Giveaways to oil & gas companies in TX threaten free markets

Nothing Free About the Markets in Texas

Posted by Debra Medina on Mar 31, 2011 in Blog, Featured | 1 comment

There’s no shortage of noble talk about promoting free markets and prosperity in Texas.  Gov. Perry often champions the “free market” and boasts that Texas government understands that it shouldn’t interfere in business and markets.  “Government should just get out of the way,”state leaders often say.

But that’s really just so much hot air.  Take for example, as the Houston Chronicle reported this weekend, the special exemption for “high-cost” gas production.  According to Patricia Hart, the exemption was created as a temporary measure in 1989 to encourage expensive and technically difficult gas production. It was extended in 1995 and 1999, when it was promoted by state Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland. “Then, in 2003,” she says, “when Craddick became speaker of the House, the Legislature passed a complicated bill with dozens of “technical corrections” to the state tax code. Tucked inside was a single line that struck the expiration date of the high-cost gas exemption. As a result, the tax break became permanent.”

Or as Wick Allison points out in his recent look at “The Welfare Queens of Texas”, “there are hundreds of special favors threaded through the Texas tax code.  The insurance industry in Texas has a particularly effective Austin lobby reaping what some might call a hefty discount: the industry pays 46% less in premium tax than the national average.”  Chief among those lobby groups,  the Texas Lobby Group and Mike Toomey, former chief of staff to Governor Perry.

A comparison of state tax burden as related to gross Texas business sales demonstrates just how big those special favors are.  For each special favor, that tax burden is shifted from a favored business or special friend to another business or individual Texans. Mining, construction, manufacturing and trade industry businesses all pay a significantly lower percentage of tax than do businesses in agriculture, utilities and transportation, information, finance, insurance, real estate and other service industries.


Where’s the justice?  Richard M. Ebeling, in referring recently to Adam Smith’s classic work on the Wealth of Nations, noted in order for a society to prosper, “Government activities [must be] greatly limited to those basic but essential functions of recognizing and protecting the right of each individual to his life, liberty, and honestly acquired property. This includes a system of impartial rule of law with no political favors or privileges for some at the expense and disadvantage of others .”[emphasis added]

Texans have had enough special favors to choke a horse.  And frankly, they’re making us sick; physically, politically and economically ill.  Let’s hope the freshmen class will bring a renewed sense of limited government and free market to the Capital.  It’s pretty clear most of the old guys are more interested in legislating those special favors than in creating an impartial rule of law.

Further, government should refrain from “politics of envy against “business” and the entrepreneurially successful, since it is private enterprise and creative and risk-taking businessmen in any society who are the “human engines” for growth, innovation, and competitive coordination of the economy.”

FL lawmakers takeover, bailout regional toll authorities

Link to article here.

Lawmakers site economies of scale and duplicative duties with the of the State Turnpike Enterprise as reasons for the takeover of most every regional toll authority. Our hunch is this is a bailout of sorts. Plus, these agencies are unelected and unaccountable and have clearly gotten out of control with setting toll rates too high to keep the roads viable. Texas State Representative Joe Pickett has a bill, HB 1921 to make the El Paso Regional Mobility Authority elected, Rep. Ken Paxton has one, HB 1636, to require RMAs to have an annual financial audit and to have its checkbook posted online, and Rep. Rafael Anchia has one, HB 1577, to subject the North Texas Tollway Authority to sunset review. The Grant Thornton Audit said RMAs' duties duplicate those of TxDOT's. Texas could take a page out of Florida's playbook and abolish them altogether and put them under the Texas Turnpike Authority division of TxDOT, which would be a HUGE savings to the taxpayer. If TxDOT were run by an elected official as we've advocated for the last four years, that would just about neuter the majority of the problems at TxDOT and with tolling. Now's the time, when we have a $27 billion hole in the budget.

Team Florida at one another's throats - state Turnpike move to takeover regional tollers

Toll Road News - Posted on Fri, April 1, 2011

 The Orlando and Tampa tollers see themselves as in a fight for their survival in the state legislature against a hostile takeover move by Florida's Turnpike Enterprise (FTE). A bill moving successfully through the state Senate (SB7198) threatens to kill the long established regional toll authorities in Orlando and Tampa. It would put an end to the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority (OOCEA), the Tampa Hillsborough County Expressway Authority (THCEA) and the Mid Bay Bridge Authority (MBBA) "transferring all assets, rights, powers, duties, and bond liabilities to the (state) turnpike enterprise…"

It would transfer to the Florida Turnpike Enterprise, a division of the state DOT:

- OOCEA's SR528 Beachline Expressway

- MBBA's Mid Bay Bridge

- THCEA's SR618 Selmon Expressway

- OOCEA's SR408 East-West Expressway

- OOCEA's SR417 Central Florida GreeneWay

- OOCEA's SR414  John Land Apopka Expressway

- OOCEA's SR429 Daniel Webster Western Beltway

The Mid Bay Bridge is a small but viable local toll bridge, not to be confused with the Santa Rosa County Bridge Authority which runs the failing Garcon Point Bridge also in the panhandle of Florida. (CORRECTED)

Killing a bunch of local toll authorities



In addition the bill repeals a bunch of lease-purchase agreements between the state Turnpike Enterprise and county toll authorities, and repeals previous legislation authorizing a whole list of regional and county toll authorities:
- Brevard County Expressway Authority

- Broward County Expressway Authority

- Pasco County Expressway Authority

- St Lucie County Expressway and Bridge Authority

- Seminole County Expressway Authority

- Southwest Florida County Expressway Authority

- Osceola County Expressway Authority

- Jacksonville Transportation Authority

These eight local toll authorities, largely in project development, would be aborted.

Miami Dade Expressway Authority exempted from takeover

Notable by omission is any move against the Miami Dade Expressway Authority (MDX), which operates five major tollroads in the Miami area. It is left entirely out of the bill, its assets and powers completely untouched. (See comment at end by Javier Rodriguez, executive-director MDX)

More toll rate power to state secretary transportation

The bill would also limit toll rate setting by toll managers to an unprecedented degree.

It requires that cash and electronic toll rates throughout the state to be equal.

The Turnpike Enterprise would generally be required to index tolls to the rate of inflation although they could be increased more if required by bond commitments, bond covenants, or if directed by FDOT.

Toll rates for new toll projects would have to be adopted in the planning and project development stage, also seriously handicapping projects that inevitably miss some planned targets.

Sponsors

The Republican leadership - state senators JD Alexander, budget committee chair and Don Gaetz transportation committee chair - are the main sponsors of the bill but they are working closely with the Turnpike Enterprise and the secretary of transportation.

When we called the senators offices asking for any materials explaining the rationale for the bill we were referred to the state Turnpike Enterprise.

Economies of scale claimed

They claim major scale economies through eliminating duplicated activities, and doing operations jointly. A single traffic and revenue consultant compared to many, a single bond counsel etc. they say.

A figure of $14m a year savings in "overhead" is mentioned, and another $10m in amounts FTE presently pays regional tollers.

Supporters of 'consolidation' also claim greater borrowing capacity - $3b more.

Text of SB7198:

http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2011/7198/BillText/Filed/HTML

FTE summary of the case for consolidation:

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/sites/default/files/SummaryFTE.docx

EDITORIAL COMMENT: We're skeptical about the economies of scale in what looks like a very superficial analysis of consolidation by FTE (see attachment below). In areas where there are indeed economies of scale these can usually be realized by joint procurement or one toller performing an activity on behalf of another, or several - on a negotiated cooperative basis.  Whole organizations don't have to be merged.

There are also diseconomies of scale - operations that require more management when they are centralized but spread over a larger area, reduced opportunity for innovation, more layers of bureaucracy.

There are disadvantages in preventing local initiative and in ending local control ands responsibility. Florida is a large state with distinct regions and there is logic to having regional and local entities run what are usually very regional and local roads.

The bill would straitjacket toll rate setting.

What possible justification is there for a provision requiring cash and electronic tolls to be the same? Cash tolls cost way more to collect than electronic tolls. Tolls should reflect costs. Economical methods of toll collection should not be forced to cross-subsidize higher cost manual activities. That's Luddite thinking.

The bill would seem to rule out variable pricing of roads - a proven means of managing traffic for smoother flow and reduced congestion - and a way of increasing motorists options.

SB7198 makes no provision for toll concessions or public private partnerships.

This is a serious power grab by state officials at the expense of local and regional autonomy.

There's also some very cynical political calculation in the exclusion of Miami-Dade from the state takeover. Does the logic of scale economies and eliminating duplicative activity not apply in south Florida, to the state's largest metro area - only in the metro areas of central Florida?

More likely the sponsors of SB7198 sense the Miami pols are too formidable to take on at present. (see comment at end by exec-director MDX)

They want to grab the low hanging fruit first.

SB7198 is the kind of legislation you'd expect more from Democrats, than from Republicans.  

Republicans claim to be opposed to centralization of power, to one-size-fits-all approaches, and to price controls. Not when it comes to tollroads in Florida, apparently - editor.

FOLLOWUP: Javier Rodriguez, executive-director MIami-Dade Expressway Authority emailed us: "the reason MDX is not included in this legislation is because MDX does not have any lease/purchase agreements with FDOT.  MDX purchased - paid off the lease/purchase agreements - the five expressways in 1996."

COMMENT ON FOLLOWUP: Mr Rodriguez makes an important point in highlighting the lease-purchase agreements between Florida Turnpike Enterprise and the regional toll authorities, although we're not convinced the payoff of such agreements is what saved MDX from this takeover/consolidation move by the state. MDX is a creature of the state and could equally easily be legislated out of existence and its assets, powers and obligations handed to FTE, if legislators chose - editor.

New American: Bill resurrects TTC


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

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

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

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

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

Dannin: Toll Road to Serfdom

Link to article here.

The Toll Road to Serfdom

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter to Texas House Transportation Committee

Letter to Texas House Transportation Committee:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keystone Pipeline protests reach the White House

Link to article here.

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

Bottlenecks continue for TransCanada Keystone Pipeline

By MARCIA DAVIS-SEALE - Tribune City Editor

SATURDAY APRIL 2, 2011

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

Debate in D.C.

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

Protest letter to President

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

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

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

In East Texas

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

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

The State Department

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

National Farmers Union

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Mount Pleasant

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

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

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

A spokesman for the SRBA was not available for comment.

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

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

City Councilman in Texas

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

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

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

Franklin County

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

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

Us motorists rage over toll rates on foreign-owned road

Link to article here.

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

US motorists rage against Macquarie toll

By Simon Mann
Sydney Morning Herald
March 28, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

for the privilege of being tolled by Australians."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We're not a public entity."

Toll fines get reined in, but not by much

Link to article here.

Not sure we can call this victory when the maximum fine is still $225 upon only the second notice of unpaid tolls, and when they can throw you into court after a single unpaid invoice. Is it any wonder they have trouble getting people to pay their tolls with fines in the hundreds and even thousands of dollars? Senator Tommy Williams' bill, SB 934, passed the Senate today and his bill would throw you in JAIL for failure to pay. What country are we living in when government wants to ruin your life using what amounts to usury under threat of jail time? Do you still think you elected limited government conservatives Texas?

Committee Passes Bill to Curb Excessive Tollway Fees

Posted By admin On March 31, 2011 @ 4:58 pm In On The Record | 1 Comment

Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN – The Senate Transportation & Homeland Security Committee today passed SB 469, legislation authored by Texas State Senator Jane Nelson to protect drivers from excessive administrative fees collected on delinquent tolls by the North Texas Tollway Authority. The bill now goes to the full Senate.

“I fully recognize that toll authorities need tools at their disposal to deal with toll violations and delinquent collections.  However, I have heard from more than 160 constituents who have seen relatively small unpaid toll bills balloon into invoices totaling hundreds — in some cases thousands — of dollars,” said Senator Nelson, R-Flower Mound.

At the March 23 committee hearing, a  Fort Worth woman testified she was charged $826 in fees for $23 worth of tolls.

Key provisions of Senate Bill 469 would:

limit NTTA to one $25 invoice fee regardless of how many missed tolls for drivers who pay within 30 days of receiving notice;
create a sliding scale of fees up to $225 on second notice for drivers who have multiple toll transactions;
authorize NTTA to include an additional fee for collection agencies to pursue the most flagrant violators; and
require one unpaid invoice and three unpaid notices of non-payment before the process would move through the court system.

Carney: Infrastructure Bank is corporate welfare

Link to article here.

This is one of those occasions where you have to scratch your head in disbelief...
Kay Bailey Hutchison has teamed up with John Kerry to suggest using $10 billion in taxpayer money to capitalize a Federal Infrastructure Bank that lends money to public and PRIVATE toll projects that the private sector won't bankroll itself. Can you say toxic debt? Timothy Carney has it right, may as well call this "Fannie Pave" since it's based on the same principles of taxpayer-backed TOXIC debt that Fannie Mae wrought us, that the private sector wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole! It's a government recycling program -- use OUR money to lend to private companies to build toll roads that can't pay for themselves (rather than scrap the toll projects, they use PUBLIC subsidies to prop them up), then require US, the taxpayers, to pay it back through tolls, with interest!

These people have lost their minds!

___________________________________________________________________

Opinion Brief

Is John Kerry's 'infrastructure bank' a waste of federal cash?

The Democratic senator wants to use public seed money to attract more private investment for bridges, roads, and other projects

posted on March 16, 2011, at 3:40 PM

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) wants to use public seed money to woo larger private investments for infrastructure projects.

Best Opinion:  Huff. Post, Wash. Examiner, Transportation Nation...

President Obama wants federal funds to go to large-scale infrastructure projects. Republicans say such spending is irresponsible. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) may have come up with a compromise. He and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) have proposed an "infrastructure bank" to provide loans and loan guarantees to private companies for bridge, highway, and rail projects. The bank, which would be run by an independent authority, would use around $10 billion in public money to try and attract as much as $640 billion in private investment over 10 years. Could this be an alternative to more stimulus spending, or would it just be a waste of public money? (Watch John Kerry discuss his plan)

This is a smart idea: Kerry's plan is not just another stimulus package, says Michael Likosky at The Huffington Post. It would use taxpayer money to woo private capital, not bankroll projects outright. Such public-private partnerships provide genuine economic stimulus because they "fuel projects that American workers build." That's why the Chamber of Commerce is interested — it builds on our "strength as a nation."
"Kerry's American Infrastructure Bank"

Government should not be lining corporate pockets: Kerry's bank would hand out taxpayers' cash at its own discretion, says Timothy P. Carney at the Washington Examiner, with little accountability or congressional oversight. "So it's kind of like Fannie Mae was," before we were forced to bail it out. We should call "Fannie Pave" what it really is — a "corporate welfare slush fund." No wonder the Chamber of Commerce is slavering over it.
"John Kerry's 'infrastructure bank': A corporate welfare slush fund"

Hey, it is the most realistic suggestion yet: This isn't the first infrastructure bank proposed by Congress, says Todd Zwilich at Transportation Nation. The idea has been floating around for 20 years. But Kerry's plan "could be the best chance for the proposal in austere times." It wouldn't hand out grants, just loans, and would limit itself to profitable investments, such as "toll roads, development plans, and freight lines." Plus, the $10 billion outlay is "relatively modest."
"Lawmakers try again on infrastrcture bank"

Let's enlist the Chinese to fund our infrastructure: I've got a better idea, says Stephan Richter at The Globalist. Why don't the Chinese use "dollar-denominated funds" to set up an infrastructure bank of their own — for us? Investing in American roads, bridges, and rail projects could reap great benefits for them over time. And, as the owners of more than $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury holdings, it's in their interest for the U.S. to do well. It could be an "amazing moment in the annals of global capitalism."
"Yes, there will be a U.S. infrastructure bank"

CBO: Milege tax "practical option" to raise taxes on driving

Link to article here.

The Texas Transportation Commission commissioned a similar study last year. It's being prepared for state lawmakers to consider. "Revenue enhancement" is, of course, code for TAX HIKE. Instead of spend our road taxes where they're supposed go, they want taxpayers to bail them out with higher taxes. The proposed Texas House budget will DOUBLE gas tax diversions (up from $1.2 billion to over a billion dollars more than last biennium...now $2.3 billion) to pay for things like state employees' benefits and pension funds, not roads.

Lawmakers also raided the Texas Mobility Funds to pay for low income Texans' Voter Identification in the Voter ID bill. The way they did it was unconstitutional. They are not able to dip into the fund without replacing it with another source of revenue. Yet all 101 House Republicans who tell you they're for ending gas tax diversions and for fiscal discipline just did. Federal lawmakers have the same problem, as this article below demonstrates. There were 400 comments to this story online at the above link. Looks like all of them are negative. Until lawmakers CUT spending like we have to in our family budgets, they're NEVER gonna get buy-in for higher taxes, much less government tracking.

CBO: Taxing mileage a 'practical option' for revenue enhancement

By Pete Kasperowicz
The Hill
03/24/11

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway maintenance at a time when federal funds are short.

The report discussed the proposal in great detail, including the development of technology that would allow total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to be tracked, reported and taxed, as well as the pros and cons of mandating the installation of this technology in all vehicles.

"In the past, the efficiency costs of implementing a system of VMT charges — particularly the costs of users' time for slowing and queuing at tollbooths — would clearly have outweighed the potential benefits from more efficient use of highway capacity," CBO wrote. "Now, electronic metering and billing are making per-mile charges a practical option."

The report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who held a hearing on transportation funding in early March. In that hearing, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Obama administration is hoping to spend $556 billion over the next six years, much of which would go to federal transportation improvement projects.


Conrad said in response that federal funds are tight, and in asking for recommendations on how to raise that money, he noted the possibility of a VMT tax as a way to solve the problem of collecting less in taxes as people move to more fuel-efficient vehicles.

"Do we do gas tax?" Conrad asked. "Do we move to some kind of an assessment that is based on how many miles vehicles go, so that we capture revenue from those who are going to be using the roads who aren't going to be paying any gas tax, or very little, with hybrids and electric cars?"

Conrad argued some recommendation should be made by his committee on these issues when the Senate considers a transportation spending bill later this year.

CBO's report stressed it was making no recommendations but seemed to support a VMT tax as a more accurate way of having drivers pay for the costs of highway maintenance. The report said miles driven is a larger factor in highway repairs than fuel consumption and suggested that having drivers pay for the real costs of highways "would involve imposing a combination of fuel taxes and per-mile charges."

But CBO's assessment of "costs" was broader than just those costs associated with maintaining highway systems.

"Any given driver’s highway use also imposes costs on other users, on nearby nonusers, on the environment, and on the economy in the form of congestion, risk of accidents, noise, emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants that affect local air quality, and dependence on foreign oil," CBO said.

On how to implement the idea, CBO said it is unclear how much it would cost to "install metering equipment in all of the nation's cars and trucks."

"Having the devices installed as original equipment under a mandate to vehicle manufacturers would be relatively inexpensive but could lead to a long transition; requiring vehicles to be retrofitted with the devices could be faster but much more costly, and the equipment could be more susceptible to tampering than factory-installed equipment might be," CBO said.

The report added that VMT taxes could be tracked and even collected at filling stations. "If VMT taxes were collected at the pump, each time fuel was purchased, information would be sent from a device in the vehicle to a device at the filling station," it said.

CBO also suggested different VMT tax rates might be assessed to different vehicles because heavier vehicles do more road damage, and rates might change depending on whether miles are driven at peak use times or during less congested hours.

CBO did acknowledge that privacy concerns may be a hurdle to implementing a VMT tax because electronic tracking of miles driven might provide too much personal information to the government. However, CBO noted that some have proposed restricting the information that would be transmitted to the government.

National Infrastructure Bank, another boondoggle for taxpayers

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

Most Expensive Bill of the Week

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A 2009 article in the Toronto Star chronicles the nightmare:

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

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

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

___________________________________________________________________________________

Link to Statesman article here.

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

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

By Ben Wear

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_________________________________________________________________________________

Senate transportation panel boosts Dallas-area private toll projects


By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER

Transportation Writer

Dallas Morning News

Published 23 March 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lawmakers mull bans on texting, cell phones while driving

Link to article here.

While we feel for the families and friends who have lost loved ones due to texting while driving, data has shown that in areas where there are bans in place, accidents actually go up since people try to hide their phones and take their eyes further off the road by looking down. So a ban won't fix the problem.  We're certainly not for texting while driving. Perhaps a better approach is for the free market to crackdown. If insurance companies told policyholders they'd lose their insurance policies or had punitive penalties if they're involved in an accident that shows they were texting while driving, that might prevent texting while driving more effectively than these government bans have done. This is an education issue, not one for criminalization. Rep. Jose Menendez' bill would prohibit you from even touching your phone while driving. This is government overreach that seems like its more for writing a bunch of tickets than public safety. What's next? What about eating, adjusting or programming a GPS device, DVD player, or a stereo? All of these things distract drivers, too.

At some point, we need to educate and trust drivers to be responsible and minimize distractions while driving. We can't possibly pass a law against every type of driver distraction, and we should err on the side of liberty and freedom.

Texas lawmakers mull ban on texting while driving

By SOMMER INGRAM
The Associated Press

Updated: 1:22 p.m. Thursday, March 10, 2011

Published: 3:07 a.m. Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Legislation to ban texting while driving in Texas is gaining momentum in the state House, where Republicans and Democrats alike have pledged support.

Multiple texting while driving bills were left pending in the House Transportation Committee on Wednesday, but not before committee members heard heartfelt testimony from individuals who have lost loved ones to a texting and driving car wreck.

Lisa Chapa of Mission, Texas, talked about the harsh reality texting and driving brought into her family's life. Her sister died in a car accident in November and was texting at the time of the wreck.

"Texting and driving changed the course of my family's life," Chapa said. "It needs to have more severe consequences. Maybe one person will understand that this does happen — it happened to us, and it can happen to them."

Former House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, collapsed Wednesday morning while testifying on his bill that would make it against the law to read or send text messages and e-mails while driving. He quickly regained consciousness but was taken to the hospital for further observation.
Craddick said it's better to have one provision that would establish uniformity statewide rather than depending on individual cities to ban cell phone use. A first-time offender would have to pay a fine of up to $200.

Craddick's bill would be named the Alex Brown Memorial Act, in memory of a West Texas girl who died in a one-car accident while she was texting.

House members have put their support behind Craddick's bill, but Rep. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, also filed a more stringent bill to prohibit cell phone use unless a hands-free option is available.

Menendez said this would make it easier for police officers to enforce the law, since they wouldn't have to determine whether the person was texting or just holding a cell phone.

The legislation would exempt people who use a cell phone to call 911 while driving.

Terri Hall, member of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, said it's not the government's job to dictate what citizens can and can't do in their own cars. She argued that putting laws into place would cause more wrecks because people would try to hide their cell phone use, pulling their eyes even further from the road.

Joel Cooper, a research scientist with the Texas Transportation Institute, said this could be an unintended consequence, but the legislation is important in terms of changing attitudes toward texting and driving.

"This is a multi-tiered approach, and that has been shown to be effective," he said.

Some witnesses highlighted the dangers to bicyclists and riders of motorcycles. John Hildinger said his best friend was killed by someone texting while driving. His friend was on a motorcycle when he was killed.

"These individuals under the influence of their social lives are not intending to go out and kill someone, but it's not intentional actions we're talking about here," Hildinger said. "My best friend rode 52 years without a wreck, and then was killed by someone texting and driving."

Thirty states have already passed laws that ban texting and driving. In Texas, it's against the law to use a cell phone in a school zone, while people under the age of 18 can't use a phone at all while driving. Studies have shown that texting while driving is the equivalent of having a 1.6 blood alcohol level.

"The most impactful, the most profound legislation doesn't come from special interests or lobbyists," Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, said. "It comes from real people like we have here today."

Toll entities lobby against bill to remove tolls when road paid off

Link to article here.

Regional Mobility Authority lobbyist, Brian Cassidy, also testified against the bill. These entities are using YOUR money to lobby against the taxpayer for higher, PERPETUAL taxation. These are UN-elected boards, so it's taxation without representation to begin with. No more Un-Constitutional, Robin Hood wealth re-distribution. Tolls need to come off these roads when they're paid off as was promised to voters when the systems were initially financed (in areas where voters actually got to vote on the initial toll projects, DFW & Houston. All other areas of the state have been denied a vote on their toll roads, and now un-elected bureaucrats and lobbyists are lobbying for perpetual debt and taxation!).

NTTA chairman opposes bill to require toll roads to become free roads once bonds are paid

By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER - Transportation Writer - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - Published 09 March 2011
Dallas Morning News


The chairman of the North Texas Tollway Authority told Texas senators Wednesday that a bill to eliminate permanent toll roads would stop highway-building in North Texas.

“Tolling is the only way we are getting any roads built at this point in time,” Victor Vandergriff told the Senate transportation committee. “Funding from the state of Texas is not available for roads.”

His testimony came as the committee considered a bill by Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, that would require toll roads to become free roads once their bonds had been paid off.
That would put a stop to so-called system financing, the standard method that NTTA uses to fund new roads.

By pledging revenues from its entire system, the agency can secure more money and better terms than it could if it tried to persuade lenders to give money based only on the projected revenues from a new road.

Throughout its history, NTTA has taken profits from one road and used them to support debt on a new road. In doing so, it does not have to wait to build a new road until the traffic it would generate is sufficient by itself to support construction and operations.

Vandergriff said the Ogden bill could put at risk billions of dollars in roads that are under way and billions more that are planned in the near future.

 “It could also chill the bond markets,” he added.

 Anti-toll advocates embraced the Ogden bill.

“This is my kind of bill,” said Terri Hall of Texas TURF, a grassroots organization that has been fighting toll roads, especially private toll roads. “We are totally opposed to system financing.”

Vandergriff admitted he agreed philosophically with the Ogden proposal. He recalled that his father, former Tarrant County Judge Tom Vandergriff, lobbied to create Texas’ first toll road in 1953 and, 24 years later, urged lawmakers to retire the tolls on what is now Interstate 30. He died Dec. 30.

“He spoke clearly about the dangers of tolling or system financing, and of his fears that it would be a drug that the state and Metroplex would continue” to rely on, Vandergriff said.

But he said passage of the bill would essentially stop road-building in North Texas, where nearly all major projects have been toll roads, many relying on system financing.

Hall noted that the Texas Constitution forbids “monopolies and perpetuities,” two words she said describe toll authorities.

________________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

Toll tax: Bill would make road charges perishable

Ben Wear: Getting There

 
Published: 9:41 p.m. Sunday, March 13, 2011

In Texas, tollways, like diamonds, are forever.

State Sen. Steve Ogden would prefer something a little less permanent.

Ogden, a College Station Republican whose district includes Williamson County, is carrying a bill this legislative session that would require tolls on any Texas turnpike to disappear once debt incurred to build that particular road has been paid back. The bill, as even Ogden admitted, has little chance of passing.

"There's too much money involved," said Ogden, who as Senate Finance Committee chairman is in charge of writing the state's $160 billion budget.

But the legislation's precarious prospects don't mean it isn't noteworthy. Ogden, through his bill, is addressing a broader, key question: When does a toll, instead of being a user fee, become merely a stealth tax?

Ogden said that time came in 2003 and he's as much to blame as anyone.

"Today is Ash Wednesday," Ogden said last week when he presented Senate Bill 363 to a committee, "and I'm here to atone for my sins. To make sure that the innocent don't pay for the guilty. And to make sure we have truth in taxation."

Ogden eight years ago was the Senate sponsor of a massive transportation bill that greatly expanded the power of the state and of local toll authorities to build turnpikes, charge tolls on them in perpetuity and use profits from one tollway to help build other roads, including, at least in theory, free roads.

None of this was an accident.

That legislation, carried in the House by then-state Rep. Mike Krusee, a Williamson County Republican and close ally of Gov. Rick Perry, was based on the premise that the Legislature had no taste for raising the state's 20-cents-a-gallon gas tax. Therefore, the only way going forward to pay for roads had to be tolls, with the excess revenue becoming an "economic engine" for expanding the transportation network. And toll charges, officials said, would continue even after each tollway's original cost had been paid off.

Time has borne out that premise about the state gas tax. The levy, last raised by lawmakers in 1991, remains 20 cents a gallon (there's an additional 18.4-cents-a-gallon federal gasoline tax), and toll roads have sprouted all over the eastern half of Texas.

The Austin area, which in 2003 had no tollways, now has five, and a sixth under construction.

Profits from one of those roads, 183-A in Cedar Park, will serve as what amounts to collateral when the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority attempts soon to borrow several hundred million dollars for the U.S. 290 East tollway in Northeast Austin.

Ogden says that's just wrong, that folks in Cedar Park are being "taxed" to pay for a road more than a dozen miles away that they will seldom use. Similarly, four of the Texas Department of Transportation's Austin-area tollways — Loop 1, Texas 45 North, Texas 45 Southeast and Texas 130 — function as a system, with their money pooled. The heavy traffic on Texas 45 North in Round Rock is basically propping up the much lighter use of Texas 130 near Mustang Ridge.

"We continue to run this state basically on hidden taxes," Ogden told that committee last week.

Ogden's bill, aside from snuffing tolls on a paid-off road, would not allow surplus revenue from one road to be used for another road.

Here's the problem, though: A toll road's costs don't end when its bonds are paid off.

There are still annual maintenance costs, the day-to-day expense of collecting and processing the tolls, and the big hit of major reconstruction every 40 years or so.

And another, larger problem: That stagnant gas tax will produce declining revenue as cars become more fuel-efficient, and what it generates now is already inadequate to build new roads and maintain the ones in place.

Ogden is carrying separate legislation, a potential constitutional amendment, that would allow the gas tax to rise by up to 5 cents a gallon. Each cent now raises about $150 million a year.

The extra gas tax money could be used to make debt payments for tollway bonds issued since 2003 (under that bill Ogden carried) — now about $270 million a year and likely to be nearly $410 million annually by 2013 — freeing up existing gas tax money to build or repair roads.

From road advocates' point of view, the worst-case scenario would be for Ogden's first bill to pass, making toll roads all but impossible to finance, and his second measure to die, meaning no extra gas taxes.

If neither becomes law — the most likely scenario — we get the status quo: taxes in sheep's clothing and, over time, increasing traffic congestion.

If any legislators are looking for something to give up for Lent, magical thinking about transportation finance might be a good candidate.

________________________________________________________________
Link to article here.

Senate considers bill to require tolls be removed once debts are paid; NTTA chairman says he's 'conflicted,' but insists NTTA must keep tolls on roads


Michael Lindenberger/Reporter - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - Wed., Mar. 9, 2011
Dallas Morning News

What if Texas required that every toll road become a free road once tollpayers pay enough to retire the debt required to build the road in the first place? After all that's what happened on Interstate 30, which began as tolled highway and became a free one 24 years later when the state removed the tolls.

On Wednesday, the Senate transportation committee took testimony on a bill by Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, that would require toll roads to become free road once their bonds had paid off.

"This is my kind of bill," said Terri Hall of Texas TURF, a grassroots organization that has been fighting toll roads, and especially private toll roads, since at least the furor over the Trans Texas Corridor. "We are totally opposed to system financing."

There's a problem, however. The North Texas Tollway Authority was created with so-called system financing in mind. Typically, when it borrows to build a road, it pledges the whole system, which gives it access to more funds and better terms than would be available to it if tried to convince lenders to give it money based on only the projected revenues from the new road alone.

Throughout its history, NTTA has taken the profits off one road, and used to support debt on a new road. That way it needn't wait to build a new road until the traffic it would generate would be sufficient by itself to support its construction and operations.

To put it another way, both the SH 161 toll road in Dallas and Southwest Parkway in Tarrant County rely on system financing, as NTTA pledged revenues from its existing operations to boost the amount it could borrow on both projects. To win the SH 121 project, too, NTTA has to borrow about $5 billion -- an amount it could never have borrowed if it had pledged only the revenues it will collect on SH 121 itself. It instead pledged its whole system.

NTTA chairman Victor Vandergriff testified against the bill Wednesday, saying that it could put at risk billions of dollars in roads that are underway , and billions more that are planned in the near future.

"I agree philosophically with what Sen. Ogden has proposed," Vandergriff said, recalling that his father, former Tarrant County Judge and Arlington Mayor Tom Vandergriff, had lobbied to both create Texas's first toll road in 1953 and, 24 years later, lobbied lawmakers again to retire the tolls. He died Dec. 30 after enduring Alzheimer's disease.

"He spoke clearly about the dangers of tolling or system financing, and of his fears that it would be a drug that the state and Metroplex would continue to (rely on)," Vandergriff said. "Certainly in the fog of the last few years of his life, he never could forget that his son had become the chairman of the toll authority. It wasn't exactly the legacy he had wanted to leave."

But Vandergriff said Ogden's bill would essentially stop road-building in North Texas, where nearly all of the major projects have been toll roads, and many of them have relied on so-called system financing. "It could also chill the bond markets," he added.

"In the Metroplex, we have 102 miles under tolls and another 430 under construction. That's just what the NTTA is doing and if you can add managed lanes (built by the state and private partners) on top of that. We have been aggressive to move to meet transportation needs and fight congestion. Tolling is the only way we are getting any roads built at this point in time. Funding from the state of Texas is not available for roads."

From Hall's perspective, though, Vandergriff should listen to his father. She noted that the Texas constitution forbids "monopolies and perpetuities," two words she said describes toll authorities.

Kansas officials say Keystone pipeline too costly

Link to article here.

More on the Keystone pipeline below. Kansas officials say it's too costly. See related article about how Texans are fighting the piepline here.

Canada pipeline deal too costly, officials in Kansas say

By David Goldstein, MCTFebruary 15, 2011
Calgary Herald
 
 

 
TransCanada's Keystone pipeline carries oil from Alberta to Oklahoma and Illinois. A second pipeline would extend to refineries on the Gulf coast in Texas.

Photograph by: Los Angeles Times, TransCanada Corp.

WASHINGTON — Crude oil from western Canada began flowing through a controversial pipeline in Kansas last week.

Supporters say that construction of the Keystone Pipeline - which flows down through the Dakotas and Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma - provided an economic boon, producing money and jobs.

But in Kansas, local officials along the pipeline's path think that the state sold them out - unnecessarily - to get the pipeline. Because of an exemption the state gave the company that owns it - Alberta-based TransCanada - the local officials won't see a dime in property taxes from the project for a decade, a loss they estimate at $50 million in public revenue.

"If we had that pipeline on the tax rolls this year, we could have cut our levy by 30 to 40 per cent," said Dan Holub, a county commissioner in Marion County, Kan. "Rural counties don't have much of a tax base and a whole bunch of expenses. We've got 1,600 miles of road. People have got to be able to get to them."

Supporters of the pipeline deal counter that the company will owe taxes for 90 years after the abatement expires. They said the project also would help the state's shrunken oil industry.

But questions persist about whether TransCanada used the power of eminent domain improperly.

It used eminent domain to obtain an easement through Greg Roles' 160 acres of wheat and soybeans in Clay Center, Kan. He resisted TransCanada's $15,000 offer and now is suing the company in a case that could end up before the Kansas Supreme Court on appeal after he lost in district court.

 

"I'm the only guy who has tried to stand in front of them," he said. "I know I'm the only guy in Kansas. This deal just isn't right. Where are our elected officials?"

The debate is likely to intensify.

TransCanada plans to use its Kansas pipeline as a pivotal piece in a new, $7 billion, nearly 1,700-mile project to transport heavy oil from Canadian tar sands to refineries in Texas. If it's approved, it could carry up to 500,000 barrels a day, doubling the amount of oil that TransCanada brings in overall.

The massive undertaking has galvanized opponents, who argue that safety and the environment would be at risk.

In Nebraska, for instance, where the proposed pipeline would be built to connect to the Kansas portion, it would run beneath the Ogallala Aquifer, a huge, shallow water table that provides drinking water for about 2 million people in eight states.

The Kansas pipeline can move 156,000 barrels of oil from northern Alberta to a refinery in Cushing, Okla., by way of several Canadian provinces and several states.

The new project would construct a pipeline to carry Canadian crude south through six states, including Kansas, to Texas. It also would pass through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

The company claims that it would create about 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs and add $20 billion to the U.S. economy.

The project also would "improve U.S. energy security and reduce dependence on foreign oil from the Middle East and Venezuela," Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and chief executive officer, said in a recent statement.

That's backed up by a recent report by a private energy consultant for the Department of Energy, which says that Canadian crude oil and reduced demand "could essentially eliminate Middle East crude imports longer term."

But the report also points out that if Canadian suppliers export oil to Asia from Canada's west coast, "more Middle East crude moves into the USA."

Further, it notes that with so many pipelines bringing crude across the border already, TransCanada's new pipeline, if it's approved, might not be needed for years.

Approval of a cross-border permit will be up to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Several members of Congress urged her in a letter last summer to go slowly with her decision, which is expected by spring after the State Department looks at the pipeline's environmental impact. Others lawmakers wrote in support of the project.

The Environmental Protection Agency said the State Department's original report last year was "unduly narrow" because it didn't fully look at oil spill response plans, safety issues and greenhouse gas concerns.

If the administration signs off on the pipeline, it would inadvertently be aiding two of President Barack Obama's arch political foes: David and Charles Koch, who own Koch Industries.

The Wichita-based oil giant is the second largest privately held company in the U.S., with annual revenues estimated at about $100 billion.

The Kochs have bankrolled conservative efforts and candidates who oppose Obama and the Democratic Party's environmental policies. According to Solve Climate news, an energy and climate online news service, the Koch brothers would stand to gain from the project because their company controls nearly a quarter of all tar sands crude oil that's imported into the U.S.

Extracting oil from tar sands and liquefying it enough so it will move through a pipeline is an energy-intensive process that adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Getting it out of the ground involves clear-cutting forests, leaving a wasteland that oil companies say they will restore. Some scientists say that rivers also become polluted.

"From start to finish, this a dirty project," said Stephanie Cole, a spokeswoman for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club. "Forests in Canada are being destroyed, and increased reliance on fossil fuels will accelerate global warming."

The Energy Department report concludes that building a new pipeline wouldn't have a major impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

In Kansas, debates over the environment have taken a backseat to the five-year-old dispute over TransCanada's tax break for the existing pipeline. It remains a source of conflicting stories and continuing bitterness.

Kansas legislators say that granting the 10-year property tax moratorium was crucial to getting the pipeline.

"I got a letter from TransCanada that says clearly that the incentive was one of the considerations to coming to Kansas," said Republican state Senator Jay Emler, who's now the majority leader.

TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said that it wasn't. He said the company didn't "originate this tax abatement issue. We weren't part of that discussion. We were already in the process of finalizing our proposed route" for the pipeline.

Republican state Rep. Carl Holmes, who led the moratorium effort, declined to talk about the negotiations that led to the deal or the dispute. He said the tax abatement was designed to aid the state's oil business.

"We had 20 refineries 25 years ago," he said. "Now we're down to three. You want to drive; you've got to have gasoline."

NTTA fights toll fee reduction

Link to article here.

Should it surprise us that the North Texas Tollway Authority is using tax money to fight efforts to reduce the toll transaction "fees" paid by drivers? It's their way of punishing drivers for not buying into the big daddy government toll tag tracking system.

NTTA pushing back against bills that would sharply reduce fees on unpaid tolls


By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER -  - Transportation Writer - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. -
Dallas Morning News
Published 03 March 2011

North Texas Tollway Authority officials are pushing back against legislation filed in the Texas Senate and the Texas House that would dramatically reduce fees it can impose on drivers who fail to pay their tolls.

NTTA collects millions of dollars in fees each year from drivers who ignore bills for at least 75 days, and has insisted that its practice of attaching a $25 fee for every unpaid toll transaction is both necessary and required by state law.

Last year, a review by the NTTA board failed to end the practice, despite opposition by board member Victor Vandergriff, who has since become chairman. And the authority has defended the practice in federal court against ongoing claims by four customers who say the fees are unconstitutional.

All that could change if legislation filed by Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound , and Rep. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington, succeeds in Austin.


The bills, which are identical, would require NTTA to send one notice each month containing all the unpaid tolls a customer has incurred that month. NTTA would be permitted to add just a single $25 fee to the invoice, and give customers 30 days to pay the past-due amount.

Customers who don’t pay within that time could be guilty of a traffic violation, and subject to a court-imposed fine of up to $250. They would be liable for only one violation for failure to pay all the tolls incurred in a single month.

A spokeswoman for Nelson said the senator was unavailable to comment on the bill Thursday.

NTTA government relations director Carrie Rogers told board members Thursday that she had made clear to Nelson that the bill as written would threaten the “integrity of our system.”

Her boss, executive director Allen Clemson, said in a subsequent interview that the legislation as written would cost NTTA about $20 million annually.

Most NTTA customers use a TollTag, and therefore pay their tolls in advance. But for those who do not, the only way to pay their tolls is to have their license plate photographed as they pass through checkpoints. Once a driver has incurred 30 toll transactions, or 30 days pass, NTTA sends the owner of the car a bill for just those transactions.

If they aren’t paid within 45 days, the authority attaches an $8.25 fee to each of what might be dozens of unpaid transactions on a single unpaid invoice. If the owner fails to pay within another 30 days, the account is sent to collections and each one of those fees roughly triples, to $25.

Some customers have reported fines of hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of dollars as a result of the way NTTA levees the fines per transaction.

That would change if the legislation becomes law, but Clemson said NTTA has more to worry about with the legislation than just the lost revenue it now collects. Only 8 percent of the authority’s 500 million annual transactions are unpaid, he said. That’s due in part, he said, to the strong deterrent provided by the stiff penalties.

Knowing that failure to pay a month’s worth of tolls only brings a $25 fine might encourage customers who pay their bills not to do so, he said.

“If we were to make changes and see that slipping from 92 percent to 90, or 85, then we would have problems,” Clemson said.

Vandergriff voted last year against keeping the basic fee structure in place. He lost 8-1, but he too said he’s concerned that Nelson’s legislation could have unintended consequences. Any lost revenues would have to be made up, he said, and if collections were to fall over time, it would be drivers who do pay who would suffer.

“We’d eventually be in the position of having to raise our rates,” he said. “And to me, asking people who already pay their tolls to absorb higher rates to cover those who don’t would be just as tragic as assessing the fees in the way that we already do.”

As result, he said the authority will continue to work with Nelson and Patrick aiming for a compromise bill, one that might include, for instance, lower fees but also a provision that unpaid toll balances would have to be paid before a driver could renew his or her vehicle registration.

Meanwhile, Vandergriff urged colleagues to take note that bills targeting NTTA practices are accumulating in Austin. Whether or not they ultimately pass, the lesson should be clear, he said.

“There are a lot of eyes watching us. And there is a lot of chatter in Austin, chatter that is being backed up by legislative activity,” he said.

Both bills have been referred to committee and await a second reading.

SB 366: Would require toll roads to revert to free state roads once debt associated with their construction is paid off.

HB 593: Would empower the state auditor to audit NTTA as if it were a state department.

HB 1577: Would subject NTTA to review by the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission before the 2013 session.

Texans fight TransCanada over Keystone pipeline

Link to article here. Another tarsands oil pipeline is part of the Trans Texas Corridor known as Ports to Plains. The original TTC concept involved pipelines of all types. But as you'll read, tarsands oil pipelines wreak havoc at a new level when they bust (due to the high pressure required to transport it) and contaminate aquifers. This Keystone pipeline is a Trans Texas Corridor style takings...it's eminent domain for private gain. See related article about how Kansas officials say the pipeline is too costly here.

Texas activists ready to fight over $7bn oil pipeline in the home of black gold

US landowners along the proposed route – from Alberta to the Gulf coast – accuse oil firm TransCanada of bullying

By Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian UK, March 2, 2011

In an earlier life, David Daniel jumped through fire and performed a motorcycle stunt called the Wheel of Death. For his second act, he picked a fight with a $7bn oil pipeline set to run through Texas.

He is not doing badly for a man taking on big oil in the home of black gold. Growing opposition to a Canadian project to pump crude from tar sands in Alberta across six American states to the Gulf coast could force the Obama administration to reconsider – and possibly delay – the project.

The grassroots rebellion will come to Washington on 9 March, just as the state department is due to decide whether to grant final approval to the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline. If it orders additional environmental or safety reviews it would force a delay in the construction start date, now set for the end of the year.

But a delay could also be forced by activists along the proposed pipeline route through Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. About 750 landowners have refused to allow the company, TransCanada Corp, on their land, setting the stage for court battles over compulsory purchase.
It's more than Daniel expected when he began posting "stop the pipeline" signs on roads near his rural east Texas home. "Normally people are so used to pipelines that they don't think twice about it," said Daniel, a carpenter who gave up his life as a stuntman six years ago when he settled on 20 acres near Winnsboro. "Everybody has a pipeline running through their yard, or will have one eventually, so it is kind of the accepted standard," he said. "There is a mindset of apathy."

But last year Americans began to pay more attention to the potential for oil and gas disasters. In addition to the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, a natural gas explosion killed six people and destroyed 35 homes in California, and a pipeline leak spewed 1m gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo river in Michigan. That pipeline was owned by another Alberta firm.

Then there were the environmental consequences associated with tar sands crude, which has a far higher carbon footprint than other sources. Its exploitation has turned Canada into the villain of international climate change negotiations.

National environmental organisations said the project jeopardised Obama's commitment to a clean energy future.

Activists are worried about the dangers of pumping gritty, thick crude at high temperature and pressure through a pipeline with walls less than half an inch thick across vital sources of groundwater.

A report by a coalition of environmental organisations said piping oil from the tar sands was inherently more risky than other pipelines. The pipeline crosses one of the world's largest aquifers in Nebraska, which provides drinking water to eight states and irrigates about a third of the farmland in the midwest. Daniel's stretch of Texas, meanwhile, is rich in lakes that locals fear could be contaminated if there is a leak.

But environmental concerns alone did not turn Daniel's neighbours against the pipeline. They claim that bullying did.

Locals in east Texas accuse TransCanada's agents of threatening them with compulsory purchase and of dismissing their concerns about safety in case of a leak.

"They just laid some papers down on the table and said: 'Read these papers. We have eminent domain.' That scared me nearly to death," said Susan Scott, who blames her heart attack on the stress.

Daniel said the company did not bother to notify him when it sent the first survey team to his property in 2008. A neighbour told him outsiders had been on his land. He found surveyors' stakes with flags reading PL. "My heart was just falling," he said. "I knew that meant pipeline."

The anger spread to Tea Party conservatives, the local chapter of Hawks – which stands for Handguns Are Worth Keeping Sacred – and even those who owed their fortunes to oil. "I had nothing against it at first," said Eleanor Fairchild. Her late husband headed international exploration for Hunt oil, and she has an abandoned pipeline on her 300 acres of land, which is wooded with oak, pine and sweetgum trees and fed by its own springs.

"It was later I found out about the pollution and I got involved with this environmental stuff. They don't tell you it is not a regular pipeline, or that the pipeline is so thin, or that the grit going down there is going to wear out the pipeline."

Fairchild said she got angry when TransCanada's lawyers told her she had no choice but to agree on their terms.

TransCanada says it has reached agreements for nearly 90% of the route. "Whenever you build a project, especially a project of this size, you know not everybody will agree with you," said a spokesman, Shawn Howard. He said the pipeline would be the safest ever built, with 16,000 sensors to detect the first sign of a leak.

But opposition may be gaining momentum. "Nobody likes it when somebody comes and says you are going to sell to us, like it or not," said Harlan Hentges, an Oklahoma lawyer representing families suing TransCanada. "The Canadian executives have been a little bit tone deaf."

He said he knows of about a dozen landowners in Oklahoma who are challenging TransCanada's claim, as a foreign corporation, to be expropriating land in the national interest. In Nebraska, 21 members of Congress have signed a petition calling on the Obama administration to re-route the pipeline away from its aquifer. In South Dakota, the state legislature is considering a bill that would compel corporations to obtain all the necessary permits before they start trying to obtain rights to privately held land.

Activists like Daniel hope the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, will be forced to rethink her support for the project.

The Environmental Protection Agency rejected TransCanada's draft environmental study of the project last July. Daniel and other activists now hope the state department will order further studies on the safety of transporting gritty crude, the potential damage to groundwater from a leak, and emergency response plans.

He doesn't yet dare to hope that the pipeline will be halted. But he is ready to use skills he picked up as a stuntman.

If the state department signs off the pipeline, Daniel says, he will build a platform in an elm on his land and live on it. "If I am in it, they can't cut the tree down."

Florida toll booth incident creates a police state

Link to article here.

POLICE STATE, USA

Drivers detained for paying tolls with U.S. currency

Motorist uncovers state scheme to collect personal information

Posted: March 06, 2011
4:53 pm Eastern

By Drew Zahn
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

 A man in Tampa, Fla., has uncovered what he calls an illegal scheme by the state's turnpike authority to detain motorists who pay tolls with $20, $50 or $100 bills until they disclose personal information recorded by the state.

Joel Chandler first became aware of the practice when he paid a $1 toll with a $100 bill, and the toll taker refused to let his car pass until he filled out a personal information form. He then started testing the system, taping his encounters as he went through toll booths.

"This is a serious, serious criminal offense," Chandler told Tampa's WTSP-TV, "to illegally detain somebody without legal authority."

"Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws"

Chandler's brother joined the video investigation and not only found the practice widespread, but also found one toll worker who threatened to call the Florida Highway Patrol if he did not surrender the information.

When Chandler complained about the detentions, however, he says state officials denied the practice and engaged in "a very concerted effort to cover it up."

A news report from WTSP-TV, which includes Chandler's video, can be seen below:

Study uncovers dangers of privatizing infrastructure

Link to article here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TxDOT sinks deep into debt to pay for roads

Link to article here.

Texas Transportation Department going into debt to pay for road work

Posted Sunday, Feb. 27, 2011

By Gordon Dickson / Star-Telegram

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Texans are increasingly borrowing from their children to pay for the roads they are using today.

Unable to persuade lawmakers to raise gas taxes or vehicle registration fees, the Texas Department of Transportation is going deep into debt to build roads and keep up with the state's explosive growth.

Since 2001, legislators and voters statewide have allowed the department to use a variety of new tools to speed up road work. That eased traffic congestion in the short term -- but now nearly $1 billion of the agency's roughly $8 billion annual budget goes to debt service.

It wasn't always that way. Traditionally, roads weren't built until the state had cash in hand. But many long-awaited projects were delayed because of chronic funding shortages.

"We've advanced as much as we can with the ability to borrow funds," Transportation Department spokeswoman Jodi Hodges said. "Now we're having to pay it back with interest."

Texas has borrowed $11.9 billion, which will cost $21.1 billion including interest and other fees, to pay back over 30 years, said state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso.

Some of the money repays debt from bond sales. Some goes to reimburse cities and counties, which use property tax-backed bonds to build roads.

"At the end of the day, there's not going to be any new money," Pickett said. "So we're leaving it up to the communities to handle this crisis."

Some of the money is paired with private equity from private developers: the North Tarrant Express project on Loop 820 and Texas 121/183 in Northeast Tarrant County, for example. The developers bring in their own funds to a project in exchange for control of the roads and toll collection for 52 years.

Though some Texas leaders criticize the federal government for engaging in expensive programs that mortgage the nation's future, the state is arguably doing something similar by increasingly relying upon alternative financing options such as debt and public-private partnerships that commit public resources for decades.

Even so, supporters of the approach say building the roads now -- even if Texas can't put cash on the barrelhead -- is a worthwhile investment.

Relieving the traffic now, they say, creates a setting for continued job growth in Texas and reduces air pollution in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Examples of alternative financing tools used in Texas:

Proposition 12

In 2005, voters authorized the Legislature to issue up to $5 billion in Proposition 12 bonds for road work and repay the money through the state's general fund.

So far, $1 billion in bonds has been obligated to nontoll highway projects, and repayment over 30 years will cost taxpayers $1.5 billion including interest and fees, Pickett said.

Another $1 billion was authorized for the state infrastructural bank.

The Transportation Department is seeking authorization from lawmakers to spend another $1 billion.

Projects must fit into a handful of categories, including rehabilitation work or improvements to nontoll corridors of statewide significance.

Most of the funds have been spent outside Dallas-Fort Worth, although $144,000 was used to resurface Cooper Street in Arlington from Arkansas Lane to Pioneer Parkway.

Nearly $1.9 billion overall is being spent improving 94 miles of Interstate 35 in the Waco, Belton and Hillsboro areas -- much of it from Proposition 12 funds.

Many projects are coming in under budget because contractors are bidding less than expected, so more projects may be financed with Proposition 12 funds.

"We definitely have the benefits of an economy working in our favor," Randy Hofmann, the Transportation Department's Tyler district engineer, told transportation commissioners Thursday. Hofmann is overseeing the Proposition 12 program.

Proposition 14

The Transportation Department has issued $4.6 billion in funds from Proposition 14, which allows the agency to repay the debt with future gas tax revenue. Repayment over 20 years will cost $7 billion, Pickett said.

And more projects are on the way. The state has authorized all but about $45 million of the $6 billion in Proposition 14 funds, said Hodges, the Transportation Department spokeswoman.

The long-awaited I-35W expansion in north Fort Worth could be under construction by 2017 after the Texas Transportation Commission agreed last year to set aside $135 million in Proposition 14 funds for the project.

Texas Mobility Fund

Voters created the Texas Mobility Fund in 2001 by constitutional amendment as a revolving fund to pay for roads.

About $6.3 billion has been committed, which will cost $12.1 billion to repay over 30 years. The money comes from a variety of state sources, as directed by lawmakers, including driver's license and title fees.

At times during the past four years, mobility fund dollars have been shipped to Tarrant County to help with projects including improvements to I-35W south of downtown, U.S. 377 north of Keller and East Loop 820 right-of-way purchase.

But transportation commissioners have sometimes been criticized for steering the fund toward toll projects. Last week, the commission learned that $340 million in unspent mobility funds could be used on Grand Parkway in Houston, a multibillion-dollar toll loop project that will likely bring in private equity as well.

Pass-through financing

Cities and counties pay for road work, and the Transportation Department reimburses the costs over several years based on a formula. The state is asking local entities to submit projects for $282 million in pass-through financing this year.

In the Metroplex, Hudson Oaks and Weatherford are using $7.9 million and $52.4 million, respectively, to improve the Interstate 20 corridor west of Fort Worth.

In the Dallas area, the North Central Texas Council of Governments applied for $63 million in pass-through funding for Interstate 30 managed lanes, and Denton County applied for $41 million to expand Farm Road 1171 from Shiloh Road to I-35W.

Colleyville applied last year for $25 million in pass-through funding for Texas 26 improvements and is negotiating with the Transportation Department and Tarrant County to get the work done through a variety of funds.

Reinvestment zones

El Paso and Forney have approved projects that use investment zones to capture property taxes and use that money to pay for road work. Pickett has filed a bill that would give cities more flexibility to create reinvestment zones.

In Fort Worth, supporters of a proposed commuter rail line from southwest Fort Worth to Grapevine, Dallas/Fort Worth Airport and possibly as far east as Carrollton, Addison, Dallas and Richardson would like reinvestment zones expanded to include development around future rail stations.

Subcategories

Eminent Domain

Video

Page 60 of 103

Latest News

Latest Press Releases