years after 9/11.

After the attempted shoe-bombing in December 2001, the federal government conducted a trial of a Rapiscan backscatter at the Orlando International Airport. But the revealing images drew protests that the machines amounted to a virtual strip search.

The TSA considered the scanners again after two Chechen women blew up Russian airliners in 2004. Facing a continued outcry over privacy, the TSA instead moved forward with a machine known as a “puffer” because it released several bursts of air on the passengers’ clothes and analyzed the dislodged particles for explosives. But after discovering the machines were ineffective in the field and difficult to maintain, the TSA canceled the program in 2006.

Around that time, Rapiscan began to beef up its lobbying on Capitol Hill. It opened a Washington, D.C., office and, according to required disclosures, more than tripled its lobbying expenditures in two years, from less than $130,000 in 2006 to nearly $420,000 in 2008. It hired former legislative aides to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., then chairman of the homeland security appropriations subcommittee, and to Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.

It started a political action committee and began contributing heavily to Price; Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., then head of the homeland security committee; Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., also on that committee; and Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the top Republican on the Senate appropriations committee.

In addition, it opened a new North Carolina plant in Price’s district and expanded its operations in Ocean Springs, Miss., and at its headquarters in Torrance, Calif., in Harman’s district.

“Less than a month after U.S. Senator Trent Lott and other local leaders helped officially open Rapiscan Systems’ new Ocean Springs factory,” Lott’s office announced in a news release in late 2006, “the company has won a $9.1 million Department of Defense contract.”

But Rapiscan still hadn’t landed a major contract to roll out its X-ray body scanners in commercial airports. Indeed, in 2007, with new privacy filters in place, the TSA began a trial of millimeter-wave and backscatter machines at several major airports, after which the agency opted to go with the millimeter-wave machines. The agency said health concerns weren’t a factor.

But with the 2009 federal stimulus package, which provided $300 million for checkpoint security machines, the TSA began deploying backscatters as well. Rapiscan won a $173 million, multiyear contract for the backscatters, with an initial $25 million order for 150 systems to be made in Mississippi.        

Three other companies — American Science & Engineering, Tek84 Engineering Group and Valley Forge Composite Technologies — make X-ray scanners, but none are used by the TSA.Peter Kant, executive vice president for Rapiscan, said the company expanded its lobbying because its business was increasingly affected by the government.

“There’s a lot of misinformation about the technology; there’s a lot of questions about how various inspection technologies work,” he said. “And we needed a way to be able to provide that information and explain the technology and how it works, and that’s what lobbying is.”

The lawmakers either declined to comment or said the lobbying, campaign contributions and local connections had nothing to do with the TSA’s decision to purchase Rapiscan machines. The TSA said the contract was bid competitively and that the winning machines had to undergo comprehensive research and testing phases before being deployed.

While the scanners were appearing in more and more airports, few passengers went through them, because they were used mostly for random screening or to resolve alarms from the metal detector.

That changed on Christmas Day 2009, when a Nigerian man flying to Detroit tried to ignite a pouch of explosives hidden in his underwear.

Following the foiled “Great Balls of Fire” suicide bombing, as the New York Postdubbed it, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ramped up plans to roll out body scanners nationwide. Members of Congress and aviation security experts also pushed heavily for the TSA to install more machines that could detect explosives on passengers.

Harman sent a letter to Napolitano, noting that Rapiscan was in her district.

“I urge you to expedite installation of scanning machines in key airports,” Harman wrote in the letter, which was first reported by the website CounterPunch. “If you need additional funds, I am ready to help.”

Michael Chertoff, who had supported body scanners while secretary of Homeland Security, appeared frequently on TV advocating their use. In one interview, he disclosed that his consulting firm, Chertoff Group, had done work for Rapiscan, sparking accusations that he was trying to profit from his time as a government servant.

Despite the criticism, little has been revealed about the relationship. Rapiscan dismissed it, asserting that the consulting work had to do with international cargo and port security issues — not aviation.

“There was nothing that was not above board,” Kant said. “His comments about passenger screening and these machines were simply his own and was nothing that we had engaged the Chertoff Group for.”

In a statement, the Chertoff Group said it “played no role in the sale of whole body imaging technology to TSA” and that Chertoff “was in no way compensated for his public statements.”

A public records request by ProPublica turned up empty: The Department of Homeland Security said it could not find any correspondence to or from Chertoff related to body scanners. DHS also said Chertoff did not use email.

The TSA plans to deploy 1,275 backscatter and millimeter-wave scanners covering more than half its security lanes by the end of 2012 and 1,800 covering nearly all the lanes by 2014.

According to annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, OSI Systems, the parent company of Rapiscan, has seen revenue from its security division more than double since 2006 to nearly $300 million in fiscal year 2011.

Miles O’Brien and Kate Tobin of PBS NewsHour contributed to this report.

Correction (11/1): An earlier version of this story said that an email in which the TSA health and safety director said inspectors were “radiation myth busters” incorrectly identified them as Rapiscan’s inspectors. The story should have said they were inspectors from the Army Public Health Command.

Perry appoints banker, toll chair to Transportation Commission

Link to article here.

Jeff Austin III appointed to transportation board

Gov. Perry appoints area banker to oversee TxDOT
JEFF AUSTIN III  

JEFF AUSTIN III Jeff Austin III, area banker and chairman of the North East Texas Regional Mobility Authority (NETRA), has been appointed a commissioner of the five- member Texas Transportation Commission. Gov. Rick Perry made the announcement Thursday.

TxDOT is among the largest agencies in state government with an operating budget of approximately $6.648 billion. Approximately 12,000 persons are employed by the department.

Mr. Austin spoke with the Cherokeean Herald Thursday afternoon and said, “I have resigned my position on the NETRMA board, and I look forward to serving on the transportation commission. I have confidence in this commission. We have a lot of good things in place. When we look at our system statewide, we see we have needs and opportunities.

“As Texas grows, we must be good stewards of what we have. We will have to set new priorities. Everyone travels our roads and highways. We need more money for sure, and we must continue to preserve these roads. The authority board has good team work among itself, and each county has set its own priorities.”

He added, “Folks in East Texas must remember I am still just a phone call away.”

The appointment drew excitement from elected officials in Austin.

State Sen. Robert Nichols of Jacksonville, a former member of the Transportation Commission, said, “I am pleased with the appointment. Mr. Austin has shown dedication and leadership in transportation issues in this region and will be an excellent advocate for rural Texas.”

“My congratulations go out to Jeff. He deserves this honor,” state Rep. Chuck Hopson of Jacksonville said. “I am excited to be able to continue to work with him. He has done an excellent job on the mobility board. His appointment is good for East Texas. With this appointment East Texas is represented on the commission, and Jeff works hard on all his jobs.

“He will work for the people of East Texas, as well as those for the entire state,” Rep. Hopson continued.

State Sen. Kevin Eltife of Tyler said, “I think this is great. I appreciate Gov. Perry’s appointment of Jeff to the transportation commission. Jeff is a good individual and great for our region and for Northeast Texas.

“This appointment is important as the commission provides funding for transportation across the state. It is great to have a voice on the commission for our area.”

Currently, Mr. Austin serves as vice-chairman of Austin Bank and Texas NA.

He is a board member of First State Bank in Athens and Capital Bank in Houston, and past president of First State Bank Frankston.

He is a board member and past chair of the Texas Bankers Association, a member of the American Bankers Association Government Relations Committee and the Bank CEO Network and an executive committee member and past director of the Texas Lyceum.

He serves as a board member of the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum and past board chair of the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce.

He is also a past board member of the Tyler Economic Development Corporation, Better Business Bureau of East Texas, University of Texas at Tyler Business School Advisory Board, UT at Tyler Health Center Development Board and Trinity Mother Frances Hospital Foundation.

Mr. Austin is a native East Texan and grew up in Jacksonville. He is a Jacksonville High School graduate, class of 1980.

He received a bachelor’s degree and Master of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Tyler.

He is a graduate of the Southern Methodist University Southwestern Graduate and Intermediate schools of Banking and the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program.

He is a also a third generation East Texas banker.

His term will expire Feb. 1, 2013.

On the verge of insanity: A Dallas Cowboys TollTag?

Link to article here.

Show your Dallas Cowboys pride ... with a designer tolltag?

By Mike Drago/Editor
Dallas Morning News
Nov. 2, 2011
 
We have no idea why you'd want one of these. Then again, we understand how little we know about the world.

Your North Texas Tollway Authority is rolling out a designer tolltag. Yes, for only $22.99 you can own your very own Dallas Cowboys tolltag. Why drive around with a bland, beige tolltag on the dashboard when you could be flashing your team spirit for everyone to see in their rearview mirrors?

A release from NTTA says legendary receiver Drew Pearson will introduce "the newest star on the Cowboys roster" himself on Saturday, a day before he officially goes into the team's "Ring of Honor."

Pearson will sign autographs and "debut" the tolltag at the Galleria Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.

As for the tolltag, the release says it is "emblazoned with the Cowboys iconic star on a silver background -- the same look the five-time Super Bowl Champion Cowboys sport on their helmets on gameday." The NTTA website makes having one look like a laugh riot (cheerleader not included).

The release says only a limited number of tolltags have been manufactured. They don't say how many. "Once they're gone, they're gone," the release says. So, if you're of a mind, better hurry.
Here's the full release:

PLANO, Texas - Nov. 1, 2011 - Dallas Cowboys legend Drew Pearson is set to introduce the newest star on the Cowboys roster. On the eve of his long-awaited induction into the Dallas Cowboys "Ring of Honor," the original 88, one of the greatest receivers in Cowboys history, will sign autographs and debut the new limited-edition Dallas Cowboys TollTag at the Galleria Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop Saturday Nov. 5, from 3- 5 p.m.

The Dallas Cowboys TollTag is emblazoned with the Cowboys iconic star on a silver background - the same look the five-time Super Bowl Champion Cowboys sport on their helmets on gameday. Now Cowboys fans can display pride for their favorite team and pay the lowest toll rates available as they drive NTTA roadways.

 

The Dallas Cowboys TollTags will be available at select Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop locations, while they last, for $22.99 each to both new and existing NTTA customers. In addition to the Pro Shops, customers can also purchase the TollTags online at ShopCowboys.com A limited number of Dallas Cowboys TollTags have been created, once they're gone, they're gone.

 

When fans get their distinctive Dallas Cowboys TollTags, they must contact the NTTA Customer Service Center at (972) 818-NTTA (6882) to activate them. Representatives are available Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. and Saturday 9:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.

 

Customers who already have a TollTag must remove it from their vehicle before installing the new Dallas Cowboys TollTag and must activate the new tag. Old TollTag stickers will be inoperable once removed. Do not attempt to install them on another vehicle.

 

Hard-case TollTags must be returned to the NTTA Customer Service Center at P.O. Box 260928,

Plano, TX 75026-0928.

 

About the NTTA

The North Texas Tollway Authority, a political subdivision of the state of Texas, is authorized to acquire, construct, maintain, repair and operate turnpike projects in the north Texas region. The nine-member governing board is comprised of Chairman Kenneth Barr; Vice Chairman Bill Moore; and Directors Kent Cagle, David Denison, Michael Nowels, George "Tex" Quesada, Bob Shepard, Victor Vandergriff and Jane Willard.

 

The NTTA serves Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties and owns and operates the Dallas North Tollway, President George Bush Turnpike, Sam Rayburn Tollway, Addison Airport Toll Tunnel, Lewisville Lake Toll Bridge and the Mountain Creek Lake Bridge. The NTTA is able to raise capital for construction projects through the issuance of turnpike revenue bonds. NTTA toll projects are not a part of the state highway system and receive no direct tax funding. Tolls are collected to repay debt and to operate and maintain the roadways.


www.NTTA.org

Tolling nightmare continues in Virginia despite Georgia failure


Following the Washington Times editorial is an article on the FAILED Georgia HOT lane experiment that "conservative" think tanks are trying to spin as a success-in-waiting.

Link to article here.

EDITORIAL: Georgia’s tolling nightmare

Old Dominion set to repeat the Peach State’s mistake

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES - The Washington Times

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Virginia is sticking stubbornly by its unpopular decision to convert Interstate 95 into one big toll road. The idea is to double-tax drivers from the North Carolina border all the way up to Stafford County and then have high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes take over up to Interstate 395. The commonwealth’s residents instinctively know this is a dumb idea.

Last month, a Quinnipiac University survey found 52 percent don’t want tolls. Notably, the opposition was spread equally among Republicans, Democrats, independents, men and women. And the results likely would have been far more negative if voters had realized HOT schemes have a long history of failure. Take Georgia, which took away 15 miles of existing high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes last month to charge motorists up to $5.40 for the privilege of commuting between DeKalb and Gwinnett counties on Interstate 85 - a trip that previously had been free.

The social engineers behind such grand experiments pretend tolling is a “free-market” solution to congestion. Instead of adding new capacity to meet demand, the idea is to price the existing, insufficient capacity and “manage” the demand. It all works out perfectly in the confines of an ivory tower, but it’s a disaster when translated onto the asphalt. “We typically don’t have complete-halt traffic here,” said Lawrenceville, Ga., resident Chris Haley about his new commute. “But in the first few weeks the lanes were implemented, it was near at a dead stop. You’re looking over in the left-hand HOT lane, and it’s empty.”

Mr. Haley told The Washington Times that he was so outraged that his daily commute doubled from 40 to 90 minutes a day that he set up the website StopPeachPass.org to chronicle the project’s failings. Republican Gov. Nathan Deal took note of the problem and intervened to lower the sky-high tolls. With cheaper rates, more people are using the HOT lanes, but the basic problem remains. Mr. Haley’s analysis of the road’s traffic data shows the same total number of people are using the regular freeway lanes, but they’re being forced to leave far earlier or later than they had done previously to avoid the jam.

It’s hard to see how the lanes could survive financially at prices and traffic levels far below projections. Such unrealistic predictions are common. The most recent annual report for Washington state’s 3-year-old HOT lanes on State Route 167 boasts of extracting $420,400 in gross revenue from drivers, but it neglects to mention the net loss of $173,939 through March 2011.

So the states lose money and commuters are stuck with higher bills and worse traffic. It turns out that the only winners here are the private contractors responsible for the massive overhead needed to keep the tolling operation running smoothly. Little surprise that these companies frequently can be found behind the scenes lavishing money on legislators and encouraging pundits to sing the praises of the schemes that line their pockets.

When government sets out to manipulate public behavior, failure is the inevitable result. Virginia’s transportation problem won’t be solved unless the commonwealth stops wasting $6 billion on transit boondoggles like the Metro to Dulles International Airport. That money, which is being taken from drivers, should be invested instead in maximizing general freeway capacity by doing away with failed HOV and HOT experiments.


____________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

Getting to the truth about HOT-lane operations

7:35 am November 2, 2011, by Jay Bookman

Atlanta Journal Constitution

The Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an Atlanta-based free-market think tank, wields a lot of influence with the state’s conservative leadership. The foundation has also been a leading advocate of public and private toll-road projects, including the controversial I-85 HOT-lane conversion.

In an article headlined “State must ensure Georgians warm up to HOT lanes,” GPPF vice president Benita Dodd pleads for patience from commuters and politicians alike, saying it’s much too early to proclaim the I-85 project a failure. In other cities, she points out, it took some time before motorists got used to the idea and began to use HOT lanes regularly.

Her point is valid. When Ga. 400 first opened, Atlanta media outlets, including this newspaper, ran a lot of stories pointing out that very few people were using the highway. That situation changed pretty quickly as commuters changed their travel patterns.

To bolster public patience, Dodd cites the example of State Route 91 in southern California. After HOT lanes opened on that highly congested route, Dodd writes, toll-paying commuters not only saved 30 minutes on a 10-mile trip, “Rush-hour speeds in the regular lanes increased by 17 mph and peak-period congestion in the morning was reduced by over an hour.”

That does sound highly encouraging — a 17-mph increase in the general lanes! Unfortunately, it has not exactly been the experience of commuters in the I-85 corridor, where motorists in the regular lanes complain that commutes have gotten considerably longer. Why has our experience been so different?

Well, here in Georgia, the two new HOT lanes — one in each direction — were carved out of existing interstate, pushing traffic into the remaining lanes. In California, traffic flow improved because four additional travel lanes — two in each direction — were built in the median of SR 91 as HOT lanes. In other words, significant new capacity — not HOT-lane technology — accounted for the improvement cited by Dodd. (By the way, that improvement proved temporary, largely disappearing as additional traffic was drawn by that additional capacity.)

GPPF has also tried to dispel the notion of HOT lanes as “Lexus lanes,” which it defines as “an elitist way to enable wealthier, paying motorists to bypass the congestion that the unwashed masses must endure.” Again citing California’s experience, GPPF claims that HOT-lane users on SR 91 were no different demographically than those using regular lanes.

The Reason Foundation, the libertarian think tank that has championed HOT lanes on the national level, makes similar claims, arguing that “studies of the 91 Express Lanes indicate that use increases slightly with income group.” However, the studies cited by Reason and GPPF directly contradict what they claim.

According to those studies, commuters with incomes above $100,000 were more than twice as likely to use the toll lanes frequently than those making less than $60,000. That is not a “slight increase” among income groups. The studies also found that as fares rose higher and higher, usage by middle-income commuters dropped significantly.

“The significant decline in reported toll lane use by commuters in the $40-60K category suggests that these middle-income commuters have been unusually sensitive to the toll increases, and are less willing to pay tolls despite the worsening traffic congestion in the corridor,” the study concluded.

That trend could be important to travelers in the I-85 corridor as that project matures, usage increases and tolls are raised to fend off congestion. (Today, the highest toll collected on SR 91 is $9.85 for the 10-mile trip, more than double the highest fare of 10 years ago.)

Interestingly, that study, led by Edward Sullivan of Cal Poly State University, also found that SR 91 commuters consistently overestimate how much time they save by using the toll lanes, overshooting the mark by anywhere from five to 30 minutes a trip.

“It suggests that making available accurate data on actual toll lane time savings might result in reduced toll lane use,” the writers warn. In other words, it’s not the deal it may appear to be, although you may already know that.

I-69 signs erected along Hwy 77 in the valley


Link to article here.

I-69 signs to go up in South Texas


By Michael Lindenberger/Reporter

 
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11:39 AM on Thu., Oct. 27, 2011

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Well it's official. Texas has a new Interstate highway.

Texas transportation commissioners voted minutes ago to begin erecting Interstate 69 signs on a 6.2-mile stretch of U.S. 77 between Interstate 37 and State Highway 44 in Nueces County in south Texas near the Gulf of Mexico . The Texas segment of the 1,000-mile interstate is expected to eventually stretch from Texarkana to the border.

Polk County Judge Judge John Thompson, chairman of the Alliance for I-69, hailed the decision in a press release issued by TxDOT.

"It's a visible sign of the progress being made on I-69," Thompson said. "This is the result of the strong partnership between the Alliance for I-69 Texas, TxDOT, the I-69 Segment Committees, the I-69 Advisory Committee and the many elected officials and community leaders along the I-69 route in Texas that have remained committed to and focused on the development of the system."

The I-69 corridor, which TxDOT began upgrading in 2008 to meet federal interstate standards, was once part of the Trans Texas Corridor, and some elements of that project are still alive in the toll projects that the state and developers are hoping will fast-track the building of the free lanes on the highways.

The statement by TxDOT notes that the department is also asking the FHWA for approval to add completed sections of US 59 in the Houston metropolitan area to the Interstate Highway System as I-69.

Phil Wilson, in his first month as executive director at TxDOT, said bringing the interstate system to south Texas is vital.

"Access to an interstate is an important driver of economic development activity, so this effort is of particular importance to South Texas communities and businesses," said Phil Wilson, TxDOT executive director. "It's not every day that a transportation department gets to add a new interstate to the books, and it's thanks to the collaborative relationship between TxDOT, local stakeholders and planning groups, and elected officials that we can make this happen."

Houghton will continue Williamson era at TxDOT

Link to article here.

Perry's new Chair will continue dysfunction at highway department
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
October 11, 2011


It was no surprise that Deirdre Delisi stepped down as Chairwoman of the Texas Transportation Commission to focus on Texas Governor Rick Perry’s presidential campaign. He apparently needs it. However, Perry’s choice to tap Commissioner Ted Houghton to take the helm in Delisi’s place is shocking, yet also not surprising.

Rather than turn a new page and aid the process of getting the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) back on the right footing after heavy criticism of its handling of finances, the Trans Texas Corridor, and the Department’s push for private toll roads,  Perry chose an in-your-face Chairman with a history of picking fights with the public (watch this video of him calling concerned citizens ‘bigots’), legislators, and local toll authorities.

TxDOT came under Sunset Review at the peak of the public outcry over the Trans Texas Corridor. At the time the review began, Ric Williamson, very close friend of Perry’s since the time they had served in the legislature together when Perry was a Democrat, was the Chair of the Transportation Commission. He ushered in the era of selling off Texas public roads to private toll operators, actually gallivanting across Europe announcing to key global players that Texas was for sale.

Williamson was Perry’s chief henchman in getting Perry’s legacy building project implemented -- the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC), a 1,200 foot wide, 4,000 mile multi-modal network of toll roads, toll rail, telecommunications lines, pipelines, and utilities, snatching up 580,000 acres of private Texas farm and ranch land that would all fall under the control of a foreign company for a half century. The development rights for TTC-35 were awarded to Madrid-based Cintra and San Antonio based Zachry in March of 2005.

A Texas-sized backlash ensued causing the legislature to slap a moratorium on private toll contracts (called Comprehensive Development Agreements/CDAs or public private partnerships/P3s) in May of 2007, but not before Williamson signed off on handing Cintra-Zachry two segments of SH 130 for the first such contract in the state of Texas, delivered in the midst of the monolithic battle going on in the legislature that year. Williamson was in his element when controversy and opposition whirled around him, the more the better.

But even for him, the controversy and stress took its ‘toll,’ Williamson died of a heart attack in December 2007 just as TxDOT was getting ready to launch the second corridor, TTC-69. TxDOT received an unprecedented 28,000 comments against TTC-69. Not long afterwards, the Department revealed it had made a $1.1 billion ‘accounting error’ causing a slew of projects to be put on hold drawing ire from legislators who TxDOT initially blamed for the cancellations, only to find out it was the agency’s fault and they purposely hid the facts from the legislature for three months.

One Senator, Tommy Williams (strangely now the Senate Transportation Committee Chairman and TxDOT’s biggest defender of late), basically quipped at a hearing in February of 2008 that if TxDOT’s lips were moving they were lying. Senator Judith Zaffirini said at the same hearing “This is an agency in turmoil and chaos.”

Also during this time, TURF sued TxDOT over the US 281 toll project. It was found that TxDOT had rigged the environmental study and conspired to break federal law, resulting in one employee being fired and another being “reassigned.” Both the public’s trust and the legislature’s were irreparably breached.

Status quo will continue dysfunction

This was the backdrop to TxDOT’s Sunset Review process. The Sunset Advisory Commission, tasked with rooting out waste and mismanagement in state agencies, issued two scathing reports recommending the legislature not only abolish the current Transportation Commission (5 appointees of the Governor), but also to place TxDOT under a legislative conservatorship.

Then came a bruising 628-page management audit by Grant Thornton, then the “Restructuring Council.” All recommended sweeping changes to the agency, particularly the leadership (leading to the resignations of the Executive Director and other top posts), and a fundamental shift in the culture of TxDOT.

The Grant Thornton Audit said: “TxDOT has significant leadership issues that impair staff and management effectiveness and morale...Conversations with TxDOTʼs senior leaders reveal a deep-seated belief that TxDOT is doing all the right things and that criticisms leveled against the organization will decline when TxDOT is better able to demonstrate to people how right the organization is.”

The Sunset Advisory Commission report from 2009 states: “Many expressed concerns that TxDOT was 'out of control,' advancing its own agenda against objections of both the Legislature and the public. 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.”

Yet Perry defied all the recommendations of the Sunset Advisory Commission, the Management Audit, and the Restructure Council and picked a lobbyist and former Perry staffer, Phil Wilson, as the new Executive Director and the commissioner that’s the most like Ric Williamson, Ted Houghton, to be the new Chair of the Commission. At the press conference to announce that Perry had pulled the plug on TTC-35 facing the threat of litigation from two cities in its path, Houghton wisecracked that he was "the most arrogant commissioner of the most arrogant state agency in the history of the state of Texas."

News coverage of Houghton’s appointment affirms that he sees his primary mission as handing Texas public roads over to private toll operators in sweetheart P3 contracts, despite the years of public opposition, including from within the Republican Party platform and tea parties alike. Status quo for sure, a thumb in the public’s eye most certainly, and it affirms Perry’s determination to continue the Williamson era of division, controversy, and strife in the midst of his struggling presidential campaign with charges of crony capitalism flying. Makes one shake one’s head in stunned amazement.

Houghton named new Texas Transportation Commission Chair

Remember, Ted Houghton is the Transportation Commissioner who called Hank Gilbert, Board Member of TURF, and TURF supporters 'bigots' for opposing the sale of Texas roads to foreign entities. He also announced at the press conference stating the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 project was being pulled that: "I'm Ted Houghton, the most arrogant commissioner of the most arrogant state agency in the history of the state of Texas." Watch it here. This is who Governor Rick Perry chose as the new Chairman of the Transportation Commission!

Texas Department of Transportation - Press Release

Statement by Texas Transportation Commission Chair Ted Houghton

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- "I'd like to thank Governor Perry for his trust in me to continue TxDOT down a path of responsiveness, change and modernization. I look forward to leading the department as it becomes a better TxDOT, living up to the expectations of the Governor, the Legislature and our stakeholders.

"Texas is a national leader in infrastructure and transportation system development, and I intend to reaffirm our place among the best, strongest and most innovative states as TxDOT delivers the projects the Legislature, our local partners and Texas motorists expect."

Houghton was first appointed to the Texas Transportation Commission in 2003 by Governor Rick Perry, and was reappointed in 2009. A native of El Paso, Houghton is self-employed in the financial services industry. He is the first resident of El Paso to serve on the Commission.

Houghton previously served on the School Land Board, the El Paso Water Utilities Public Service Board, El Paso's Rapid Transit Board, the board of directors of the El Paso Electric Company and as president of the Sun Bowl Association. He was also a member of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Committee.

Ted is married to Hettie Cardon Houghton and they have five children -- Jennifer Houghton Lindsay, Cinco, John, Michael and Chris Houghton.

The Texas Department of Transportation The Texas Department of Transportation is responsible for maintaining 80,000 miles of road and for supporting aviation, rail and public transportation across the state. TxDOT and its approximately 12,000 employees strive to empower local leaders to solve local transportation problems, and to use new financial tools, including tolling and public-private partnerships, to reduce congestion and pave the way for future economic growth while enhancing safety, improving air quality and preserving the value of the state's transportation assets.

###
_____________________________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

Houghton appointed new Transportation Commission Chairman
by Gordon Dickson
Fort Worth Star Telegram
October 7, 2011
 
El Paso businessman named chairman of Texas Transportation Commission
Gov. Rick Perry has appointed El Paso businessman Ted Houghton chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission. The five-member body oversees the Texas Department of Transportation.

Houghton has served on the commission since 2003 and is a staunch advocate of hiring private developers to build and manage highways and toll roads. He believes that it helps transfer the financial risks of transportation projects away from taxpayers and makes up for a chronic lack of gas-tax-supported funds for road work.

"Texas is a national leader in infrastructure and transportation system development, and I intend to reaffirm our place among the best, strongest and most innovative states as TxDOT delivers the projects the Legislature, our local partners and Texas motorists expect," Houghton said in a statement.

Houghton replaces Deirdre Delisi of Austin, who resigned as chairwoman Thursday to dedicate more time to advising Perry's presidential campaign.

Houghton runs a financial services company and is the first El Pasoan to serve on the five-member commission.

He has previous experience on the School Land Board, El Paso Water Utilities Public Service Board, El Paso Rapid Transit Board, El Paso Electric Co. board and as president of the Sun Bowl Association.

Houghton was also on the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Committee.
____________________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

Houghton new Chair of Transportation Commission
by Michael Lindenberger
Dallas Morning News
Friday, October 7, 2011

Update : TxDOT just sent a statement from Houghton, who says: "I'd like to thank Governor Perry for his trust in me to continue TxDOT down a path of responsiveness, change and modernization. I look forward to leading the department as it becomes a better TxDOT, living up to the expectations of the Governor, the Legislature and our stakeholders.

"Texas is a national leader in infrastructure and transportation system development, and I intend to reaffirm our place among the best, strongest and most innovative states as TxDOT delivers the projects the Legislature, our local partners and Texas motorists expect."

***
The new chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission is Ted Houghton of El Paso, according to a press release issued moments ago by Gov. Rick Perry.
Houghton has been on the commission since the chairmanship of Ric Williamson and, since 2008, Deirdre Delisi. (Update: He was appointed in 2003.)

Delisi resigned yesterday.

Unlike Delisi, a former Perry chief of staff who now works for his presidential campaign, and the outspoken Williamson, who was one of Perry's best friends and a former Austin roommate, Houghton lacks the strong personal connection to the governor of his two predecessors.

But Houghton brings a passionate -- and articulate -- defense of the pro-business and pro-privatization approach Perry has long championed. Houghton has been one of the fiercest advocates for an untrammeled pursuit by TxDOT of partnerships with private firms to finance and operate Texas toll roads.

He has, however, matched that ferocity with a willingness to reach out to competitors and adversaries, including the North Texas Tollway Authority.

It was Houghton who took the lead in mending fences with then-chairman Paul Wageman of the NTTA and worked with Victor Vandergriff and others on the NTTA board to craft the deal that became the unprecedented loan guarantees that have made NTTA's financing of the SH 161 and Chisholm Trail Parkway possible.

Highlights from our coverage of Houghton on the blog:

* Houghton insists that TxDOT be given equity in future toll projects in which it helps NTTA finance the road.
* Wilson named executive director of TxDOT. Houghton led the search.
* TxDOT offers line of credit to NTTA

The press release announcing Houghton's appointment:

Gov. Perry Names Houghton Chair of Texas Transportation Commission

AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry has named Ted Houghton of El Paso chair of the Texas Transportation Commission for a term to expire at the pleasure of the governor. The commission oversees the Texas Department of Transportation.

Houghton is owner of Houghton Financial Partners. He is a member of the Paso del Norte Group, former vice chair of the El Paso Civic Center Board and a past member of the School Land Board, El Paso Water Utilities Public Service Board, and El Paso Electric Company Board of Directors. He is also past president of the Sun Bowl Association, and a member of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Committee.

Houghton received a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at El Paso.

Schutze: Perry's Trans Texas flip-flop


Link to article here.

Get Off My Lawn

Rick Perry Says He's Mr. Grassroots, But His Trans-Texas Flop Suggests Otherwise

By Jim Schutze Wed., Oct. 5 2011 at 4:34 PM

Tea Party people say they hate Washington and its top-down style of governance. They're the political version of eat-local. Everything should be grassroots.
Here in Texas the Tea Party loves Governor Rick Perry, but if you talk to people who've gone up against Perry on local issues, they will tell you that grassroots is one word the man cannot even find in the dictionary.

I ran into this particular Perry disconnect when I was doing the reporting for a story on Perry in this week's newspaper. One of the little sagas we had to trim back for space had to do with his attempt to build the Trans-Texas Corridor, a proposed but now defunct 4,000-mile-long high-tech transportation right-of-way, four football fields wide, from Mexico to Oklahoma.

Talk about top-down. Perry got beat badly on the TTC because he acted like he didn't even know local communities existed. The local communities that probably had more to do with beating him were our own town, Dallas, and Fort Worth.

For that part of my Perry story, I hardly talked to any progressive anti-highway Democrats at all. The people who fought Perry on it and beat him were mostly conservative-leaning pro-road-building Republicans. They all told me they liked Perry's basic idea but just couldn't reason with the man because of his autocratic style.

The TTC was the brainchild of an oil and gas millionaire pal of Perry's from back in the day, the late Ric Williamson, whom Perry had appointed chair of the state's Transportation Commission. The idea is dead now, shot many times over in the head by the Legislature. In fact, even though it had already been dead four years, the most recent Legislature dragged out the corpse and shot it again just to make sure, passing new legislation to curb the state's use of eminent domain.

One of the first people I interviewed for my piece was Republican State Senator Florence Shapiro of Plano. She said rural dwellers in the proposed path of the TTC learned the details from local newspapers and blogs, not Perry.

"Think if you're living in one of these communities. You've had farm land for three generations, and one day you read in the paper that this mammoth, behemoth, much larger than necessary thing is going to condemn most of your property. They were livid and rightfully so."

But so were the cities. Dallas and Fort Worth at the time were pouring hundreds of millions in infrastructure dollars into our two competing "logistics centers" -- rail and freeway hubs with gargantuan automated warehouses to handle Pacific Rim trade coming up from deep-water ports in Houston, Mexico and Southern California. The TTC would have stepped around both centers, carrying all of that lucrative trade instead out into hinterlands where people didn't want it.


Bill Blaydes, then the Dallas City Council member in charge of our "inland port" project, says he, like Shapiro, thought the TTC idea had merit. He says it could have been married to Dallas' project, as well as to Fort Worth's Alliance Logistics Center, had Perry merely been willing to deal.
"It was a magnificent idea, had he been willing to work with the metropolitan areas and not try to bypass something that we had been working very hard to promote," Blaydes says. "We probably would not have fought it as hard as we did, but we fought it all the way to Washington."

In several years of trying, Blaydes said he was never able to find an inch of common ground with Perry or his friend Williamson. "They were headstrong and hard-headed. They could not and would not revise their vision," he says.

Sandy Greyson was the Dallas City Council member responsible for long-range transportation planning policy. She says when Dallas realized Perry wouldn't negotiate, the city mobilized quickly, hiring David Dean, a transportation lobbyist with strong ties to the Legislature.

Before Dean ever approached the capital, Greyson says, he ventured into the boondocks and did the grassroots work Perry and Williamson had failed to do, knitting together a coalition of every town council, aggrieved rancher and outlet mall he could find along the proposed route. By the time Dean took his "River of Trade" coalition to Austin, the TTC was a dead letter.

Greyson calls Williamson "a brilliant man" and mourns for the better parts of his concept. But, she says, "The fatal flaw in the whole thing was that it seemed to be a very top-down plan that would be imposed on people and cities and counties."

Shapiro says of the plan now, "It's gone." She says Perry could have pulled it off, had he been willing or able to work the grassroots.

"The idea should have been from the bottom up rather than from the top down. You would talk about it," Shapiro says. "You would have discussions about why we need this kind of infrastructure, so it comes from the grass roots, from the community leaders, from the people who own the land, not the government here telling you what to do."

Toss in Perry's decision to order HPV vaccinations for Texas girls and the way he handled the education budget in this recent legislative session: You have a man here who doesn't know a grass root from a railroad tie.

Given his campaign ads and his promises on the stump to put power back in the hands of states and local communities, there is enormous irony in how he really governs. But if something happened to Romney, Perry got the GOP nod and beat Obama ... well, that situation would go way beyond irony.

Revolving door continues: Rodriguez jumps from City Manager post to Zachry

Assistant city manager named to deputy spot after departure
By Josh Baugh
San Antonio Express-News
September 30, 2011


When the City's new fiscal year begins Saturday, it'll bring with it several changes to the City Manager Sheryl Sculley's executive team, including the departure of Deputy City Manager A. J. Rodriguez, and the promotion of Assistant City Manager Erik Walsh.

Sculley gave the City Council a memo Thursday explaining the details of the resignation, several promotions and a rehire.

Rodriguez is leaving the post to return to the private sector as the executive director of public policy and government relations for Zachry Holdings, Inc., where he'll be the primary public policy adviser to ZHI's chief executive and board of directors. His city salary is $194,000.

Read the rest of the story here.

HNTB mismanagement of 'disaster' funds, a disaster


HNTB Corp is the primary contractor for nearly every Regional Mobility Authority (RMAs or local toll authorities) Rick Perry set-up under state law in 2003. RMAs are the primary means Perry is using for off-budget debt for a massive network toll roads across the state of Texas. If HNTB's mismanagement of these federal disaster funds is indicative of how they spend our hard-earned tax dollars on toll roads, then public officials have a fiduciary duty to put their highway work under a microscope and hold them accountable. HNTB holds a virtual monopoly over toll roads in Texas.

HNTB is also a contractor with the Texas Turnpike Division within the Texas Department of Transportation. Tom Wendorf, an HNTB employee quoted in this article as fully expecting to continue working the federal disaster contract despite its mismanagement, is the former Director of Public Works for the City of San Antonio. He sat on the San Antonio-Bexar County Metropolitan Planning Organization (SABC-MPO) and voted repeatedly to slap tolls on existing freeways throughout the region. When he left that position, he merely stated publicly that he was moving to pursue other opportunities. He failed to disclose the revolving door nature of his new position -- his former position working for a governmental entity that played a role in directing huge public works contracts to what would become his current employer.


Perry fundraising raises questions on relief funds

Editorial Board

 
Published: 6:10 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011

A national audience got a look last week at Gov. Rick Perry's fundraising prowess. Perry reported raising $17 million in the month and a half since he announced his presidential bid. The showing restored some momentum Perry lost in two debates and a lackluster showing in the Florida straw poll late last month.

But that knack for fundraising has raised both questions and eyebrows when big Perry contributors obtain state contracts. The American-Statesman's Brenda Bell reported last week that a contract to manage more than $1 billion in federal disaster funds granted to HNTB, a firm based in Kansas City, Mo., is not performing. Bell reported that HNTB has been paid $45 million so far to process infrastructure grants. The amount the firm has collected comes close to depleting the money budgeted for administration and planning. Only 20 percent of the money released to help repair damage inflicted by Hurricanes Dolly and Ike in 2008 has been distributed.

The administrative spending is sounding alarms with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Texas General Land Office has canceled the HNTB contract.

The firm and its executives have been generous contributors to both Perry and the Republican Governors Association, a group Perry has chaired twice. The association, in return, has contributed $4 million to past Perry campaigns. HNTB was also the principal consultant on the Trans Texas Corridor, an ambitious transportation project Perry championed. The project flopped in face of overwhelming public opposition, but not before HNTB collected $109 million in engineering consultant services.

Even those inclined to give the governor every benefit of the doubt on those contracts should want to know why the hurricane recovery funds didn't reach their intended recipients more quickly.

The General Land Office, led by Commissioner Jerry Patterson, has taken over oversight of the relief effort and has promised greater accountability.

Bell quoted federal officials as saying that using private contractors to manage relief funds is unusual, but Perry has long been a fan of public-private endeavors. Unfortunately for taxpayers, those efforts haven't always produced good results. More than $800,000 went into an effort to merge the data centers of 28 state agencies into two streamlined and secure facilities. The consolidation was supposed to be completed by December 2009 but was still only 12 percent complete when the contract was re-bid in 2010.

Perry is scheduled to face his Republican rivals again Tuesday in a New Hampshire debate to be broadcast by Bloomberg Televison and co-sponsored by The Washington Post. It represents not only an opportunity for Perry to regain momentum, but for his opponents to question the governor on his record of managing public funds.

Bell's article was zipping through cyberspace last week and led to some speculation as to whether the Republicans would start asking questions about Perry and his contributors. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but it's a question that will loom large in the general election campaign should Perry win the GOP nomination.

Regardless of the politics, the fact remains that people who needed help aren't getting it, and they have a right to know why.

Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/perry-fundraising-raises-questions-on-relief-funds-1904331.html

_________________________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

State outsourced allocation of federal disaster recovery funds to firm with ties to Perry

By Brenda Bell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Published: 10:12 p.m. Monday, Oct. 3, 2011

The state of Texas has quietly outsourced the management of more than $1 billion in federal disaster recovery funds to an engineering firm with close ties to Gov. Rick Perry's administration, paying the Kansas City, Mo. -based firm HNTB $45 million so far to process infrastructure grants for communities damaged by Hurricanes Dolly and Ike.

The company's billings threaten to exhaust the amount budgeted for administrative and planning costs, while only 20 percent of the first round of money released to Texas to aid disaster recovery grants has been spent three years after the storms. Based on the state's original timeline, at least half those projects should have been completed by now, federal officials say.

The problems have caused officials with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to voice alarm and begin quarterly reviews in an attempt to get the program back on track.

Hiring a private firm to handle what has been termed the largest public works project in the state's history is unusual, federal officials say.

Weeks ago, the Texas General Land Office cancelled HNTB's contract, which had ballooned from $69 million to $144 million as the firm assumed more responsibility for disaster grants during a downsizing of state government. But HNTB continues to run the infrastructure program on a temporary basis at its downtown Austin offices, where about a dozen state employees also working on the program have been relocated.
Congress appropriated $3.1 billion to help Texans recover from the hurricanes that struck the Gulf coast in 2008. Fifty-five percent of the money ($1.7 billion) is for housing, and 45 percent ($1.4 billion) for non-housing projects — everything from emergency generators to new water and sewage treatment facilities. Of the total $3.1 billion, $1.3 billion was released in the first round of funding.

Most media attention has focused on problems with post-hurricane housing assistance, which has been managed by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

In Houston, the first new homes to replace those destroyed by Hurricane Ike were only recently completed. In Galveston, where 75 percent of the island's structures were damaged in the 2008 storm, the initial $259 million phase of rebuilding has been plagued with local delays, dissent and complaints about padded costs and inadequate inspections of rebuilt homes.

The role played by HNTB in managing grants for non-housing infrastructure — originally the responsibility of the now-defunct Texas Department of Rural Affairs — has largely escaped public attention, but not the federal government's.

In a May letter to state officials obtained by the American-Statesman, Stanley Gimont , director of block grant assistance for the U.S. Housing and Urban Development, said that using HNTB "to administer virtually all aspects" of the state agency's work on the community development block grants "presents significant cause for concern." Gimont said that as an engineering firm, HNTB lacked experience with community development block grant programs — the funding vehicle for Ike and Dolly disaster relief.

"There are fundamental responsibilities that must not be ceded by the state to a third-party contractor," he wrote. Those responsibilities include "proper monitoring" of local grants and policy and program guidance on the proper use of community development funds, he wrote.

The letter, which also cited a half-dozen deficiencies in the housing portion of the disaster program, raised questions about the state's oversight of HNTB, including:

• The department of rural affairs was in disarray, its disaster recovery staff had been reduced from 42 employees to 10, and it had "no procedures or policies in place to oversee" HNTB's work.

• The state's contract with HNTB lacked performance measures and carried the potential for "considerable cost increases."

In June, HUD warned that the rate of spending on administrative expenses, which as of Aug. 31 totaled 92 percent of what's been budgeted, could jeopardize the processing of construction projects in the second round of funding.

On July 1, Perry moved oversight of disaster recovery to an elected official, General Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, "to provide more accountability." About a dozen employees of the department of rural affairs, which the Legislature abolished at Perry's request, and 51 from the department of housing and community affairs — all working on disaster recovery projects for those agencies — were transferred to the land office's payroll.

"I'm taking a hard look at the whole program," said Gary Hagood , deputy commissioner of financial management at the land office. "I look at every dollar that goes out of here."

His priority, he said, "is to get stuff done in a timely manner. Every contract will have timelines. They had no timelines before — they just set it on the back burner."

Hagood canceled HNTB's contract as of Aug. 31, four years before it was to expire, and split the disaster recovery work into two parts, engineering services and grant management. The land office posted a request for companies to submit their qualifications to finish the job. Hagood said 10 to 12 firms have responded, including HNTB, and that future work might be contracted out to several vendors in coming weeks.

For now, HNTB continues to run the program. Tom Wendorf , HNTB vice president in San Antonio, said that with some adjustments to the scope of work and the new oversight under the land office, "we fully expect to continue to work toward completion of the infrastructure projects" in 2015. State officials originally expected to have the entire $3.1 billion in federal funds spent by 2013.

Long ties to Perry

According to its website, HNTB was founded in 1914 as a railroad bridge design firm and has designed "a significant portion" of the interstate highway system. Its headquarters are in Kansas City, Mo.

Almost all of the firm's business is with public agencies, said Wendorf, and during Perry's administration its presence in Austin has grown.

It was the principal consultant for Perry's first — and largest — pet project as governor, the proposed $184 billion Trans-Texas Corridor, which succumbed to widespread public opposition in 2010. Since 2008, the Texas Department of Transportation has paid HNTB $109 million for engineering consulting services, according to records with the state comptroller. Ray Sullivan, communications director for Perry's presidential campaign, has been a lobbyist for HNTB.

The firm is one of 139 major "crossover donors" identified by Texans for Public Justice who have contributed substantial sums to Perry and the Republican Governors Association, which Perry has twice chaired. According to campaignmoney.com, HNTB and its executives have given more than $500,000 to the association, which has sent $4 million to Perry's political campaigns.

By most accounts, the Department of Rural Affairs — a 70-employee agency that normally dispensed less than $100 million in grants to rural communities each year — was overwhelmed in 2009 when it got the job of managing $1.4 billion in disaster-related public works projects. The department hired 40 new employees, expanded its offices and turned to HNTB to manage the anticipated deluge of 6,000 community development block grants.

Exactly how HNTB was chosen is not clear; because its contract was for professional services, it was not subject to a bid process. State records show the firm was paid $45 million under the contract before it was canceled.

Counting a $3 million contract with the land office for post-Ike debris removal and an earlier $8 million contract with the Department of Rural Affairs for assessment of hurricane damage, HNTB has earned $56 million for its hurricane-related services to the state in the past three years.

In 2010, the Obama administration began looking closely at overhead expenses for community development block grants nationwide and found that Texas was rapidly spending down the money budgeted for administrative and planning costs for disaster-related infrastructure grants. Federal guidelines set a limit on such expenditures.

In February, rural affairs Director Charlie Stone laid off a number of upper-echelon employees and assigned more responsibilities to HNTB. That raised concerns on the part of federal officials that the result was "a significant gap in the agency's ability to interpret, understand and comply with" federal grant requirements.

Critics have questioned whether some projects approved in the first round of funding met the federal criteria of serving areas with the greatest unmet need and replacing infrastructure that was damaged or functioned inadequately as a result of the storms.

Many infrastructure grants were made to buy emergency generators. Lufkin, unharmed by the storms, is doubling the size of its civic center, which served as a temporary shelter for Ike and Rita evacuees.

And in other East Texas counties far from the coast, new roads, water lines and community centers are planned.

Truckers prefer gas tax funded roads over toll roads

Link to article here.

Truckers prefer fuel taxes over tolls

By Ben Wolfgang - The Washington Times

Monday, October 3, 2011

Calls for higher fuel taxes are coming from an unexpected place: the trucking industry.

As an alternative to more tolls on major highways, the American Trucking Association supports an increase in federal fuel taxes, provided the money is put toward desperately needed infrastructure repair.

"We have yet to see a scenario where some form of financing other than fuel taxes actually works and works as efficiently and effectively," ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said in an interview with The Washington Times on Monday.

Mr. Graves, the former two-term Republican governor of Kansas, rejected tolls such as the ones recently proposed in Virginia and enacted in New York and New Jersey.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell a Republican, supports tolls on Interstate 95 as a way to generate revenue. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey recently approved major toll increases at the urging of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.

The ATA called those levies "ill-conceived and unprecedented," and said the average truck hauling goods from Baltimore to Manhattan will see its toll burden rise from $114 to more than $209 by 2014.

Tacking a few pennies onto the gas tax, Mr. Graves said, is a far better option because it doesn't require governments to hire workers to man toll booths or spend millions of dollars to build and maintain toll plazas.

While governor, he pushed two fuel tax increases through the Kansas Legislature and argued that tolls are less efficient financially and can add precious hours to a trucker's drive time.

But given the reluctance of federal and state lawmakers to raise any taxes during a recession, the ATA isn't holding out much hope that its suggestions will be implemented.

"At this moment, our advocacy [for a fuel tax increase] is falling on deaf ears," Mr. Graves said.

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