McCain tied to lobbyist for Trans Texas Corridor, toll roads

Link to article here.

The Loeffler Tuggey (et al) law firm represents Zachry Construction, the major toll road player in Texas who partnered with Cintra to win the development rights to the Trans Texas Corridor and landed the first privatized toll road contract in Texas for SH 130. So the connection to McCain is clear just as it was with Giuliani before him.

A Top McCain Aide Quits
Departure Over Ties To Lobbying Group Is Fourth in 2 Weeks
By ELIZABETH HOLMES
May 19, 2008

The McCain campaign lost another top aide Sunday over ties to lobbying, the fourth such departure in less than two weeks.

Thomas Loeffler, a former U.S. representative from Texas, resigned from his post as a national finance committee and campaign co-chairman, a campaign spokesman confirmed Sunday.

Mr. Loeffler is the founder of The Loeffler Group, a San Antonio lobbying shop that has worked on behalf of AT&T Inc. and Southwest Airlines Co. as well as foreign interests, including Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Loeffler's resignation continues the fallout from a new policy that John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, instituted last week requiring full disclosure of involvement with lobbying firms and other independent political groups.

The policy bans staffers and aides from being registered lobbyists or working on behalf of foreign interests. It allows unpaid volunteers to continue as registered lobbyists as long as they disclose those interests and don't lobby or advise Sen. McCain on behalf of those interests.

Although Mr. Loeffler qualified under the latter terms, his high rank at the campaign forced him to make a decision, said Charlie Black, a senior aide to Sen. McCain and a former lobbyist.

"Senior staff people cannot be registered to lobby," said Mr. Black. Mr. Loeffler didn't answer requests for comment.

Mr. Black severed his ties to the lobbying firm BKSH & Associates Worldwide this year. Campaign manager Rick Davis still owns a stake in his lobbying organization, Davis Manafort Inc., but is no longer paid by the firm.

"Everybody's making decisions to see if they can live with [the new policy]," said Mark Salter, a senior McCain adviser.

Mr. Loeffler's resignation follows that of three other advisers. Doug Goodyear and Doug Davenport left on May 10 and 11, respectively, because of their involvement with DCI Group, a firm that once worked for Myanmar's military junta. Last week, Eric Burgeson, a McCain adviser on energy policy, was jettisoned from the campaign because he was a registered lobbyist on the same topic.

Mr. Loeffler's departure is arguably the most significant because of his reputation as a successful fund-raiser. He was named to his finance-committee position in December 2006 and is credited with helping the campaign limp through its cash-strapped implosion last summer.

Mr. Loeffler has a long history with Republican presidential campaigns. He served as Texas co-chairman for former President George H.W. Bush in 1988 and was national deputy finance chairman for Bob Dole's failed bid in 1996. Mr. Loeffler was also a major fund-raiser for the current President Bush, serving as a "Pioneer" in 2000 and a "Super-Ranger" in 2004, meaning he raised more than $100,000 and more than $300,000, respectively, in those elections.

In a release dated March 8, 2007, that announced Mr. Loeffler's position of general chairman of the campaign, Sen. McCain called Mr. Loeffler "a good friend" and said he would play a "very important role in our campaign."

The policy, dubbed "McCain Campaign Conflict Policy," was made mandatory last week after questions arose about the ties to lobbying firms by staff and volunteers.

The policy also bans involvement with so-called 527s -- independent groups named for a section of the tax code that are able to accept limitless donations -- and other such groups.

OK tears down highway replaces with a park

Link to article here.

Vancouver has no highways in its city limits and experiences little congestion. There is something to be said for parkways and boulevards in our downtown and historic areas. This is the best possible solution for Hwy 290 in Austin and Bandera Rd. in San Antonio.

Oklahoma City swaps highway for park
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
May 14, 2008

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma has a radical solution for repairing the state's busiest highway.
Tear it down. Build a park.

The aging Crosstown Expressway — an elevated 4.5-mile stretch of Interstate 40 — will be demolished in 2012. An old-fashioned boulevard and a mile-long park will be constructed in its place.

Oklahoma City is doing what many cities dream about: saying goodbye to a highway.

More than a dozen cities have proposals to remove highways from downtowns. Cleveland wants to remove a freeway that blocks its waterfront. Syracuse, N.Y., wants to rid itself of an interstate that cuts the city in half.


"Highways don't belong in cities. Period," says John Norquist, who was mayor of Milwaukee when it closed a highway. "Europe didn't do it. America did. And our cities have paid the price."

In the 1950s and '60s, mayors, governors and planners thought downtown highways would help keep cities alive by paving the way for suburban commuters to get in and out. Today, many of those same groups view downtown highways as a plague, wrecking neighborhoods, dividing cities and blocking waterfronts. Many big cities have long-term plans that call for eliminating some downtown highways or reducing their scale.

The future of many of these highways will be decided in the next few years because the old roads are nearing the end of their life expectancies. The federal, state and local governments must decide whether it's smarter and cheaper to renovate highways or to build new routes.

Boost to downtown

Some cities want traffic routed around downtowns. Others want tunnels or highways that pass under streets. A number of cities want to close highways and replace them with — nothing.

In Oklahoma City, the interstate will be moved five blocks from downtown to an old railroad line. The new 10-lane highway, expected to carry 120,000 vehicles daily, will be placed in a trench so deep that city streets can run atop it, as if the highway weren't there.

The old highway will be converted into a tree-lined boulevard city officials hope will become Oklahoma City's marquee street.

By tearing down the Crosstown Expressway, the city hopes to spur development of 80 city blocks stretching from downtown to the Oklahoma River — an area that contains vacant lots, car repair shops and a few small homes.

"We've always been a good place to live, but we've never had a city we could show off," Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett says. "Moving the expressway makes it possible for a day to come when hundreds or thousands of people will live downtown."

The project will cost $557 million, mostly federal and state funds. The city will pay to spruce up the boulevard, build parks and put a pedestrian bridge over the new below-ground interstate.

Oklahoma City is doing what many cities want to do but have not gotten federal or state money to accomplish:

•Buffalo wants to get rid of its Skyway, an elevated highway that blocks access to Lake Erie.

•Nashville wants to replace 8 miles of interstate — parts of I-65, I-40 and I-24 — with parks and neighborhood streets.

•Washington has considered demolishing the Whitehurst Freeway, an elevated road that runs along the Potomac River in the tony Georgetown neighborhood. The plan is on hold because of cost.

•Akron, Ohio, launched a $2 million study on tearing down its 2.2 mile Innerbelt that leads downtown from I-76/I-77.

Highway removal proposals are also being discussed in Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Baltimore, Louisville, New Haven, Conn., Trenton, N.J., and Niagara Falls, N.Y. The Sheridan Expressway in the Bronx is another target.

On the waterfront

Many unpopular highways run along rivers or lakes. The path made sense when they were built because the route was flat, in existing rights-of-way and connected highways and busy ports.

Now, especially in old, industrial cities, waterfronts are often vacant, leaving the prettiest scenery blighted by highways carrying traffic passing through.

Cleveland wants to convert its West Shoreway, next to Lake Erie, from a 50-mph freeway into a tree-lined boulevard. "There was less appreciation for the scenic value of waterfront when the shoreway was built," says Cleveland Planning Commission director Robert Brown. "We need to connect the city to its parks and lakefront again."

In other cities, highways cut cities in half. "It's our very own Berlin Wall," Syracuse, N.Y., council member Van Robinson says of I-81.

Like many urban interstates, I-81 demolished a black neighborhood. The interstate has created a tale of two cities: thriving Syracuse University on one side, struggling downtown on the other.

When Robinson proposed getting rid of I-81 — sending through-traffic outside the city — many people thought the idea was crazy.

Since then, the president of Syracuse University and many local officials have supported evicting the interstate from downtown. The state is comparing the cost of renovating or relocating it.

Doug Currey, regional director of the New York State Department of Transportation, says taking down urban highways is sometimes the right thing to do — and sometimes not.

"No two situations are exactly alike," says Currey, who oversees highways in the New York City area.

Cost is the big obstacle to removing highways. "Generally, maintaining what you have is cheaper than building something new," Currey says.

San Francisco tore down its elevated Embarcadero Freeway, damaged in an earthquake in 1989, and replaced it with a palm-tree-lined boulevard serving local traffic. Since then, the bay-front neighborhood has blossomed, and traffic has been absorbed by city streets.

Currey witnessed the same thing in New York City when the West Side Highway was demolished. An asphalt truck plunged through the elevated road in 1973 and, rather than rebuild the decrepit road, it became the nation's first major highway tear-down.

Once the highway was gone, the Chelsea, TriBeCa and West Village neighborhoods came back to life. Traffic adapted. "It worked in Manhattan," Currey says.

NYT: Paul Krugman's take on high gas prices & how to cope

Link to article here.

Stranded in Suburbia
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times Monday 19 May 2008

Berlin - I have seen the future, and it works.

O.K., I know that these days you're supposed to see the future in China or India, not in the heart of "old Europe."

But we're living in a world in which oil prices keep setting records, in which the idea that global oil production will soon peak is rapidly moving from fringe belief to mainstream assumption. And Europeans who have achieved a high standard of living in spite of very high energy prices - gas in Germany costs more than $8 a gallon - have a lot to teach us about how to deal with that world.


If Europe's example is any guide, here are the two secrets of coping with expensive oil: own fuel-efficient cars, and don't drive them too much.

Notice that I said that cars should be fuel-efficient - not that people should do without cars altogether. In Germany, as in the United States, the vast majority of families own cars (although German households are less likely than their U.S. counterparts to be multiple-car owners).

But the average German car uses about a quarter less gas per mile than the average American car. By and large, the Germans don't drive itsy-bitsy toy cars, but they do drive modest-sized passenger vehicles rather than S.U.V.'s and pickup trucks.

In the near future I expect we'll see Americans moving down the same path. We've already done it once: over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, the average mileage of U.S. passenger vehicles rose about 50 percent, as Americans switched to smaller, lighter cars.

This improvement stalled with the rise of S.U.V.'s during the cheap-gas 1990s. But now that gas costs more than ever before, even after adjusting for inflation, we can expect to see mileage rise again.

Admittedly, the next few years will be rough for families who bought big vehicles when gas was cheap, and now find themselves the owners of white elephants with little trade-in value. But raising fuel efficiency is something we can and will do.

Can we also drive less? Yes - but getting there will be a lot harder.

There have been many news stories in recent weeks about Americans who are changing their behavior in response to expensive gasoline - they're trying to shop locally, they're canceling vacations that involve a lot of driving, and they're switching to public transit.

But none of it amounts to much. For example, some major public transit systems are excited about ridership gains of 5 or 10 percent. But fewer than 5 percent of Americans take public transit to work, so this surge of riders takes only a relative handful of drivers off the road.

Any serious reduction in American driving will require more than this - it will mean changing how and where many of us live.

To see what I'm talking about, consider where I am at the moment: in a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood consisting mainly of four- or five-story apartment buildings, with easy access to public transit and plenty of local shopping.

It's the kind of neighborhood in which people don't have to drive a lot, but it's also a kind of neighborhood that barely exists in America, even in big metropolitan areas. Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin - but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars.

And in the face of rising oil prices, which have left many Americans stranded in suburbia - utterly dependent on their cars, yet having a hard time affording gas - it's starting to look as if Berlin had the better idea.

Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than cars. Long after today's S.U.V.'s have become antique collectors' items, millions of people will still be living in subdivisions built when gas was $1.50 or less a gallon.

Infrastructure is another problem. Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it's hard to justify transit systems unless there's sufficient population density, yet it's hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access.

And there are, as always in America, the issues of race and class. Despite the gentrification that has taken place in some inner cities, and the plunge in national crime rates to levels not seen in decades, it will be hard to shake the longstanding American association of higher-density living with poverty and personal danger.

Still, if we're heading for a prolonged era of scarce, expensive oil, Americans will face increasingly strong incentives to start living like Europeans - maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives.

American Free Press highlights Texans' fight against TTC

Link to article here.

TEXANS BATTLE TTC
Throngs hit streets of Austin to rally against Trans-Texas Corridor
By Mark Anderson
American Free Press
May 2008

TEXANS UNITING FOR REFORM and Freedom (TURF) marched up
Congress Avenue and held a big rally on the capitol steps in Austin April 5, short circuiting an apparent underhanded effort to suppress grassroots turnout against the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC).

This is the second straight year that ranchers and various other opponents have converged on Austin to passionately voice their opposition to the TTC, or NAFTA Superhighway, an invasive mega-tollway network that would carve out at least 584,000 acres of Texas land, forcing most landowners to sell their properties at a big loss.


With at least two main arteries (TTC-69 and TTC-35) and numerous offshoots, the overall TTC would have 4,000-plus miles of pavement in Texas alone—with its huge main sections about a quarter-mile wide, including rail and utility lines—and would fan out across the United States, forever changing the face of the nation.

The TTC actually is a transnational highway system for the contemplated North American Union, designed to meld Mexico, the U.S. and Canada together as one big, happy family.

According to a TURF news release provided before the rally, this organization had received calls from panicked TTC opponents who had heard some residents claim that TTC-69 has been stopped.

“Senate Finance Committee Chairman Senator Steve Ogden told Walker County Commissioner, B.J. Gaines, that the Trans Texas Corridor I-69 project is over, scrapped . . .” the news release stated. “The word is spreading like wildfire among elected officials in the path of TTC-69, including the mayor of Kendleton, just in time to tell constituents: ‘There’s no need to attend that rally in Austin this weekend since the TTC-69 project is over.’”

But TURF leader Terri Hall, a San Antonio resident who recently appeared on CNN’s Lou Dobbs national news program to explain the threat the TTC poses to land ownership and national sovereignty, noted that there’s no reason to believe the TTC has been scrapped.

“At this juncture, it’s naïve to believe word-one from politicians or TxDOT, an agency run amok, that is misusing our taxpayer money to lobby in favor of the TransTexas Corridor and prone to $1 billion in accounting errors. The TTC-69 public comment period isn’t even completed yet, and the environmental hearings were completed only weeks ago, and now they’re trying to convince taxpayers the project is dead? Who are they kidding?”

Hall told AFP that despite the apparent effort of Kendleton Mayor Carolyn Jones to suppress turnout, a delegation of perhaps a dozen people from that city attended the rally to protest the TTC. If ever completed, the TTC would set the stage for applying tolls to freeways, because freeways provide a non-toll alternative that could doom the TTC mega-tollway plan. The TTC would be operated by a Spanish firm known as Cintra that would reap the profits while partnering with U.S. politicians to ensure that eminent domain and law enforcement powers are wielded.

Hank Gilbert, TURF board member and rally coordinator, wants certifiable proof the TTC is dead, whenever that day may come. He was quoted as saying in the TURF news release: “The claim the TTC-69 project is over is an underhanded, 11th-hour dirty trick to sabotage the people’s right to protest this project, and we’re asking (that) every state law, every Transportation Commission Minute Order, every local Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and tolling authority plan authorizing the Trans Texas Corridor be immediately revoked in writing. Until that’s done, we’re pressing ahead. It’s clear we can’t trust a word that comes out of the mouths of TxDOT or politicians.”

The April 5 rally was well-attended. “It was great; it was several thousand people like last year,” said Hall, whose other group, the San Antonio Toll Party, held a meeting attended by AFP in January, where various plans were announced, including an ongoing effort to encourage anti-TCC, anti-toll candidates to run for public office at all levels.

The “Don’t Mess with Texas TURF, Stop the TTC & Tolls Rally” included various speakers, such as representatives of the Teamsters, Eagle Forum, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Oklahoma State Sen. Randy Brogdon (who passed legislation to stop the TTC from coming through his state), and local leaders, including Mae Smith, the mayor of Holland, Texas. She heads the state’s first-ever sub-regional Planning Commission.

That group seeks to put a roadblock in the way of TTC-35. Such local units, organized under state law, can help form a tighter network against the TTC. Rallies are all good and well, but they may or may not convince TTC-backers in the legislature and elsewhere to back down, said Mayor Smith. Therefore, as she told AFP, she formed the East-Central Regional Planning Commission in August of 2007.

On Jan. 31, 2008, Ms. Smith and the mayors of three other nearby cities in Bell County informed officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the Texas Transportation Department (TxDOT), in their estimation, is skipping steps in the environmental impact study that is being carried out and includes public hearings across Texas.

AFP attended an early-February public hearing in McAllen, Tex., where local officials and others with a vested interest supported the TTC, but most of the citizens spoke against it or were skeptical. Many of the local officials, such as McAllen Mayor Mike Perez, believe that the TTC would help boost local economies. Smith observed that some major cities (McAllen is a large city on the Mexican border) may see some residual benefits, but the bigger picture is what matters, she said.

Smith—whose regional commission includes Holland businessman Ralph Snyder and a school board member from each town—says it’s vitally important for many more such commissions to form and band together to halt the TTC. But, to be fair, she added that anti-TTC people need to be ready to explain to TxDOT that there are legitimate alternatives, such as expanding existing freeways, that would be genuine infrastructure improvements.

Helping TxDOT re-focus its efforts would steer it away from pushing the TTC, which—if ever shoved into the “heart of Texas”—will usher in an even bigger invasion of Chinese/Asian goods, hauled via truck and rail into the U.S., starting at Mexican seaports and heading north—flooding the U.S. with even more sub-quality, often hazardous products (and onward to Canada).

The implications for consumer and public safety—with these shoddy products hauled in aboard often-substandard Mexican trucks—are enormous, along with the fact that the ongoing implementation of NAFTA that the TTC signals will continue to unravel the already critically ill American economy that needs its thrifty middle class restored if it’s ever to truly prosper.

With people such as Terri Hall, Mae Smith and several others keeping up the pressure, America has a chance. For, as many observers have noted, it is in Texas where the TTC’s funeral must be held. It cannot be allowed to take root there, lest the NAFTA network spread like a cancer across the nation, tearing asunder what little remains of U.S. manufacturing with the infusion of imports made by ultra-cheap labor, against which American goods cannot compete—since U.S. goods are saturated with huge tax and regulatory costs that stifle production and must be passed on to the consumer.

"Red hot" infrastructure market turns cold, especially in Texas

Link to press release here.

Best quote in the press release...."Texas is the coldest market." You bet it is...we can't afford foreign-controlled toll roads at 3-4 times the price of FREEways! This shift to privatization and tolling is 100% about greed, the highway lobby, and politicians thinking they can blame someone else for raising taxes 20-100 times more per mile than we pay in gas tax. With gas prices lowering our standard of living at an alarming rate, it's past time to end this disastrous policy of tolling freeways.

RED HOT DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION MARKETS BEGIN TO COOL

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, May 21, 2008 -/E-Wire/-- Design and construction markets related to environment, infrastructure, and facilities began to slow their rate of growth in 2007, and growth rates are expected to decline still further in 2008, according to the 20th annual State-of-the-Industry Report delivered by management consultants Farkas Berkowitz & Company to an invitation-only conference of CEOs from leading architectural, engineering, and construction firms.

Designers for transportation, power, water quality, remediation, and facilities in the U.S. enjoyed, in aggregate, a robust growth rate of 12 percent in 2007, down slightly from the phenomenal 15 percent growth rate of 2006. Alan Farkas, Managing Director of Farkas Berkowitz & Company, explained that the volatile power engineering market masked a more significant growth rate decline. He explained, "Excluding power engineering, the aggregate growth rate of the remaining segments in 2007 were half that of 2006, declining from a 14 percent growth rate in 2006 to a 7 percent growth rate last year."


Farkas Berkowitz & Company forecasts that the five infrastructure markets in aggregate will grow 5 percent in 2008 and 7 percent in 2009. "We expect the current economic slowdown to affect all major markets, but the timing and significance will vary," said Mr. Farkas. He noted that preliminary estimates of first quarter 2008 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate was 0.6 percent, unchanged from the 0.6 percent rate of growth in the 4th quarter of 2007. The slowdown in growth coupled with the housing crisis, rising fuel prices, and the disruption in the municipal bond market will result in a slowing of growth in design markets related to transportation, water quality, and remediation. The slow rates of growth will be partially offset by the still rapidly growing design markets for power and non-residential facilities. Moreover, the U.S.-based design firms doing business abroad will continue to see more robust rates of growth from international projects. Mr. Farkas pointed out, "Longer term, infrastructure needs should bolster strong design and construction markets well into the next decade."

Transportation, Engineering and Construction

Farkas Berkowitz & Company estimates that the transportation engineering market grew 4 percent to $9.8 billion in 2007. Mr. Farkas noted, "This was the second consecutive year of declining growth rates. We saw the growth rate peak at 12 percent in 2005, decline to 7 percent in 2006, and we expect the rate of growth in this design market to decline further in 2008 and 2009. We look for a 2-3 percent growth rate this year and no growth in 2009."

Exhibit 1 U.S. Transportation Engineering Market, 2006-2009 ($ Billions)

Chart 1.JPG
Source: Farkas Berkowitz & Company Actuals based on ENR Top 500 Design Firm Survey
Mr. Farkas went on to point out that a shrinking highway and bridge market in 2008 and 2009 would offset growing rail, aviation, and ports and harbor segments. Highway construction increased 7 percent in 2007. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's annual value of construction put in place, the construction market has increased 30 percent over the three years 2004-2007. However, Mr. Farkas noted, "Unfortunately, construction costs have increased more than 30 percent since 2004. Therefore, real dollar investment in this important asset class actually declined over the three-year period."

Farkas Berkowitz & Company estimates that the engineering market for highways and bridges will contract by 5 percent in 2008 and contract another 5 percent in 2009. "We have the highway equivalent of 'the perfect storm.' We could call it 'the perfect pile-up.' A confluence of political and economic forces will subject this market to extraordinary pressure." The report quotes experts who forecast a $3 - $4 billion deficit in the highway trust fund, which could result in a cut back in obligations of $16 billion in federal FY 2009. The firm forecasts that we will see another significant delay in the re-authorization of the Federal law, now due to expire on September 30, 2009. Meanwhile, high gasoline prices are causing motorists to cut back on driving, resulting in a decline of revenues flowing into state highway trust funds.

Mr. Farkas explained, "Given the growing importance of local and state sources of highway funding, we find that the outlook varies considerably by state and region. We look for strongly growing markets on the West Coast and most of the Southwest." The report notes that the hottest state market is California, thanks in large part to funding from the self-help counties. The coldest market is Texas, where spending on highway capital improvements is expected to decline from $5 billion in 2006 to less than $3 billion in 2008. Florida and Georgia were also cited as relatively weak markets.

Public-private partnerships and toll roads will be a positive force in the marketplace over the coming years, but neither funding mechanism will have a significant impact this year or next. The firm believes that public-private partnerships, particularly for greenfield projects, will be increasingly favored, and the development of toll roads, especially for arterial highways, will help over time to narrow the funding gap.

Farkas Berkowitz & Company estimates that the transit engineering market grew at an 8-10 percent growth rate in 2007, showing a steady acceleration from an estimated low single digit rate of growth in 2005. The freight rail market seemed to slow for engineers in 2007, but the firm predicts bright long-term prospects. "The cost advantage that railroads have over trucking, with a better than three-to-one fuel efficiency rating, will continue to allow freight rail to broaden its market from one of hauling raw materials to transporting containerized consumer goods." explained Mr. Farkas.

Turning to the aviation market, construction on airports grew 14 percent in 2007. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that most of this growth is accounted for by terminal construction, while work on runways and taxiways remained virtually unchanged from 2006. The firm estimates that design work for airports increased 5 percent in 2007, equaling the growth rate in 2006. Mr. Farkas reported that firms serving this market expect strong double digit growth in 2009 and 2010. Farkas Berkowitz & Company, however, is projecting a 5-10 percent growth rate this year and next. As Mr. Farkas explained, "With jet fuel costs increasing 70 percent in the last 12 months, the pressure on airfares is too strong to ignore. As airfares increase, we expect passengers to cut back on travel. As passengers cut back on travel, some airport authorities will delay their expansion plans."

The firm reports that engineers serving ports and harbors enjoyed their fifth consecutive year of growth greater than 10 percent. In 2007 firms benefited from the conduct of due-diligence studies to support a change in terminal ownership, with more terminals now in the hands of international shippers, port operators, and private equity funds. "We look for growth in the engineering market to slow in 2008 to about 5 percent, but then increase in 2009 and beyond as ports, particularly in the Southeast and the Gulf Coast prepare for the widening of the Panama Canal," said Mr. Farkas.

HB 300 update: VICTORY #1 comes with a sting

HB 300 Update

VICTORY #1 comes with a sting

GOOD NEWS:
NO TOLLS ON EXISTING ROADS, REPEAL OF TRANS TEXAS CORRIDOR, and ELECTED LEADERSHIP at TxDOT GET IN THE BILL!

BAD NEWS:
PRIVATE TOLL CONTRACTS SNUCK INTO BILL WHEN HALF THE HOUSE ABSENT!

SEE URGENT ACTION ITEM BELOW

Here's how it happened...

First, Rep. Jose Menendez of San Antonio withdrew his amendment to re-authorize the private toll contracts (CDAs) that sell our highways to foreign corporations & another BAD amendment involving CDAs by Wayne Smith of Baytown was also withdrawn during debate last night. There were actually three amendments to re-authorize private toll contracts and END the moratorium Texans demanded and they are: Rep. Jose Menendez of San Antonio, Rep. Stephen Frost of Atlanta, and Rep. Larry Phillips.

Last night when the majority of HB 300 was heard, the author of the bill, Rep. Carl Isett said that private toll contracts (CDAs) would be dealt with in committee next week, so House members thought disaster was averted. Then, this morning when they took up the rest of the bill with what was dubbed the non-controversial stuff, when half the House wasn't even on the floor, Phillips got his amendment voted through, without a recorded vote, without a whimper of opposition totally under the radar!

WE MUST STRIP Phillips' CDA sweetheart deals OUT ON THIRD READING OF THE BILL, HB 300, Monday!

THE GOOD NEWS:
Thanks to your calls and emails, we prevailed on many GOOD key battles against the BIG MONEY & lobbyists who have wined and dined our legislators for nearly a decade to swindle Texans into these sweetheart deals (while they laugh all the way to the bank). A HUGE hats off to the leadership of Rep. David Leibowitz of San Antonio and Rep. Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham for leading the charge to get these MAJOR amendments into HB 300. Texans owe them a HUGE debt of gratitude. They never faltered, they never wavered, they are true Texas HEROES of our cause! But this is just the first step. WE MUST STRIP OUT Phillips' private toll contract provision that sell our highways to the highest bidder UPON THIRD READING OF THE HOUSE BILL, HB 300, Monday!

Hang in there with us to see this through...

We're still sorting through all the various amendments, but the other BIG news is we changed the HORRIBLE loophole-laden language and amended HB 300 with a BULLET-PROOF prohibition on tolling existing roads! We've fought hard for 4 years (some of our folks in Austin have been fighting for going on 5 years) to FINALLY resolve this nightmare! We're on the edge of REAL victory. So stick with us!

Then, we also got a complete REPEAL of the Trans Texas Corridor into HB 300 (though Joe Pickett tried to strip it back out in a sneaky amendment). It's nothing short of a MIRACLE! On top of that, we managed to get ELECTED leadership at TxDOT! Though not a single elected commissioner, the consensus was behind Rep. Leibowitz' amendment to ELECT 14 REGIONAL commissioners and one statewide commissioner to run TxDOT. THAT IS AN ENORMOUS VICTORY for accountability and reform of this rogue agency!

Several of our other amendments also got in and some were withdrawn or tabled. HB 300 is a 200 page bill that had 166 proposed amendments, so when we get all the adopted amendments sorted out, y'all will be the first to know.

WE MUST FIGHT TO KEEP OUR AMENDMENTS IN THIS BILL!
HB 300 needs to survive a third reading in the House then...Next up, the Senate!

The Dallas/Ft. Worth delegation is in abject panic over the Leibowitz amendment prohibiting tolls on existing roads. They fear 820, 635, and others won't be able to move forward if the bill passes with his amendment. So there will still be a battle on the third reading of the bill, with North Texas legislators likely trying to carve out specific projects from the prohibition on tolling existing highways. So our folks in DFW had better flood your legislators with calls to have your voices heard.

Senators to the PEOPLE: "You won't get your amendments"...
Then, the REAL fight will be in the Senate where Senator John Carona told me pointblank at the beginning of the session that we the people would NOT get elected leadership at TxDOT, period! He also rammed private toll contracts (CDAs) through the Senate. In addition, Senator Robert Nichols told me that only HIS loophole-laden version of the bill dealing with tolling existing roads would pass this session.

What's at stake...
So get those phones ringing and keep them ringing! If we don't KILL CDAs, foreign corporations will have the power to control EVERY MILE WE DRIVE for a half century at a time! The deals already in the works will cost the average commuter over $3,000 a YEAR in new toll taxes. If we don't GET a REAL ban on tolling existing highways and get stuck with Nichols' loopholes, our freeways will be converted to tollways unabated!

CALL NOW!

Call your state legislators and tell them NO CDAs & keep the Leibowitz version of no tolls on existing roads! We will NOT accept their cow dung in order to get our good amendments!

Repeat this message...

1) No private toll contracts that sell our highways to foreign corporations (strip Phillips sneaky amendment to extend these contracts that end the moratorium!)
2) YES to Leibowitz' version of BAN on tolling existing roads (freeway to tollway conversions, a HUGE double tax rip-off)
3) No Trans Texas Corridor
4) YES to elected leadership at TxDOT

Find your state legislators here.

Call the Capitol switchboard (512) 463-4630 between 8 AM - 5 PM. To reach your legislators after 5 pm or over the weekend, get his/her direct phone numbers here...

You can also email your state legislators by using this formula:

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But at this stage of the game,
PHONE CALLS ARE BETTER!

Macquarie eyes Austin airport for a Public Private Partnership

Link to article here.

Macquarie is the same company who bought dozens of Texas newspapers in the path of the Trans Texas Corridor (to control the criticism of the project to be sure), was a bidder on the Hwy 121 "crown jewel" of Texas toll roads and the US 281 & 1604 toll roads, and is a partner with Cintra on toll projects all over the world, including the Indiana Toll Road and Chicago Skyway. Rudy Giuliani has ties to Macquarie, and the Bush Administration hired Macquarie's division director to be the DOT's Chief Counsel. It also owns the Virginia toll road where they doubled the toll rates, and it's business model has been criticized by the same guy who first spotted Enron's dubious tactics. Now they want to lease the Austin Airport in another public private partnership (PPP) deal to maximize the airport's revenues and rip-off the taxpayers.

Macquarie circles airport in Texas
David Nason, New York correspondent
The Australian
May 08, 2008

THE Macquarie Group's airport ambitions in the US have spread to Texas, where its infrastructure division is in talks to lease all or part of the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in the Texas capital, Austin.

A Macquarie spokesman confirmed yesterday that discussions with Austin officials were under way but stressed they were at a "very preliminary stage", with no formal proposal for an ABIA takeover on the table.

According to some projections, leasing ABIA to a private operator could earn the city of Austin $US500 million ($526 million) annually.


The airport play comes as Macquarie and its Spanish toll roads partner Centra await a decision on a proposed 75-year lease for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, one of the US's busiest highways.

At least three consortiums have submitted bids with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, who is expected to select his preferred operator sometime in the next week.

Mr Rendell wants to channel the lease payments -- possibly as much as $US18 billion over the life of the lease -- into Pennsylvania's ageing highways, bridges and mass transit systems. But he is facing opposition from legislators, voters and his own Turnpike Commission.

Opposition to airport privatisation in the US is also expected to be strong, especially if foreign companies are involved.

Under a Federal Aviation Administration pilot program introduced in 1966, US airports can be exempted from federal administration, but until now only Chicago's Midway Airport has actively pursued privatisation.

The program allows for up to five US airports to be leased to private operators, but the hurdles are many, including approval from the FAA and from 65 per cent of airlines using the airport.

Macquarie, which already operates airports in Sydney, Tokyo, Brussels, Copenhagen and Bristol in England, is one of six companies to have lodged a proposal with Chicago officials.

It now sees a second opportunity in Austin, where the push for privatisation is driven by federal laws that compel the city to spend airport revenues at the airport while other city-operated businesses such as Austin Energy and the Austin Convention Centre return their profits to the city.

Austin city councillor Brewster McCracken told the Austin Business Journal he was opposed to privatising public assets but regarded the airport as a separate issue because it provided no revenue to the city's general fund.

ABIA's total operating revenue for the 2007 fiscal year was $US81.9 million with $US17 million of that going back into the airport's capital fund.

Austin-Bergstrom is a former US Air Force Base 8km outside Austin that was only opened to civilian traffic in 1999, to replace a smaller airport. Last year, it serviced almost 8.9 million passengers, a record.


Globally, the Macquarie Group has some $US200 billion invested in infrastructure and it has targeted the US as its major infrastructure growth area.

Body: And for good reason. In a report last week, the US Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young said US transportation infrastructure investment was lagging far behind that of most other developed nations and that greater acceptance of public-private partnerships was the only practical answer.

It estimated the annual shortfall in funds for US transportation needs at a staggering $US170 billion, a figure that would rise sharply with the forecast population growth of 90 million over the next 35 years.

The report said vehicle miles travelled in the US had increased 95 per cent since 1980 while road capacity had increased only 3 per cent.

It said 24 per cent of US roads were in poor to mediocre condition and more than 25 per cent of bridges were structurally or functionally deficient.

Macquarie and Cintra already jointly own and operate toll roads in Illinois and Indiana.

Last month, electronic tolling started on the Indiana Toll Road with drivers using the automatic system getting their tolls frozen at current rates until 2016.

A spokesman for the Indiana Toll Road Concession Co, which operates the toll road, said the spirit of the toll freeze was to look after local users.

But in 2006, Macquarie Infrastructure Group chief executive Stephen Allen told investors in New York that the real advantage of automatic tolling was that people tended to think tolls were cheaper when they had an electronic tag.

"I call it the 'mobile phone effect'," Mr Allen said at the time. "How many people out there know the cost of a call on your mobile phone? Well, it's very expensive, I can assure you of that.

"It's the same thing with (electronic) tags. You go through, you hear the beep, you don't think about it. You pay your bill once a month. It's amazing how reaching into that pocket to get that three bucks seems a lot more painful than hearing that beep."

Allard: Why does the Lone Star State tolerate TxDOT’s failures?

Link to column here.

Once again, Ken Allard's poignant humor hits the nail on the head. Why do we tolerate TxDOT's failures? Where are the indictments and heads rolling? Short of TURF's lawsuit to stop their illegal lobbying and ad campaign, NO ONE in state law enforcement is doing didly-squat to prosecute or reform this agency. Our great hope is the Sunset Commission. God bless Senator Glenn Hegar who gets it!

Ken Allard: Why does the Lone Star State allow TxDOT's bureaucratic arrogance?
05/07/2008
San Antonio Express-News

The headlines might have read, “No Hope, No More,” but we have been on a collision course over the future of TxDOT ever since Gov. Perry's dismissal last week of interim commissioner Hope Andrade.

She succeeded chairman Rick Williamson, whose last wish was that his embattled agency might engage in a creative dialogue with its critics. He even reached out to ask for my help in connecting the agency with “some of the best minds at UTSA,” but his untimely passing prevented those possibilities.


The widely respected Andrade tried to continue his initiative, but certain fundamentals have emerged. Among them: to the extent that it can be controlled at all, TxDOT answers only to its political masters — and then only to some of them. When hauled before the Texas Senate earlier this year, agency leaders had no good explanations for some outrageous failings, including a billion-dollar accounting error and millions more wasted on lobbying for dubious pet projects.

Had a similar situation occurred in Washington, indictments might well have followed. But not in Texas. Sen. Glenn Hegar recently wrote that lawmakers' “concerns about the Trans-Texas Corridor, the agency's policies, funding schemes, budget and construction priorities have (often) been met with contempt and disdain by TxDOT officials.” The mystery is why such bureaucratic arrogance is tolerated in the state that produced the legendary “Lonesome Dove” figures of Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae.

But if you think the agency isn't listening to your concerns, don't feel too badly. They don't listen to the Texas Legislature, either. In an interesting twist, Sen. Hegar also sits on a sunset committee charged with identifying “waste, duplication and inefficiency” among state agencies. Ironically, TxDOT's turn for review comes up this year. Can you think of some issues the sunset commissioners might want to look into? What kinds of minds produced the “My Favorite Martian” School of highway design, bewildering tourists and locals alike as they try to escape from the San Antonio airport? Even more interesting: Why is there apparently a requirement that all TxDOT engineers be Aggies?

There are, of course, far larger issues because if TxDOT and toll roads are the only answers, we're probably not asking the right questions. County Judge Nelson Wolff recently raised the possibility of light rail. Until recently, there was the assumption that toll roads were the only alternative or, according to Sen. Hegar, “selling our highway infrastructure to the highest bidder, usually a foreign-owned company.”

Like a mule's first kick, paying $4 for a gallon of gas is an educational opportunity that ought not to be missed. So, too, are the unmistakable signs that the real poverty in this area begins with our thinking. Simply go out U.S. 281 to the areas around Evans and Bulverde Roads to glimpse urban sprawl at its ugliest, a spectacular failure of zoning, planning and land use but, most of all, of common sense.

Forget the obvious threats to the aquifer, to the environment, and even to public safety if the sprawl zones ever had to be evacuated. It is as if the developers had abandoned all thought of San Antonio and were busily building the new and glorious Newark-Upon-the-Guadalupe.

As a wide-eyed schoolboy back east, I learned Texas history from afar, especially that part about lines being drawn in the sand. With the governor, the bureaucrats and the developers now on one side of that line, what a joy, what an honor it is to be here and on the other!

Retired Col. Ken Allard is an executive-in-residence at UTSA.

Hegar: Delisi doesn’t have my support

Link to article here.

COMMENTARY
Hegar: To gain my support, Delisi must prove me wrong
State Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, TEXAS SENATE
Tuesday, May 06, 2008

On Wednesday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced he had appointed Deirdre Delisi, his former chief of staff, chairwoman of the Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees the Texas Department of Transportation. As of today, I will not vote to confirm her appointment in the next legislative session.

Ask almost any Texan, especially those who have the need to travel frequently on Interstate 35, about our Texas transportation system and they will tell you that many of our roads have extreme congestion, while other construction projects have experienced significant cost overruns. Last year, TxDOT notified the public that it had experienced a billion-dollar accounting error, spent millions of dollars in an effort to persuade Texans that we need to pursue the proposed Tran-Texas Corridor even though the legislature had just passed a two-year moratorium on public-private agreements. The next legislative session will be a critical time as we work to ensure that TxDOT can regain the trust of Texans and to overcome the low opinion of what was once the most respected highway department in the nation.


In the Legislature, relations with TxDOT are also at an all-time low. Lawmakers' questions and concerns about the Trans-Texas Corridor, the agency's policies, funding schemes, budget and construction priorities have often been met with contempt and disdain by TxDOT officials. The result is that many legislators, including me, have lost confidence that TxDOT and its policies are working in the best interests of Texas taxpayers.

That is why I had high hopes that the governor would use the vacancy created by the untimely passing of former Transportation Chairman Ric Williamson as an opportunity to appoint someone who would work to change the status quo, reach out to lawmakers and work with the Legislature to address the concerns of the citizens we represent.

I view Delisi's appointment as a squandered opportunity. Rather than choose someone to head the commission who will reach out and work cooperatively with legislators, the governor instead has chosen a political "yes woman" with little or no practical experience involving transportation issues other than carrying out Perry's myopic vision that relies solely on building more toll roads and selling our highway infrastructure to the highest bidder, usually a foreign-owned company.

I serve as the vice chairman of the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission. In 1977, the Legislature created the commission to identify and eliminate waste, duplication and inefficiency in government agencies. The 12-member commission is a legislative body that reviews the policies and programs of more than 150 government agencies every 12 years. The commission questions the need for each agency, looks for potential duplication of other public services or programs and considers changes to improve each agency's operations and activities. Currently, the Texas Department of Transportation is undergoing its 12-year Sunset review.

I also serve as a member of the Senate Nominations Committee, the panel that will have to vote to confirm Delisi's appointment when the legislature reconvenes in January 2009. One might expect that the governor and Delisi would have contacted all members of these key committees to discuss their plans for TxDOT and to ask for our vote in the upcoming nomination process. Unfortunately, like most of my colleagues, I learned about the appointment from the news media.

The governor can certainly appoint anyone whom he sees fit, but as a state senator who takes his constitutional "advise and consent" responsibilities seriously, I would have hoped Perry would have sought out the advice of legislators before asking for our consent at this critical juncture in Texas history.

TxDOT's vision statement says that the agency will work to:

"Promote a higher quality of life through partnerships with the citizens of Texas and all branches of government by being receptive, responsible and cooperative."

Perry's and Delisi's recent actions with regard to this appointment are not in keeping with that statement but instead reflect a vision of non-cooperation and non-responsiveness to lawmakers and the constituents they serve.

I certainly hope that Delisi will prove me wrong. Likewise, I hope that between now and her Senate confirmation hearing next January she will attempt to change my perception that she will not be an agent of the status quo at TxDOT. If so, she may still have an opportunity to earn my confidence and my vote, and the taxpayers of our state and those who use and depend on our vast transportation system will be well served.

Hegar represents District 18.

Lone Star Report: Time to reform TxDOT and the revolving door at the Governor’s office

As usual, Will Lutz of the Lone Star Report speaks for the interests of taxpayers with clarity and conviction. His assessment is exactly right. The Legislature can take the power over TxDOT from the Governor and slap him with new ethics laws on his revolving door Cintra-fest. We need courageous, genuine leadership in the Legislature. It's obvious that it won't just emerge, we must demand it!

Will new commissioners improve TxDOT?
by William Lutz
Lone Star Report
5/5/08

Gov. Rick Perry appointed two new members of the Texas Transportation Commission April 30, his former chief of staff, Deirdre Delisi of Austin and William Meadows of Fort Worth, a member of the North Texas Tollway Authority Board.

The appointment of a former Perry staffer to a key government post is consistent with Perry's appointment pattern, which isn't always well-received at the Capitol.

Some Capitol hands view Delisi's appointment as a sign the Legislature can expect more of the same from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas), chairman of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security, even tried to discourage Perry appointing her.


Both appointments are subject to Senate confirmation, but in the past, some GOP senators - despite talking a good, independent game early in the session - don't seem to have much stomach for a fight with the Governor in mid-May of session years. Therefore, Delisi's confirmation is likely.

Still, the agency has an opportunity here. Its reputation with legislators and grass-roots conservatives has nowhere to go but up. And it will need some credibility because its authority to sign comprehensive development agreements expires in 2009.

(A comprehensive development agreement is a contract whereby the state rents right-of-way to a private company and gives it the exclusive right to build and operate a toll road.) Here are some areas the new commissioners need to address, if the commission wishes to improve its reputation.

Current transportation policy was sold to lawmakers under false pretenses. That is, the omnibus transportation bill of 2003 was promoted to lawmakers as "local control" and "more tools in the toolbox." Lawmakers thought they passed a bill that let local leaders use new financing tools if they wanted to for building local highways faster.

But that's a far cry from what was delivered. No one told lawmakers in 2003 or 2005 that the Texas Department of Transportation was going to try to shake down the Harris County Toll Road Authority for cash when it wanted to build new toll roads. Nor did anyone tell them the transportation commission would favor private contractors over local non-profit toll authorities for the right to build and maintain roads. Nor did anyone mention that the primary driver behind building toll roads was the desire to raise tolls artificially high to generate cash that could be siphoned off to other roads that can't be built with tolls. The bills passed in 2007 were an attempt by the Legislature to fix all of these problems.

Had the agency let local leaders help decide how much revenue to extract from local motorists, the issue wouldn't get as much blow-back at the Capitol.

The public doesn't understand the state's transportation dilemma and doesn't trust TxDOT. Lawmakers and others have pointed this fact out repeatedly to the agency. Yet its response was to run a political PR campaign promoting privatized toll roads.

There's a difference between being transparent and building trust and using government resources for political purposes. Lawmakers wanted the former. TxDOT provided the latter.

The clarity and transparency of the agency's explanations of the state's financial situation could use improvement. There is also a need for the agency to explain and justify the fact that construction costs have risen dramatically faster than inflation.

The agency and its supporters have shown flagrant disregard for the public's right-to-know. If these comprehensive development agreements are really so great - as Perry claims - then why is the agency afraid to let the public see them before they are a done deal and the state is stuck with them for 50 years?

A provision was quietly slipped into a transportation bill in 2005 that exempts any part of any proposal for a comprehensive development agreement from public disclosure - even under criminal subpoena. This blanket secrecy provision, found in section 223.204 of the Transportation Code, includes draft contracts between the agency and private vendors (like Cintra). This provision became a campaign issue in 2006, when Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn and the Houston Chronicle demanded the release of the draft agreement between Cintra and the Texas Department of Transportation to develop the Trans-Texas Corridor 35 project.

The public explanation usually given when this provision is published is that a draft contract between the state and a private company is proprietary and contains trade secrets. The problem with that argument is that state law has always provided an exception to public disclosure for real trade secrets - provided that the Attorney General and the courts agree that the material is actually proprietary.

In short , it is fair to question whether the rationale for the blanket exemption from public disclosure is driven by politics. If the public can't see contracts that bind the state for 50 years until after they have been approved and are then a done deal, then opposition is less likely to materialize. There will be less debate over the toll rates and non-compete clauses, for example.

Thanks to Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Lewisville), in 2007, the Legislature passed a "truth in tolling" provision that requires the agency to publish toll rates and other key information before finalizing a toll contract.

But shouldn't the public have the right to see the whole contract in advance of its approval? Will the new commissioners support additional public disclosure of toll road contracts or will they defend secret, special-interest government at its absolute worst?

The agency has not shown the Legislature the respect it deserves. The current executive director of TxDOT has made some improvements in this area. But in 2005, 2006, and early 2007 the agency and the commission showed an appalling lack of respect to lawmakers. Commissioners would seldom attend legislative hearings and regularly picked petty fights with key legislative players.

Carona - the chairman of the Senate committee overseeing TxDOT - had to go to the House and create a big public showdown in 2007 just to get a meeting with the then-chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission. Simply respecting the process - as TxDOT has begun to do in recent months - will go a long way toward building bridges with lawmakers.

The agency is perceived as having a "my way or the highway" approach. It seems that every action the agency takes is designed to build support for privately-run toll roads.

If the commission came up with and supported a more balanced approach, it might get a more receptive audience for its ideas. Not every road has to be a toll road built and financed by Cintra.

A little common sense will help, sometimes. TxDOT seems to have a way of dumping gasoline on the fire. A good example was right after the 2007 legislative session (when the Legislature banned cities from issuing speeding tickets with automated cameras) when TxDOT put up automated cameras in a rural part of Interstate 10 to issue speed warnings. No wonder rural folk don't trust TxDOT!

TxDOT is still under the Governor's control and its tolling policies have not been repealed, largely due to a lack of legislative will-power.

If the Legislature wanted to stop this stuff, it could - even when Perry plays hard ball. Lawmakers can override vetoes. They can brave special sessions. They could make life unpleasant for the governor by holding hearings into the revolving door between the governor's office and certain transportation contractors (including issuing subpoenas to transportation lobbyists who used to work for Perry). They can propose new ethics and campaign contribution legislation.

The agency is up for Sunset in 2009, and the Legislature could easily have someone besides the Governor appointing its board. Or it could allow Comprehensive Development Agreement authority to expire.

But if the new commissioners take a more cooperative approach to transportation, the Legislature may conclude that none of the above steps are necessary.

In other words, the new commissioners are coming in under a cloud, but they also still have an opportunity to make changes - if they want to.

Rural Texans will NOT yield to Trans Texas Corridor

Link to article in Houston Chronicle here.

Fort Bend County News    
Lloyd Koeppen owns property in Mixville, a community near Sealy. Even if the toll road misses his property, he worries it could worsen runoff to his flood-prone land.


April 27, 2008, 11:32PM
Rural residents feel the push from Trans-Texas Corridor

By RAD SALLEE
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Minutes south of Interstate 10 and Sealy, the pastures along FM 1458 are their own silent world in the morning. Mists lift to reveal black cattle, brown and spotted horses, snow-white egrets underfoot in lush green grass.


Then a concrete mixer comes churning down the blacktop.

Just up the road is a small subdivision. More are sure to come as city dwellers, including weekenders and retirees, move out in search of a quieter, simpler life — and relief from city traffic.

Although the gradual influx may bring greater changes in the long run, what disturbs residents most is the planned Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, or I-69/TTC for short.

If it is built, the corridor likely will start out as a four-lane divided tollway. Eventually, the Texas Department of Transportation could expand it to 1,200 feet in places, with toll lanes for cars and trucks; tracks for freight and passenger trains; and space for pipelines, power lines and communications.

The exact route has yet to be determined. TxDOT has recommended the route come from a study corridor, ranging from a quarter-mile to four miles wide, between Texarkana and Mexico. Most of the route will stay close to U.S. 59, the agency says, but to speed traffic around Houston, it veers through rural land west of the city.

It is from there — the ranches and small towns of Walker, Grimes, Waller, Fort Bend and Austin counties — that some of the most unyielding opposition has come.

January through March, residents up and down the study area jammed town hall meetings and public hearings to speak against the project.

Among them were Dennis and Edith Mlcak, whose ranch is on FM 1458 near Frydek, a crossroads community founded by Czech immigrants near the turn of the century.

She grew up in Frydek and he in nearby Mixville, but the Mlcaks are part of the urban migration too. They spent 30 years in Houston before coming home.

Although TxDOT has heard a nearly unanimous negative verdict from residents of the area, Dennis Mlcak is not sure how much that matters.

"They keep pushing this thing, and it keeps marching in a forward direction, so we can't really wait and see if it will die of its own accord," he said.

The Mlcaks' friends, Dane and Maxine Rudloff, whose property lies along I-10 near Sealy, have been through this before. When I-10 was built in the 1960s, the family had to sell 13½ acres for right of way. The road cut off 50 acres from what was left.

"We could see it, but eventually we sold it," Dane Rudloff said. "My mother-in-law went to her grave fuming about that."

At least the interstate and its frontage roads were useful to local residents, he said.

The tolled I-69/TTC, he said, would be a barrier for school buses, as well as the San Felipe-Frydek Volunteer Fire Department, which serves both communities. Although Frydek residents now get water from wells, Dane Rudloff said the corridor could prevent lines from being extended there from Sealy someday.

It also would weaken social ties, Dennis Mlcak said. Although both families live outside the study area, a little cluster of buildings that includes two gathering places — St. Mary's Catholic Church and Emil Ermis' store — is well inside its boundaries.

"The bottom line is that no matter where it goes, it's going to have the same effect on the communities," said Dennis Mlcak, "and once that's severed, it's gone forever."

 

Familiar arguments

At the town hall meetings, residents again and again raised the same arguments: The corridor would divide communities and properties while taking valuable land out of production and off the local tax rolls.
Some said the corridor's main purpose is to carry Chinese imported goods from Mexico to northern states and Canada, with little or no benefit to Texans.

Contraband and smuggling will increase, they said, and the toll profits will go to foreigners who operate the road, while Texans would be barred from building competing routes.

Again and again, TxDOT made the same replies: Huge growth in the state's economy and population are inevitable over the next 30 years. Current roads cannot meet even today's needs, and there barely is enough tax revenue to maintain them, let alone build more.

The corridor, officials said, will reduce urban congestion and the cost of moving goods and people. And if a foreign company builds and operates it for a profit, that just means taxpayers will not foot the bill. The state of Texas will own it, and if the operator goes broke, the state will take it back.

 

Living in limbo

The uncertainty of the final route — the location as well as the size — leaves Lloyd and Judith Koeppen, who live deep inside the study area, in limbo.
Lloyd Koeppen, who has spent his life in Mixville, has snapshots of his house surrounded by floodwater from Allen Creek. Even if the toll road misses his property, he worries it could worsen runoff.

Should he stay or sell, he asks.

TxDOT says the final route will follow existing roads and property lines when feasible. In the 50 miles or so between I-10 and Texas 105 near Navasota, a likely candidate for the route is FM 362.

The two-lane road meanders, but more than half of it is in the recommended study corridor.

Taking it north from I-10, the views get longer and driveways farther apart. As the road crosses U.S. 290 and passes between Waller and Prairie View, development picks up again.

A small subdivision with large lots has sprouted in the prairie south of where FM 362 crosses FM 1488. One of the lots belongs to Marvin Ottmer.

Ottmer, 57, said he plans to retire there in three years. His lot is a half-mile from FM 362, but he did not hear about the corridor plan until after he closed on the property.

"They say they don't know whether they will need it or not and won't know for two or three years," he said. "You don't know whether to keep it, and you can't really sell it to anybody. Who wants to live next to a highway?"

Rick Hunley, who owns Country Living Mortgage not far from Ottmer's land, hears that often. "I don't really know the answer," he said. "Build it, and if they have to take it from you, buy another one, I suppose."

Hunley doubts the corridor will come to FM 362. He predicts the area will grow too fast for TxDOT to obtain right of way at acceptable costs and that the route will be farther west.

Already, he said, there is a 300-home subdivision and a Buddhist temple complex on Mellman Road. Not far from his office are a sprawling fish hatchery and several farms that breed or train horses.

"Soon you won't be able to buy land here," Hunley said. "It's hard to find anything less than $12,000 an acre now."

Longtime residents will try to keep land in the family, he said, but it's hard to resist the market.

 

Loss of seclusion

As FM 362 enters Grimes County, the land becomes hilly and forested.
On the west side is Camp Allen, the Episcopal Church retreat and conference center. Church officials fear the center would lose its prized seclusion if the corridor is built along FM 362.

Beyond are lush fields of bluebonnet and Indian paintbrush, followed by a gentle curve into White Hall.

There is a historical marker at the community center and another at Fairview Cemetery on a low hill across the road. The junction at FM 2988, on another hill, includes Whitehall Grocery and Salem Lutheran Church.

Inside the store were flight attendant Sharon Lea and her husband, Curtis, a Houston firefighter. They live in Cypress but come up on weekends to work on their retirement property.

"We've loved it here since we were little," she said — so much that when their daughter Melissa, 22, died in June, they buried her in Fairview Cemetery.

"A few months after that, we found out about this TTC," Sharon Lea said. "I don't believe a word TxDOT says. They couldn't tell us where it's going to go, but they kept telling us they understood, they understood. I don't think they really understood because if they did, they'd get the hell out of here, and they wouldn't come back."

Senators to Prez: Stop stockpiling oil at a time of crisis

Link to article here.

Sen. Hutchison: “Immediately Halt Deposits in the Strategic Oil Reserve”
Published in Texas Insider: 04-30-08
Letter to the President Signed by 16 Senators, Cites “Busiest Driving Season” of the Year

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, today urged the administration to immediately halt deposits of domestic crude oil into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

“The SPR had 554 million barrels when President Bush took office and today it has over 701 million barrels,” Sen. Hutchison said. “We are in an extreme circumstance, now that oil is around $120 a barrel. I support an immediate halt in the deposits of domestic crude into the SPR as we enter the busiest driving season of the year.”

The letter was signed by Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John Barrasso (R-WY), Kit Bond (R-MO), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Susan Collins (R-ME), John Cornyn (R-TX), Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Lisa Murkowski (R-AL), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), John Sununu (R-NH), and Ted Stevens (R-AK). Sens. Murkowski, Sessions, and Barrasso are members of the Senate Energy Committee.


TEXT OF THE LETTER
April 29, 2008

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Bush:

We write today to request that the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) immediately halt deposits of domestic crude oil into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). As we enter the busiest driving season of the year, the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil hovers around a record $120.

The SPR was established in 1975 to provide a supply of crude oil during times of severe supply disruptions. Today, the SPR contains more than 701 million barrels of oil, exceeding our International Energy Program commitments to maintain at least 90 days of oil stocks in reserve.

High energy prices are having a ripple effect throughout the U.S. economy and exacerbating recessionary pressures. The Energy Information Agency reports that supplies and inventories of crude oil and refined products are above 2007 inventories while our demand for gasoline is down. Yet, the price of crude oil has skyrocketed 100% from last year’s levels which were just above $63 a barrel in April, 2007. Despite these economic realities, the DoE recently solicited contracts to exchange up to 13 million barrels of royalty oil from Federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico for deposits in the SPR.

Some analysts blame geopolitical instability and disruption in production for the rapid price increases; however, these factors alone do not explain the extraordinary increase in oil prices compared to previous years, when these same challenges were present. Temporarily halting deposits to the reserve can provide some relief because the increased supply of oil available for refinement will send the right signal to all markets that the U.S. Government will take measures necessary to address exorbitant crude oil prices that negatively affect the global economy. We believe, in light of the dramatic increase in oil prices, a temporary halt to deposits into the SPR should be considered until the economy stabilizes.

I appreciate your attention to this matter and look forward to hearing back from you.

Hutchison: Time to remove ethanol from food price hike/rationing equation

Link to article here.

Undoing America's Ethanol Mistake
By Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
Published in Texas Insider: 04-30-08

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman once said, "One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results."

When Congress passed legislation to greatly expand America's commitment to biofuels, it intended to create energy independence and protect the environment.

But the results have been quite different. America remains equally dependent on foreign sources of energy, and new evidence suggests that ethanol is causing great harm to the environment.

In recent weeks, the correlation between government biofuel mandates and rapidly rising food prices has become undeniable. At a time when the U.S. economy is facing recession, Congress needs to reform its "food-to-fuel" policies and look at alternatives to strengthen energy security.

On Dec. 19, 2007, President Bush signed into law the Energy Independence and Security Act. This legislation had several positive features, including higher fuel standards for cars and greater investment in renewable energies such as solar power.

However, the bill required a huge spike in the biofuel production requirement, from 7.5 billion gallons in 2012 to 36 billion in 2022.

This was a well-intentioned measure, but it was also impractical. Nearly all our domestic corn and grain supply is needed to meet this mandate, robbing the world of one of its most important sources of food.

We are already seeing the ill effects of this measure. Last year, 25% of America's corn crop was diverted to produce ethanol. In 2008, that number will grow to 30%-35%, and it will soar even higher in the years to come.

Furthermore, the trend of farmers supplanting other grains with corn is decreasing the supply of numerous agricultural products. When the supply of those products goes down, the price inevitably goes up.

Subsequently, the cost of feeding farm and ranch animals increases and the cost is passed to consumers of beef, poultry and pork products.

Since February 2006, the price of corn, wheat and soybeans has increased by more than 240%. Rising food prices are hitting the pockets of lower-income Americans and people who live on fixed incomes.

While the blame for higher costs shouldn't rest exclusively with biofuels — drought and rising oil costs are contributing factors — the expansion of biofuels has been a major source of the problem.

The International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that biofuel production accounts for between one-quarter and one-third of the recent spike in global commodity prices.

For the first time in 30 years, food riots are breaking out in many parts of the globe, including major countries such as Mexico, Pakistan and Indonesia.

The fact that America's energy policies are creating global instability should concern the leaders of both political parties.

Restraining the dangerous effects of artificially inflated demand for ethanol should be an issue that unites both conservatives and progressives.

As a recent Time cover story pointed out, biofuel mandates increase greenhouse gasses and create incentives for global deforestation.

In the Amazon basin, huge swaths of forest are being cleared to meet the growing hunger for biofuels.

In addition, relief organizations are facing gaping shortfalls as the cost of food outpaces their ability to provide aid for the 800 million people who lack food security.

The recent food crisis does not mean we should entirely abandon biofuels.

The best way to lower energy prices, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, is to accelerate production of all forms of domestic energy.

Expanding biofuels while refusing to take other measures, such as lifting the ban on oil and natural gas production in Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf, is counterproductive. We should be tapping into a broad portfolio of energy options, including clean coal, nuclear power and wave energy.

The key is increasing energy supply. By taking these measures, we can enable biofuels to be part of the energy solution, instead of contributing to the energy problem.

Congress must take action. I am introducing legislation that will freeze the biofuel mandate at current levels, instead of steadily increasing it through 2022.

This is a common-sense measure that will reduce pressure on global food prices and restore balance to America's energy policy.

As the Senate debates this issue, we must remain focused on the facts.

At one point, expanding biofuels made sense for America's energy security. But the recent surge in food prices has forced us to adapt. The global demand for energy and food is expected to rise about 50% in the next 20 years, and the U.S. is well-positioned to be a leader in both areas.

That will require a careful, finely tuned approach to America's farm products.

By freezing the biofuel mandate at current levels, we will go a long way to achieving that goal.

Senator Hutchison chairs the Senate Republican Policy Committee and is representing Texas in her third full term in the Senate.

O'Reilly: Fight back against gas price gouging

Link to article here.

Fight Back Against Big Oil
By Bill O'Reilly
Published in Texas Insider: 04-28-08

So now we have the presidential candidates running around telling voters that they will help solve the problem of high gas prices. Well, if you believe that, you'll believe that Hugo Chavez drives a Yugo. It's just bull.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are calling for "investigations" into "price gouging" by American oil companies. Good. There's plenty of price manipulation going on and, under Presidents Bush and Clinton, little federal oversight. If a big oil company wants to tighten supply, for example, it's a snap. Just slow down the refinery process by ordering extra "maintenance" or something.

But who is going to investigate Sens. Obama and Clinton on their opposition to oil drilling? The Democratic Party has consistently opposed new drilling and nuclear energy, as well. Even the dedicated liberal governments in France and Sweden bought into nuclear. But not the American left, no way.

On the Republican side, President Bush has done absolutely nothing about rising gas prices, which is part of the reason his approval rating is approaching 20 percent. He blames the Democrats. Fine. But the president should be telling all Americans to cut back their gas consumption by 15 percent. He should be urging us to use less gas. That would at least cut into big oil's record profit margins.

Sen. John McCain proposes a gas tax "holiday" this summer. True, that would save the folks a few bucks, but it would also add to the massive spending deficit. The government better start balancing the budget soon, before Haagen-Dazs becomes more valuable than the U.S. currency.

The sad truth is that both political parties have sold out the folks. For decades, economists knew China and India were industrializing, and that those countries would demand much greater amounts of oil. Everybody knew that OPEC would slow down production and gouge the world if it could, and of course, now it can.

But if Americans would get angry and begin punishing the oil bandits, prices would drop. However, we are often a selfish people. We want those gas-guzzling Hummers and SUVs, and we're paying a big price for that, above and beyond the sticker.

If I were president, I'd be on every program, leading the charge to buy less gas, urging folks to conserve energy in creative ways. I'd create peer pressure against the guzzle crowd. I'd name the names of greedy oil company CEOs making tens of millions of dollars while working folks suffer.

We need leadership on this energy business or it is going to cripple our economy. Our energy incompetence has already empowered our enemies.

So let's get angry out there. We the people can do this. Big oil is not looking out for us. Let's stop rewarding it.

Veteran TV news anchor Bill O'Reilly is host of the Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor" and author of the book "Who's Looking Out For You?"

TxDOT shifts maintenance money to new road construction

Link to article here.

We all know TxDOT has been manipulating their budget to make it look like the gas tax will only cover road maintenance and no new road construction so they can push their toll road agenda. Sworn testimony in TURF's lawsuit to stop TxDOT from using taxpayer money to sell tolls roads and the Trans Texas Corridor shows TxDOT has also moved up when a highway needs to be re-surfaced by 10 years from the industry standard in order to blow through their maintenance money even faster. So with that said, it still makes no sense to shift money from maintenance to building new roads if they claim there isn't enough money to maintain them!

Panel relents, shifting $5 billion to new roadways
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News
04/24/2008

The Texas Transportation Commission, buckling to pressure, decided Thursday to let highways decay some during the next decade rather than follow through on a scare to choke off all construction money — including funds for the U.S. 281 toll road.

Commissioners recently drew heat after saying funds were too scarce to cover both maintenance and construction, and that keeping roads in good shape was more important.


But commissioners, apparently feeling that keeping testy state lawmakers off their backs is even more important, voted 4-0 to shift $5 billion from maintenance to construction.

"Philosophically, I don't think you let your house deteriorate and then go build a new garage," Commissioner Ted Houghton said before casting his aye. "I think we're headed down, no pun intended, a very rocky road."

Among construction projects saved from the chopping block is the 8-mile U.S. 281 tollway north of Loop 1604 in San Antonio, which needs $112 million in public money along with toll-backed bonds for construction to get under way this year.

However, another $213 million public subsidy for toll lanes and interchange ramps along Loop 1604, from Culebra Road to U.S. 281, has been slashed to $104 million, which means some parts could be delayed, said Terry Brechtel of the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority.

"So one of our projects will get delayed if the Legislature doesn't come up with new funding," she said.

State lawmakers next year could authorize funds to support $6.5 billion worth of transportation bonds. The Texas Department of Transportation says that would provide about $5.2 billion for roadwork after engineering and land-purchase costs are subtracted.

How much of that could be redirected back into maintenance is unknown. Legislators could attach strings, and transportation commissioners would also have designs on it.

"If things should change, we can restore the money back into maintenance," commission Chairwoman Hope Andrade said.

The Transportation Commission's 11-year outlook leaves $12 billion for maintenance, half of what's needed to meet a goal of getting nine out of 10 roads in good condition.

Officials estimate that just 80 percent of roads will be in good shape by 2019, down 7 percent from today. By then, $9 billion more will be needed to reach the 90 percent goal.

Farm Bureau slams Trans Texas Corridor, supports alternatives

Link to article here.

Texas Farm Bureau supports transportation alternatives
Southwest Farm Press
Apr 25, 2008

Texas Farm Bureau offered several viable transportation and funding alternatives to the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) in meeting Texas’ future transportation needs during testimony before the Senate Transportation Committee.

“Let me assure you, as an industry we absolutely support and recognize the need for building and maintaining roads in Texas,” said Texas Farm Bureau State Director Tom Paben. “We feel this can be accomplished within the current framework of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).”

“However, there is a need for redirection, as well as a review of the current priorities of the agency,” Paben added, noting several concerns about the TTC project raised in a report commissioned by Farm Bureau and conducted by professors at Baylor Law School. He also said Farm Bureau believes that the recent Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS) of I-69 “is fatally, flawed,” and would not stand up to judicial scrutiny.

Paben, who represents 15 counties potentially affected by the massive TTC transportation project, said the first option for new highway and road construction, when possible, should be use of existing rights-of way and routes.


“In many cases, using entirely new routes would impact irreplaceable farm and ranch land,” Paben said. “If new right-of-way is needed, at a minimum, landowners should have reasonable access to their property.”

The cattle, corn and hay producer said members of the state’s largest farm organization supported funding alternatives, including indexing and/or increasing the gas tax, to finance new road construction. Paben suggested bonding could also help build roads across Texas.

“Recent articles suggest the Cintra-Zachry Consortium stands to make billions of dollars from the TTC,” he said. “If they are able to do so, then why can’t the State of Texas? It seems those kinds of revenues could certainly go a long way in funding Texas roadways in the future.”

Although Farm Bureau does not support tolling existing roads, Paben said the organization does not oppose the use of tolls to fund construction of new roads.

The Farm Bureau testimony suggested the state focus on transportation projects that will help the “impending stress” on traffic ways—using existing routes—in the Golden Triangle, where it is estimated 60 percent of the state’s population will live in the next 30 years.

The testimony also recalled Farm Bureau’s support of legislation by Senator Steve Ogden to utilize the existing state highway “trunk” system.

“We believe the trunk system comprised of improving current state highways, and constructing by-passes and loops, could greatly relieve traffic flow in our metropolitan centers,” Paben said.

The farm leader noted Texas Farm Bureau members support the need for new and better roads in Texas.

“We are an industry no different from any other and need to move our products throughout the state,” he said. “…if building highways is to be a profit center, then let those highways be built by Texans for Texan taxpayers.”

Perry appoints two more tollers to Commission

Link to article in Dallas Morning News here. Read more from San Antonio Express-News where it recounts when Senator John Carona called Delisi a "hack" here.

Perry's picks for Texas Transportation Commission highlight commitment to toll
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
By MICHAEL LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News

A week after Gov. Rick Perry said in a speech that he’ll fight to keep toll roads at the center of any plans to solve Texas’ transportation needs, he proved it by naming his former chief of staff to lead the Texas Transportation Commission.

Mr. Perry also reached inside the board room of the North Texas Tollway Authority Wednesday, selecting that agency’s vice chairman to also serve on the five-member commission, which sets policy for the nearly 15,000-employee Texas Department of Transportation.

The new chairman is Mr. Perry’s former aide, Deirdre Delisi, 35 of Austin. Ms. Delisi replaces Hope Andrade of San Antonio, who had been serving as interim chairman.

The appointment of NTTA vice chairman William Meadows, a Fort Worth businessman, fills the vacancy left open by the December death of commission chairman Ric Williamson. By appointing Mr. Meadows, the governor satisfied demands by North Texas lawmakers who had insisted that the Dallas-Fort Worth area be represented on the commission.


Commissioners meet once a month, and often travel throughout the state. They are paid $15,914 per year.

Mr. Williamson was an old friend of Mr. Perry’s whose outsized personality had helped push TxDOT’s pro-toll road policies through several sessions of the Legislature, until they ran into a road block last session.

Like Mr. Williamson, Ms. Delisi is a close ally of the governor, and is expected to use relationships she built with lawmakers as the governor’s chief o staff to shepherd the agency through the 2009 session, which is expected to be no less bumpy than last year’s.

“Texas faces serious challenges in providing a transportation infrastructure that will sustain our state’s rapid pace of population and trade growth," Gov. Perry said in a statement. "I am confident (Mr. Meadows’ and Ms. Delisi’s) contribution to the commission will maintain the momentum of the late Commissioner Ric Williamson’s pioneering vision.”

Mr. Perry had been said to favor appointing Ms. Delisi months ago, but had been bogged down in discussions with her state senator, Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, a leading critic of the transportation department.

Wednesday’s announcement indicates Sen. Watson has lifted those objections. In an interview last week, the senator complimented the governor for allowing him the time to meet several times with Ms. Delisi to discuss the approach she would bring to her new role.

In an interview just after her appointment, Ms. Delisi said she had promised to be honest, and make the agency more transparent.

“I have made a commitment to provide as much transparency as possible,” she said in an interview. “That is especially the case when it comes to the agency’s finances. People want to know how much money we have, where is the money coming from, how the money is being used.”

Toll roads — and private toll roads — will continue to be on the state’s agenda, she said, but she also said the commission will be looking for other solutions to build the new roads Texas needs.

“I am looking from a global perspective. I am not real interested in process, all I care about are results,” she said. “These solutions have to be come to us from a very cooperative approach. We want to see as many options on the table as possible.”

The appointment of Mr. Meadows takes the vice chairman of the one agency other than the Legislature with whom TxDOT has clashed most often, the NTTA, and makes him one of five members who will set transportation policy for all of Texas.

Mr. Meadows said his appointment forecasts a more harmonious approach. “I have a very good conversation with Gov Perry,” he said. “What I recognized first and foreman is that transportation is, if not the top priority, one of the very top priorities of this governor. These challenges are huge and must be met.”

He said he believes his appointment comes at a time when NTTA itself is looking for a more conciliatory approach with TxDOT, after nearly two years of bruising and highly visible clashes between the two.

“I think the board recognizes, and I know the commission does, that we need to work cooperatively,” Mr. Meadows said.

Those predictions will likely be tested not just in the Legislature, where NTTA and TxDOT are expected to fight over revisions to last session’s toll legislation, but also in the coming negotiations over the Trinity parkway, Southwestern Parkway and other North Texas-area toll projects.

Road lobby to lawmakers: If goal is to MAXIMIZE profits, use a private toll contract

Today the Joint Study Committee on Private Participation in Toll Projects (mandated by the private toll moratorium bill) invited boatloads of bureaucrats and private sector road building contractors (engineering firms, law firms, financial consultants, etc.) to sing the praises of private toll deals before state lawmakers (and the Governor's 3 appointees, all pro-privatization and pro-TxDOT...think people who believe TxDOT walks on water, tells no lies, and is always right).

A few government folks warned Public Private Partnerships (or PPPs) are not prudent or do-able in all situations, but none repudiated them outright or recommended the Legislature do away with them. At a Senate Transportation Committee hearing March 1, 2007, PPP expert Dennis Enright with Northwest Financial in New Jersey said PPPs cost 50% more, the private sector assumes NO FINANCIAL RISK (though PPP advocates claim "risk transfer" is the advantage of doing a private deal), and recommended toll projects always stay in the public sector. No such moral clarity today. One thing's clear: the highway lobby and the PPP chief cheerleader, Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation, have been very busy lobbying our elected officials since the hearing March 1, 2007.

It was all a taxpayer could do to keep his/her cool when listening to the spin and the brazen attempts to raid our wallets with the highest possible toll "the market will bear," simply because they can. The hogs at the trough are alive and well and far outnumber the ordinary citizens who can take off work to sit in a 6 hour hearing (with no breaks, but lawmakers always have a "back room" stocked with drinks and food both in Austin at today's meeting) before they can give a stitch of testimony against these sweetheart deals that amount to a public fleecing.

Read the TURF testimony (which we were not allowed to finish before being cut off) here.


A Secretary from the Florida Department of Transportation even admitted the primary funding source for their PPP deals is private activity bonds (or PABs), which is a pot of public money established by the feds to encourage private toll contracts (note how it's cloaked with "private" in the title).

VA Secretary of DOT a STAR!!!!!

Deputy Secretary of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), Barbara Reese, stole the show today and displayed the kind of integrity and leadership we need at TxDOT. We liked her so much we suggested the Legislature get her down here to run TxDOT post-haste!

She described how Virginia's DOT approaches transportation starting with "an unwavering commitment to the public good" (since someone has to pay that tax/toll) and total transparency ("no closed door deals"). They have a section of their web site where anyone at any time can examine the performance of any contract and, hence, the department's technical and financial decisions on behalf of taxpayers.

Reese also noted that they're very open and candid about what they're doing and why, and emphasized they involve the public at every step of the process. She was specifically asked by one of the committee members if they proceeded with a project if the public didn't want it, and she emphatically said, "No." What a novel concept, actually listening to the public who pays the bills...TxDOT and our Texas politicians have a lot to learn about integrity and serving the public interest from VDOT.

She said 80-90% of their road maintenance has been outsourced from government to the private sector which has subsequently reduced the number of VDOT employees from 12,000 down to 8,600. Here's the kicker. If a VDOT project wasn't done in time or came in overbudget, "you have a lot of explaining to do and possibly could lose your job." How refreshing! A government agency that will actually fire people who don't deliver for the taxpayers! I'm concluding TxDOT's recent $1 billion accounting error and ad campaign selling tolls roads and the Trans Texas Corridor to the public using TAXPAYER MONEY would have resulted in heads rolling at VDOT. Where's the accountability at TxDOT?

Hogs at the trough get trotted out

Then out came the private sector firms (who will profit handsomely from PPPs and toll roads) blowing sunshine in lawmakers' ears about what the private sector brings to the table. They talked about "risk transfer" and tried to claim since a private lender is involved in private deals, that the deal is more scrutinized than a public sector model. Oh really, is that how we arrived at the current subprime mortgage crisis? Because lenders were so good at "scrutinizing" buyers' ability to make payments? Let's remember who bailed that mess out...we the TAXPAYERS did. There is no private "risk" anymore. It's the taxpayers, the taxpayers, and ONLY the taxpayers who pay the price for corporate America's mistakes and our government's malfeasance.

URS and other companies who do these traffic and revenue toll viability studies are known for perpetually OVERprojecting the expected amount of traffic that will take these toll roads, and when the cars don't materialize, it's once again the taxpayers who bail out the failed toll road, like we did on the failed Camino Columbia toll road in Laredo (and there's plenty of examples of failed toll roads in Florida, and in VA and elsewhere). It's a total scam, they'll say and do anything to get these toll roads built, sell the bonds, get their money, and leave the taxpayers holding the bag. I've even heard companies admit they can't tell TxDOT the truth because then they'll never hire them for these studies again. It's all about the money, folks. The public good gets checked at the door. It's been long since buried in Texas.

Very few start-up toll roads are financially viable

Well, the fact most of these toll projects aren't 100% toll sustainable has been abundantly obvious since day one of the Governor and Legislature's shift to tolling. They're using all kinds of public subsidies to make the projects work so that they can still toll you! Wisdom and prudence would say if the road can't be paid for by the tolls, then don't build it as a toll road, period. No so with today's politicians. They instead choose to subsidize it so they can still tap the vein and get their revenue stream.

So don't believe them when tollers claim you have a choice whether to pay to take a toll road. No you don't, a heap of YOUR public money is going into nearly every one of these projects, but you won't be able to drive on them without paying a toll, too, in a double or even triple tax scheme. Why do you think they're tolling existing freeways? Because they can make an extra BIG heap of cash off roads already built and paid for!

Any discussion of market valuation is always very revealing. The purpose of market-based tolls is to "maximize the profits" from the road (as we warned when we tried to kill this provision in the bill last year). Lawmakers and private firms said so repeatedly at the hearing. This shift to tolling has always been about creating a new revenue stream for road builders without having to raise the gas tax. Politicians honestly think raising the gas tax will bring worse political fallout than tolling. Well, they're learning that's a false hope. See, it's not that they're averse to raising your taxes, they do it all the time, they think tolls can ultimately be blamed on local government decisions so they basically think they get to pass the buck with tolling. There's no question that paying tolls on all new lanes/roads will be the largest tax increase in Texas history, period, and there's blame at EVERY level of government.

PPPs more expensive than public toll roads

The private firms admitted PPPs cost the taxpayers more, not to mention loss of control, but they think it's justified since in some circumstances the road can't be built without the private money since many public tolling entities have maxed their proverbial bond debt credit cards. So instead of restrain government spending and rein-in the prolific use of leveraged debt to get new roads built, their argument is the public should pay even more to have a private company build, maintain, and control our roads in 50+ year deals for the ultimate quick fix.

The road building industry is hitting tough times, like all of us hit hard by the recession, so instead of tighten their belts like we have to, they want the taxpayers to suspend all rational fiscal policy and allow PPPs to continue in Texas when we can least afford them.

Tolls not a "user" fee

Sasha Page of Infrastructure Management Group (IMG), a financial firm that consults on such deals, even admitted the private sector attraction to toll roads is due to the "monopolistic characteristics" of toll roads. Cha ching! You got it! Again, the testimony of industry experts time and again shows toll roads are monopolies, they are not "free market" as tollers try to tell us. And, tolling is not a user fee, it's a tax, especially when they use a mix of other public funds to build them.

Market valuation, in particular, is another Robin Hood scheme to jack up the toll beyond the actual cost of the road and milk that money from one set of motorists and give it to another set. A user fee is directly tied to the user of the road as it is with traditional turnpikes. Toll advocates complain the gas tax is flawed because the payer is too far removed from actual road use because all the money gets put in a pot and gets redistributed. Well, that precisely what they're doing with market valuation and PPPs. All told, they're putting the money in a pot and spending it elsewhere, not on the road where the toll is collected.

Advocates will say it's not fair to raise the gas tax for everyone, like in rural Texas, to solve congestion in Houston or Dallas. First of all, rural areas get far more back in gas taxes than they put in and urban areas have donated to rural areas since the gas tax first started. There simply isn't enough population in rural areas to support any highway being built/maintained. The bottom line is this: we've all decided public infrastructure and connectivity of all our roads, whether urban or rural, are important and necessary and we've all agreed to pool the money collected for roadways to support and maintain a STATEWIDE highway system. All Texans benefit from our highway system, whether it's to get to work, get goods to market, or to visit Grandma in another town, we all use and need our highway system.

Toll advocates bring up this straw man gas tax argument to stir-up strife and division among various regions as an excuse to push the most expensive transportation tax, toll taxes, on all of us without a public vote.

Market valuation is hard for politicians to sell back home

Representative Wayne Smith, who is the House author of SB 792 that unleashed market valuation on Texans, told Geoff Yarema, with the law firm that represents TxDOT in PPPs, that he's having trouble selling market valuation to constituents. "Telling people that we're extracting the maximum revenue from a toll road to go build more toll roads where we extract the maximum revenue is hard to sell back home, can you help us with that?" Smith asked.

You bet that's hard to "sell" to constituents, because they recognize runaway taxation and gouging when they see it! They're tired of being gouged at the gas pump and add market-based tolls on top of it, and you have an all out taxpayer revolt brewing. We tried to warn these guys market valuation is DISASTROUS public policy and we begged them to kill it, but lawmakers wanted to go home at the end of the last session rather than fight with the Governor over toll road policy. Some of them may well be going home from Austin for good when this mess hits the fan in the voting booth!

Reason Foundation infecting lawmakers

Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation again suggested that the federal law prohibiting the public and private sector from competing with one another on such contracts ought to be repealed. I repeatedly ran into the Reason Foundation lobbyists in lawmakers' offices at the Capitol during the 80th Legislative session. They have infected the Texas Public Policy Foundation and other "free market" think tanks convincing them toll roads and privatizing infrastructure is free market and the best way to finance transportation. But for all the reasons laid out above and throughout this web site, toll roads as conceived under PPPs and the new policies under Bush and Perry are anything but free market or good public policy. It's the MOST EXPENSIVE, monopolistic, runaway, Robin Hood form of taxation put into the hands of unaccountable bureaucrats.

Mr. 39%, Rick Perry, to run for governor, AGAIN!


Link to article here.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry to run for re-election in 2010
Thursday, April 17, 2008
By GROMER JEFFERS JR. and CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News
Gov. Rick Perry told The Dallas Morning News on Thursday that he would seek re-election as governor in 2010.

During a break in a Republican Governors Association forum being held in Grapevine, Mr. Perry said that he would like to return for a third full term as governor.

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Tell us: Will you vote for Gov. Perry in 2010?

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 Texans my not want a governor to hang around that long
When asked whether the gubernatorial field would include Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and himself, Mr. Perry responded , “I don’t know about them, but it will be Perry in 2010.”

“I don’t know about the other two. You need to ask them.”


Mrs. Hutchison appeared unaffected by the governor’s statement. She has earlier said that her decision to run for governor would not be swayed this time by other candidates in the race.

“I am encouraged by the growing number of Texans asking me to return home to run for governor to provide leadership for our state,” she said in a statement Thursday.

“It is too early to make an announcement about the 2010 race. Right now I remain committed to serving the people of Texas in the United States Senate and helping our Republican candidates win crucial elections this fall.”

Mr. Dewhurst also said he would weigh his options later.

"My focus is on the 2009 legislative session and continuing to build on our successes over the past five years. Whatever I decide to do after that will be based on what's best for Texas," he said.

Since winning re-election with just 39 percent of the vote in a four-way field in 2006, Mr. Perry has held out the possibility of seeking an unprecedented third four-year term. But his statement Thursday is his most definitive yet that he would do so, though much could change in the two-and-a-half years until the next gubernatorial election.

Mr. Perry will soon become the longest-serving governor in Texas history. He took over for George W. Bush when Mr. Bush resigned in late 2000 to become president. The state has no term limits for governor.

Last year, Mr. Perry had expressed doubt as to whether he wanted another term, saying he would look at doing other things.

It has been speculated that Mr. Perry was positioning himself to be a vice presidential candidate, but he said Thursday that he would not accept such an offer from Arizona Sen. John McCain, the party’s all-but-certain nominee.

Longtime Republican consultant Bill Miller said the governor’s remark not only tips his hand, but tips the political balance.

“Most politicians who have been around awhile understand that when you become a lame duck, you really lose leverage and you lose your ability to get some things done, particularly hard things,” Mr. Miller said.

Eight months before a legislative session, it might be wise to strengthen your clout with lawmakers by letting them know you intend to be in the executive office for awhile, Mr. Miller said. “It’s the nature of politics.”

As for Mr. Perry’s election chances, Mr. Miller said he expects the governor will meet formidable competition in the 2010 GOP primary. And being the longest serving governor means you are not just battle-tested, but battle-scarred as well, he said.

“He’s got the most recent election and his polling numbers indicate it will not be an easy task for him to be reelected,” Mr. Miller said.

But it would be foolish to underestimate Rick Perry, he said. “The fact is that he’s never lost a political race and he’s had many, many of them.”

Democratic Party chief Boyd Richie suggested Mr. Perry has a lot to run on, including several school funding crises, the Texas Youth Commission sexual abuse scandal, soaring college tuitions, sprouting toll ways and more than 1 million children lacking health insurance.

“That's the record of Rick Perry and the Republican politicians who masquerade as our leaders while serving the interests of special interest contributors and cronies. Texas Democrats look forward to 2010,” Mr. Richie said.

Mr. Perry also said Thursday that he thought Tom Craddick would win re-election as House speaker. Mr. Craddick, embattled over his leadership style and his declaration that he had absolute authority in running the House last year, is expected to face several challengers for the job, even if Republicans maintain their thin majority in the House.

Senate Transportation Committee debates road funding, questions market valuation

Overall, today's Senate Transportation Committee hearing studying several interim charges on public-private partnerships (PPPs or CDAs in TX), market valuation, the Trans Texas Corridor and road financing, at least began a much needed evaluation of the many areas of concern to the taxpaying public. That said, there were also plenty of political bombs dropped and even ultimatums like "over my dead body" to keep the marathon hearing nerve rattling for what's become one of the most politically radioactive issues in the State.

Of the nine committee members, 6 showed up: Kim Brimer, John Carona, Robert Nichols, Florence Shapiro, Kirk Watson, and Tommy Williams. Notably absent, as usual, was San Antonio & Hill County Senator Jeff Wentworth. Our favorite comments came from Senator Williams who told TxDOT that it'll be "over my dead body" before TxDOT takes toll revenues from Houston to fund northern or southern segments of the Trans Texas Corridor. His message: keep your mitts off our region's money.

This discussion occurred during the CDA panel where the Committee trotted out Jose Maria Lopez of Cintra, David Zachry of Zachry Construction (Cintra's partner on many toll projects and the Trans Texas Corridor), the Associated General Contractors, and an attorney who represents the public sector on public-private deals who said the decision on the maximum toll rate and escalation formula cannot be left to the private sector. Amen!


Lopez and Zachry agreed that:


1) It's difficult to determine a "market price" for a toll road without a previous sale price (like a home)

2) That the private sector can offer more up-front cash than the public sector despite its tax-free, low interest loans

3) That there is no single market value for any given toll project since competitors would use varying formulas and criteria and would naturally arrive at different numbers.

Senator Nichols, former Transportation Commissioner, had offered up a new way to do buyback provisions in CDAs that would give the State a guaranteed not to exceed buyout price in the contract so there's no guesswork or court battle over the pricetag of a toll road should the State need to buy it back from a private entity.

MARKET VALUATION CHALLENGED

Then TxDOT hinted they could raid "excess toll revenues" (code for profit) to fund non-toll viable segments illiciting Williams' ultimatum. "Once you redistribute money it's no longer a user fee; it's a tax," Williams said. We'd argue that ANY money forcibly taken from taxpayers and given to the government is a TAX, not a fee to begin with, but his point is well taken.

In TURF's testimony, we addressed that aspect of the new "market valuation" scheme, which the Governor injected into his counterfeit moratorium bill SB 792, calling a spade a spade. Market valuation is nothing more than a Robin Hood scheme to milk taxes from one set of motorists to pay for other projects elsewhere, which is horrific public policy and smacks of a slush fund for politicians to raid for any number of projects without accountability or a direct path to track the tax collected to the tax spent.

It was clear that "market valuation" and the words "financial terms" (to be agreed upon) had any number of definitions even among lawmakers who voted for the bill. Senator Nichols expressed concern that 3 bidders could give 3 totally different market values to the same toll road making TxDOT's insistence on locking local toll authorities into a single market value pricetag for the life of a contract was as foolish as it was impractical. There was much debate over TxDOT's interpretation of the market valuation language in SB 792 versus lawmakers' and local entities' definition.

In fact, the North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) revealed new details in the prolonged Hwy 161 market value fight with TxDOT showing TxDOT tried to force the NTTA to agree on no less than 200 different financial terms before agreement could be reached so the project could move forward. And the 200 items delved into insignificant minutiae like grass-cutting measures and requiring no more than 20 pieces of litter on the roadside.

WASTE AND ABUSE

This is what our hard-earned tax dollars have been wasted on...more than 60 meetings of taxpayer-paid bureaucrats fighting over the amount to gouge motorists to use a public highway. In the end, TxDOT believes they could have extracted an additional half BILLION out of our pockets in up-front cash on the project (that the taxpayers would then have to pay back with INTEREST if TxDOT had had its way).

Williams rightly agreed that pulling the "excess revenue" out of a toll project on the front end carries interest and debt (versus extracting excess revenue when and if the toll road produces the cash at a later date), not to mention higher toll rates (though TxDOT insisted it wouldn't increase the toll rate...yeah right!). He repeatedly said they (the authors of the bill) didn't want the market valuation language in the bill (inserted by Dictator Perry, but they certainly could have stood up to the Governor and told him NO), and that he'd be more than happy to see it go away next session. Here, here!

Senator Carona also dispelled the myth that private operators take the risk from the State on public-private toll projects therefore justifying the guaranteed profit in these contracts. He said: "Private investors don't want the risk either, only the most profitable, low-risk projects like we do."

TxDOT's TWO-STEP

Senators Carona and Shapiro were flabbergasted that Houston's Grand Parkway negotiations with TxDOT allowed a non-CDA approach when TxDOT FORCED the NTTA into an up front cash payment in competition with the private sector (Cintra) for Hwy 121. The Harris County Toll Authority attorney then explained their approach, "we weren't trying to milk this project." It's clear TxDOT milked North Texas, though. TxDOT apparently backed-off in Houston, but stuck it to the taxpayers insisting on $3 billion in quick cash (in borrowed cash, no less, based upon future profits) from the Hwy 121 deal in North Texas.

TRANS TEXAS CORRIDOR

All of these revelations preceded the Trans Texas Corridor discussion where Senator Shapiro asked the burning question: why 1,200 feet wide and why not expand existing highways instead of building the Trans Texas Corridor? Of course TxDOT gave it's usual convoluted ramblings trying to convince the senators they may not use that much right of way and "assured" them they'd expand existing right of way first wherever possible. Who are they kidding? Their environmental documents submitted to the feds will clearly authorize 1,200 feet of right of way regardless of what TxDOT tells the senators in some hearing. The same is true of utilizing existing right of way first. That alternative isn't even on the table in the current draft environmental study for TTC-69. TxDOT can do a dance for the senators today and steal our land and livelihoods tomorrow.

A suggested solution: Make it law to limit the right of way to 400 feet (the standard for a fully built-out interstate highway) and make it law to force TxDOT to expand existing right of way before embarking on ANY new corridor ventures.

TxDOT also tried to assure Senator Nichols that it will listen to and heed the advice given to it by the TTC Advisory Committees and Working Groups, but then said that tomorrow the Transportation Commission would vote on policy changes to the Trans Texas Corridor regarding use of existing right of way, bisecting land, and converting non-tolled highways into tolled highways (ie - SH 59 and SH 77) among other things, WITHOUT hearing word-one from these Advisory Committees!

Also of note, the counties who had representatives before the Committee today singing the praises of the TTC and toll roads all have goodies being granted to them in tomorrow's Transportation Commissioner Meeting. Quid Pro Quo? Sure looks like it.

That was the most appalling aspect to today's meeting, overall. Listening to elected officials and bureaucrats alike promote the Trans Texas Corridor, knowing the destruction it'll bring. Senator Williams said he supported the TTC-69 despite the farmers with pitchforks! The Lufkin Mayor Jack Gorden said the TTC-69 would increase the standard of living in East Texas. Oh really, Sir, how does increasing one's taxes and stealing one's land and livelihood increase someone's standard of living? Then, Bowie County Judge James Carlow welcomed the TTC to his community saying: "we're ready to give the land right now. Come build it." It's not YOUR land to give, Mr. Carlow. What a slap in the face to his constituents. This deplorable behavior is easy to explain however. These officials have been heavily lobbied USING OUR OWN TAXPAYER DOLLARS by registered LOBBYISTS and TxDOT, and no doubt promised the moon to get on board. Just look at the goodies the Commission is doling out at their meeting tomorrow.

Let the taxpayer revolt kick it up a notch. Let these elected officials hear from you with your thoughts on their "representation" of YOU before this committee.

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