NYP: Public private 'poppycock'

Link to article here.

‘Public-private’ poppycock

By NICOLE GELINAS

NEW YORK POST

Last Updated: 12:21 AM, January 31, 2012

Posted: 10:18 PM, January 30, 2012

Gov. Cuomo wants to “build a new New York” — but he doesn’t want to pay for it. To get billions for construction, he’s turning to “public-private partnerships.” Sorry. Just as there’s no free lunch, there’s no free bridge.

Three weeks ago, in his State of the State Address, Cuomo vowed to “improve or replace more than 100 bridges.” The marquee project is a new Tappan Zee Bridge, to replace the one that’s falling down. It could cost from $5 billion to more than twice that.

In the real world, there’s one way to pay: Hike tolls (now $3 to $5 for cars), and, if needed, borrow the rest. But “even a significant toll increase is unlikely to fully fund the project,” as Merrill Lynch and Loop Capital warned then-Gov. David Paterson in a report two years ago. Charge nosebleed tolls and too many drivers would choose another route.

New York could borrow more, but taxpayers (already on the line for lots of existing state debt) would have to pay back the money.

Cuomo would leave these worries in the rearview mirror. He promises to minimize state bridge spending by “leverag[ing] state investment by a multiple of 20 to 1.” For every dollar the state spends, somebody else would put in $20.

Last week, Cuomo dropped a clue as to who and how. He attended an event headlined “Successful Public-Private Partnerships: Creating Jobs by Reinvesting in Our Infrastructure.” Under a standard “PPP,” a global company would borrow money and build the bridge, then collect the tolls and pay back the debt, making a tidy profit for as long as a century.

That sounds great — except for one detail. Whoever builds the Tappan Zee — the state, a big firm like Skanska or the Queen of England — the numbers don’t add up. The project still costs the same. And people will still pay only a certain toll before they stop going.

In fact, the PPP finances could be worse. The state can borrow tax-exempt, meaning it has lower borrowing costs. (Investors in state bonds don’t mind getting a lower interest rate, because they get the tax break.) Private companies can’t do that.

The difference could be big. For the state to borrow $10 billion for 30 years might cost $620 million annually — whereas a private company would pay $753 million. That annual gap works out to $2.1 billion today, in one lump sum — enough for many little projects.

Wouldn’t the private sector be so efficient that it would save money building and running the bridge? Maybe not. Private companies are efficient because they have to compete; this private company wouldn’t compete with anyone. It would be a monopoly, like Con Ed. Its captive “customer” would be the state.

The same is true of Cuomo’s proposal to build a convention center and casino in Queens. Genting, Cuomo’s preferred company, would pay the $4 billion, but only if New York gives it a regional monopoly on gambling, plus tax breaks. This isn’t healthy competition, but a protection racket.

As the state’s financial advisers said two years ago, a successful PPP requires “complex negotiations,” “high procurement costs,” “time-consuming implementation” and “continuous monitoring of service and quality standards.”

Hmm. A state that can’t build stuff the easy way won’t do better the hard way. Involving the private sector doesn’t eliminate the risk that taxpayers and drivers might get stuck with the bill for politicians’ giveaways, either.

Last week’s PPP event offered a clue to that, too. Although it covered a topic that could affect tens of billions of dollars in future state and toll-payer spending over many decades, the sponsors — the Democratic Governors’ Association — barred the door to the press, even if reporters promised not to eat the food.

You weren’t welcome unless you had thousands of dollars — up to $50,000 — to donate. Some toll. Nor has Cuomo told the public which business executives decided it was worth it.

Yet this wasn’t politics but policy. What were they afraid we’d learn?

The real answer is in the budget. New York spent $132.7 billion last year — including $86.3 billion on social services and education. It should be able to find bridge money the old-fashioned way: responsible budgeting. No one wants to donate thousands of dollars for that.

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/public_private_poppycock_Y1C0QYyVj2MOsAS1cheOzH#ixzz1lNyEJwb2
 

MoPac to be tolled and sold-off to private corporation

Link to article here.

MoPac toll lane project finally gaining speed

By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Published: 9:49 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012

The move to expand MoPac Boulevard, which for several years has crawled along like 5 p.m. traffic on that overloaded highway, is about to enter the express lane.

"I would characterize it as a green-light go," Mike Heiligenstein, executive director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, said last week.

A federally required environmental study is in its final stages, with approval likely in the fall. The mobility authority, deputized by the Texas Department of Transportation to develop the project, has refined what it will do: add a fourth express toll lane on each side of MoPac (Loop 1) from just north of Lady Bird Lake to near Parmer Lane in far North Austin.

Alongside the road from West Sixth Street to north of RM 2222, at a cost of about $20 million, would be 7.1 miles of tan-and-white, concrete sound walls 8 to 20 feet high. This would complete a quest of more than a decade by neighborhoods alongside MoPac for some relief from the noisy highway.

Construction on the $250 million project should start by 2014, agency officials say. If so, those two express lanes would be open to traffic by 2016. A significant portion of the cost would cover the construction of new flyovers connecting the toll lanes and West Cesar Chavez Street. The new lanes from the river to RM 2222 would be created largely from the existing pavement by narrowing lanes slightly and reducing the width of shoulders. North of 2222, the project generally calls for adding pavement.

The toll lanes would be dynamic, meaning the tolls would fluctuate depending on the speed of the traffic — as the number of vehicles in the toll lanes increases and traffic slows, the tolls would rise to discourage more drivers from entering those lanes.

Partnership possible

The mobility authority is strongly considering using a public-private partnership to finance, build and perhaps even operate the toll lanes, a departure from the agency's stance just a few years ago when such long-term agreements fell into disfavor across the state. After soliciting interest from the toll road industry last year, the authority heard from 22 companies or consortiums that might want to bid on some sort of construction, financing or operations deal.

The agency, in building and expanding the 183-A tollway in Cedar Park and beginning construction on the Manor Expressway (a tollway along U.S. 290 East), has racked up about $800 million in debt, which officials said could increase interest rates for further borrowing and thus nudge them toward an arrangement where the MoPac debt would fall on the private sector.

But officials emphasized that the project could still be done in a more traditional way, with the authority borrowing money on the bond market, then building and operating the toll lanes. A decision on which direction to go should be made this year or early next year.

Either way, the authority already has a commitment from TxDOT for $67.5 million, more than a quarter of the project cost, and has applied for a $72 million low-interest loan through a U.S. Department of Transportation program. Bond financing, or the private sector, might have to supply less than half the project cost.

Tolls would be used to pay back that federal loan and other borrowed money, support annual operating costs and, the authority hopes, spin off profit that could be used to build other roads.

"We look at the (traffic and revenue) projections, and it looks really strong," Heiligenstein said. "Because on MoPac, there ain't an alternative, and it's just going to get more and more crowded. You're not dealing with some area that's not fully developed like 183-A or the Manor Expressway. You're dealing with a known quantity."

Either way, what ends up on the ground will be another new transportation animal for an area that has seen a menagerie of change in the past decade.

Changing rates

Many large U.S. metro areas over the past generation have installed on urban highways some version of high-occupancy vehicle lanes, known colloquially as car pool lanes, sometimes allowing solo drivers to use them as well if they pay a toll. Central Texas never joined that movement, and the MoPac express lanes won't change that.

Instead, the added northbound and southbound lanes would be open only to those willing to pay a toll, to transit buses, to registered van pools and to emergency vehicles.

But the real departure would be the nature of the tolls themselves, which would change minute by minute depending on the level of traffic in the lane. The point, Heiligenstein said, would be to keep the toll at a level calibrated to keep speeds in the lane at 50 mph or more.

If traffic gets too thick and traffic begins to slow, the toll would instantly increase in an effort to discourage some people from choosing to use the express lane. Signs well upstream of the express lane entrances would alert people to the current toll rate. Though the Katy Freeway on Interstate 10 and U.S. 290 in Houston have something similar (with a schedule of tolls tied to the hour of the day), no other city in Texas has a road in place using constantly changing tolls.

"We'll provide reliability," Heiligenstein said. "If we don't provide a lane that has a reliable time between Point A and Point T, then we've screwed up."

Actual rates not set

The toll lanes, which would be on the left side nearest the center median, would be segregated from MoPac's three free lanes on each side by a series of plastic pylons. Drivers would be able to enter the northbound lanes only at the south end (through new bridges from West Cesar Chavez Street and the MoPac bridge over the lake) and north of RM 2222, where drivers could also exit. Southbound drivers would enter near Parmer Lane and south of Far West Boulevard, where they could also exit. New bridges at the south end would allow direct access to West Cesar Chavez and downtown.

So, how much might it cost to go the 11 miles from Cesar Chavez to Parmer? Wilbur Smith Associates, which has been doing traffic and revenue studies on the project for the mobility authority, has indicated to officials that the project would be financially feasible with a top rate initially of $2.57 in 2011 dollars. Since the road wouldn't open until 2016, that would equate to about $3 on opening day. Officials emphasized that the actual toll rates have not been set yet and that Wilbur Smith later will produce a more rigorous "investment-grade" study.

Heiligenstein foresees a minimum toll of about 50 cents to go the length of the road, even when MoPac is deserted late at night. In reality, few people are likely to take the toll lanes at times like that, but Heiligenstein has said the authority wouldn't want to confuse the public by having the lanes be free part of the time.

The agency, which in the past couple of years has hosted several open houses about the project along the MoPac corridor, anticipates having two more in March, as well as a public hearing that month required under federal law for the environmental study.

The mobility authority has established a website, www.mopacexpress.com , with more information about the project.

___________________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

Will the new MoPac toll lane project cater to the rich and leave the rest of us behind?

Ben Wear, Getting There

 
Austin American Statesman

Published: 9:32 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012

Those of you who paused on the front page on your way to my column (yes, I know, it's hard to wait) might have noticed a truly excellent story about MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and the unusual express toll lanes in the works.

What officials have in mind for what will be a fourth lane added to each side of MoPac north of Lady Bird Lake are "dynamic" tolls, charges that would change minute by minute in response to traffic volume. These new-fangled toll lanes, along with other forms of so-called congestion pricing, have been proliferating around the country, and enough of them are in existence (30 urban highways have them, and 11 are under construction) that the U.S. Government Accountability Office decided it was time to take a look.

The GAO's verdict: Such lanes do in fact ease traffic, including on nontolled lanes nearby, but raise worrisome questions about transportation equity between the well-heeled and people with holes in their heels.

The 14 projects the agency reviewed "have generally shown reduced congestion, increased speeds, and decreased travel times in the priced and unpriced lanes," according to the report released Jan. 12. However, in some cases the projects actually added lanes to the road — as will be the case with MoPac — making it hard to differentiate between the congestion-reducing effects of variable toll rates and simply adding another lane.

Both factors will be at work on MoPac, according to Mike Heiligenstein, executive director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, which is putting together the express lanes project.

The dynamic pricing, he argues, will assure that something close to the theoretical maximum of 1,800 to 2,000 cars an hour go through that lane, even at the heart of morning or evening rush. Those cars right now are trudging along on MoPac's six existing lanes, or perhaps on parallel arterials like Exposition Boulevard, Jefferson Street or Lamar Boulevard. Or maybe even, for the transportation cognoscenti (people who, say, grew up in Tarrytown) on even more obscure neighborhood streets.

That's one answer, Heiligenstein said, to the equity question. Those people paying to drive much faster will make it possible for the rest of us to drive less slowly in the lanes alongside. Beyond that, he said, the agency's experience with its only currently operating toll road (183-A in Cedar Park) is that 80 percent of drivers use the road infrequently, once a week or less.

The other 20 percent, pretty much everyday users, pay the bulk of the tolls that in turn pay off the debt used to build the road in the first place.

"Now those 20 percent may be in Cadillacs," Heiligenstein said, perhaps showing his age with that choice of luxury car, "and if they are, fine. They're paying for those 80 percent who want to use it once or twice a week."

Meanwhile, traffic on parallel and free-to-drive U.S. 183, a nightmare before 183-A opened in 2007, is now relatively tranquil.

Presumably, a similar mix would occur on MoPac, with the hoi polloi (including newspaper writers) using it sparingly when circumstances make it logical to pay $3 or $4 to get north or south quickly.

Undoubtedly however, those with money will be able to use the variable-price lanes more often than those on a budget.

It may become something of a spectator sport for those caught in MoPac congestion to count the number of Lexuses, Mercedeses and Escalades that fly by in the express lane.

It ain't necessarily fair. But in the words of John F. Kennedy (who certainly could have afforded to use this lane), life is unfair. And it will help pass the time.

NTTA finally adopts stronger ethics policy


Link to article here.

Already under investigation by the FBI, it's about time the NTTA gets its house in order. I don't have a lot of confidence that conflicts of interest will be eliminated or that these policies will be sufficiently policed.

Officials applaud NTTA’s new ethics policies

BY MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER
Dallas Morning News
02 February 2012
 
Some of the most powerful and vocal critics of the North Texas Tollway Authority lined up Thursday to applaud changes adopted by the authority in the past 90 days, especially the NTTA board’s acceptance of strong new ethics rules and changes in the way it will select major consulting firms.

Two state lawmakers and the county judges from each of the four counties where NTTA operates said the authority has energetically embraced scores of recommendations contained in an audit issued in October.

“It really is remarkable to see the progress that has been made,” said Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, who led an unsuccessful effort last year to pass legislation subjecting NTTA to state oversight.

Anchia’s concerns about NTTA’s board came after it voted 5-4 in August 2010 to abruptly scuttle a contract selection process that would have replaced two of NTTA’s most longest-serving consulting firms. Reports by The Dallas Morning News about collection policies for drivers who don’t pay their tolls and concerns about potential conflicts of interest among board members also convinced Anchia that NTTA needed outside scrutiny, he has said.

In October, NTTA also announced that the FBI is investigating potential conflicts of interest among current and previous board members. No one has been charged, though NTTA has agreed to cover legal expenses related to the investigation for director Dave Denison of Lewisville.

To fend off Anchia’s bill, NTTA instead agreed to pay for an outside audit controlled by county judges from Dallas, Denton, Tarrant, and Collin counties.

That report, released in October, contained 82 recommendations for changes, including 11 dealing with how it selects it major contractors.

On Thursday, NTTA Chairman Kenneth Barr told Anchia and the judges that about 40 percent of the recommendations have been implemented, and he promised to report back every 90 days until all of them are resolved. State Rep. Linda Harper Brown, R-Irving, was also in attendance at the board meeting.

In particular, Barr touted the ethics policy that for the first time will require board members to disclose their sources of income and business partnerships, a change from the “anything-goes” culture that previously existed at NTTA, according to critics.

Barr also said that all contracts now held by major legacy consultants, some of which have worked for NTTA or its predecessor agency since 1954, will be rebid before the end of the year.

When the contracts are put out for bid, a new rule will impose an absolute “cone of silence” between board members and firms seeking to win those contracts.


Among those patting Barr and the NTTA executive staff on the back were some who have been harshly critical of the authority’s handling of ethics and related issues in the past.

“I applaud the effort of the staff in seeing this through to this point,” said board member Victor Vandergriff, previous NTTA chairman. He had tried but failed to get the ethics policies changes that have since been adopted.

George “Tex” Quesada, a Dallas lawyer appointed late last year to be one of Dallas County’s two members on the board, said the NTTA leadership’s willingness to make changes recommended in the audit has impressed him.

“I was new when this [audit] came back, so it would have been easy to say there was reluctance to embrace these changes,” he said. “But there was very little pushback and institutional resistance to doing these things. The board and the staff have implemented these recommendations lock, stock and barrel.”

Denton County Judge Mary Horn singled out Barr “for immediately grabbing the ball and divvying them out to all the different committees.”

Behind the accolades, however, hovered notes of caution.

Collin County Judge Keith Self, who alone among the county judges had strongly supported Anchia’s legislation, said checking off the items on the to-do list NTTA was given in October is a good start, but only a start.

“What we are really talking about is the need for a change of culture, and that goes beyond a checklist,” Self said. “I want to ask you: Is that what we are seeing happening here?”

Barr said it was.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins also cautioned Barr that some of the dozens of items the NTTA has indicated are “implemented” are really works in progress. The judges will be looking not just at the policies, but the results of the policies to see if real change takes place, he said.

Anchia also suggested that NTTA should rethink new rules that appear to decrease the role diversity will play in selecting new contractors.

Currently, the new ethics rules bar board members from voting on contracts that might benefit their spouses, parents or children.

Anchia said the new policy should include some restrictions on when board members can vote on issues relating to cousins, siblings, and others not currently covered.

Anchia said NTTA board members will be asked to attend interim sessions of the House Transportation Committee later this year as the Legislature considers whether additional changes will be needed in 2013.

Foes threaten legal action to stop streetcar

Foes threaten legal action to derail downtown streetcar

By Viana Davila, Express-News

February 1, 2012

Opponents of the planned downtown streetcar system said Tuesday that county officials broke a promise with voters when they agreed to use advanced transportation district funds to help fund the project.

The group contends that multiple pieces of campaign literature used to promote the ATD tax in 2004 explicitly stated the money would not go toward light rail or toll roads.

A streetcar, they said, is light rail by another name.

“I think the average person would say this is light rail,” said Jeff Judson, an Olmos Park city councilman, senior fellow with the Heartland Institute and former president of the Texas Public Policy Network, a conservative think tank that played a large role in the defeat of a 2000 tax increase that would have funded a 53-mile light rail system here.


Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Foes-threaten-legal-action-to-derail-transit-2884177.php#ixzz1lNzslC5T

_______________________________________________________________

Mr. Rodriguez is correct: using ATD funds for streetcars (light rail by another name) breaks a promise to voters, but it also breaches the trust with taxpayers in another way -- it raids 10 years worth of ATD ROAD funds to pay for a transit project that only services downtown, where there's NO congestion. Meanwhile, the northside remains locked in the congestion torture chamber known as 281 & 1604 being scolded with this propaganda -- "There's no money to fix those roads without tolls." Baloney! The PEOPLE had better wise-up and throw these tone-deaf, irresponsible, drunk-with-their-own-power, sold-out-to-special-interests politicians out of office!

Using ATD Funds for Streetcars Breaks Promise

By George Rodriguez

Op/Ed

San Antonio Express-News

Sunday, January 29, 2012

The liberal majority on the San Antonio City Council and Bexar County Commissioners Court have a habit of ignoring the views of citizens in order to subsidize elite slivers of the population. The San Antonio Tea Party’s objective is to challenge this habit, and ensure every citizen understands how elected officials, local as well as federal, spend our money.

VIA’s streetcar project is a classic study of government arrogance and waste. In voting down a one-fourth-cent sales tax by a 70/30 margin, citizens made clear in 2000 they did not want money wasted on rail transit. Showing they will support transportation improvements that relieve congestion, in 2004, voters approved a one-fourth-cent sales tax for an Advanced Transportation District (ATD) to improve mobility.

Now comes the bait and switch.


The liberal majority, led by County Judge Nelson Wolff and Mayor Julián Castro, quietly laid the groundwork to build the light-rail system that is their obsession. They decided to bypass local voters by committing existing funds to build the first phase of their light-rail system. Such a move will ostensibly improve their chances of getting federal grants for a larger light-rail system. Phase One is a streetcar system, a smaller, slower form of light rail that travels in the streets and operates at average speeds of under 10 mph. Knowing voters would not approve tax or bond funding, VIA, the city and the county miraculously “found” more than $200 million in their budgets, despite many other pressing needs for those funds, not least of which are growing congestion problems in many key corridors into our city.
VIA cannibalized bus replacement accounts and the city took “unused” bond proceeds from streets projects. Most egregious, with the tacit approval of the Texas Department of Transportation, the county committed the next 10 years of TxDOT’s ATD sales tax revenues for this single rail project — funds voters in 2004 were explicitly told would not be spent on light rail and that would have otherwise been available for adding roadway capacity in parts of the city with real congestion problems.

Who will benefit from less than five miles of downtown streetcar lines costing (before inevitable overruns) $239 million? Certainly not the majority of citizens driving through the congestion on I-10, I-35, U.S. 281 and Loop 1604 or navigating the clogged streets that feed these major commuter roads. The city and county claim benefits for downtown revitalization. But why should the many pay to reward a few property owners, including those along the Broadway streetcar line already awarded multimillion-dollar city subsidies for their developments? How many subsidies are necessary for these projects to be viable? The Tea Party asks: Is this treating all citizens equally?

(Article reprinted from http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Using-ATD-funds-for-streetcars-breaks-promise-2733871.php)

More toll lanes added to 183-A, to cost 29 cents a mile

Link to article here.

183-A tolls, length to change in April

By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Published: 7:43 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012

Tolls on 183-A, the most expensive of Central Texas' five turnpikes on a per-mile basis, will get cheaper when a new 5.1-mile-long section opens in April.

Except where they get more expensive.

Driving the entire length of the road, which will run from Texas 45 North in Austin to Leander, will cost $2.80 for those with an electronic toll tag. That amounts to 29 cents a mile.

Driving the 4.5 miles of existing toll lanes, which now end at RM 1431 in Cedar Park, currently carries a $2 charge for toll tag users, or about 44 cents a mile. After April, that section will cost $1.85, or 41 cents a mile.

However, for those who drive only between Texas 45 North and Brushy Creek Road, the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority is slightly increasing what they pay. The Lakeline express lane toll gantry, currently at 45 cents , in April will increase to 50 cents for toll tag users, and the toll tag rate at the entrance and exit ramps at Brushy Creek Road will go from 45 cents to 54 cents.

In all cases, people without a tag on their windshield get a bill in the mail with a toll rate 33 percent higher, along with a service charge. The tollway, which originally had tollbooths for cash payments, closed those booths several years ago and does not accept cash for tolls.

The Mobility Authority, created by Travis and Williamson counties in 2002, is nearing completion of a $76.7 million extension of the toll lanes to north of RM 2243 . Although the exact opening date of the new toll lanes has not been set, officials this week said it almost surely will occur in April.

The authority, when it built the original 4.5 miles , also built free-to-drive frontage roads from RM 1431 north for another 7.1 miles to near the South San Gabriel River, leaving room in a wide median for future toll lanes.

The new section will have a single main lane toll gantry, just north of Scottsdale Drive, carrying a toll of 95 cents . A driver getting on the tollway at RM 1431 and going the rest of the way on the express lanes thus would pay an even lower per-mile rate, about 18.6 cents .

The frontage lanes, which are interrupted by several traffic lights, will remain free.

All of these per-mile rates exceed what the Texas Department of Transportation is charging on the other four tollways in Central Texas. Driving the 49-mile length of Texas 130, for instance, costs $5.40 for toll tag users, about 11 cents a mile. Texas 45 North and Texas 45 Southeast each cost about 10 cents a mile.

Unlike TxDOT, which uses state and federal revenue to subsidize expenses of its tollways, the Mobility Authority has no taxing authority and must use tolls to cover all of its operating, maintenance and debt costs.

Toll forecasting slammed, grossly overstated

Link to article here.

Wilbur Smith Assoc forecasting record slammed in report for Reston VA group

Posted on Fri, 2012-01-27 15:30
Toll Road News

 Wilbur Smith Associates (WSA) record of traffic and revenue forecasting is blasted in a study done by a retired federal government economist Terry Maynard for the Reston Citizens Association (CRA) in northern Virginia. The report supports a call for an independent review of the WSA/CDMSmith traffic and revenue forecast of the Dulles Toll Road.

The analysis titled Traffic and Revenue Forecasts: Plenty of Room for Error by Terry Maynard finds that forecasts of revenue by WSA as it then was (just recently merged to form CDMSmith) are on average 2.27 times - or 127% too high - as compared with subsequently realized toll revenues.

This is based on the first five years of 12 toll projects forecast.

In addition Maynard finds that WSA had a pattern of understating the sensitive profit maximizing toll initially, then subsequently raising those estimates.

Maynard says that WSA routinely uses the highest population and employment forecasts for forecasting traffic.

Despite poor forecasts tollroads stuck with WSA.

WSA estimates for Dulles Toll Road revenues are suspect, Maynard writes, because they are already using numbers overstating Fairfax County employment by 25%.

What it calls the "pattern of overestimates" in WSA forecasting suggests a "substantial risk" in proceeding with the MWAA financial plan, Maynard writes.

Risks are:

- lenders won't fund the project without state guarantees or at investment grade rates

- tolls much higher than those forecast will emerge

- corridor economic growth will be hampered by the high costs

- MWAA may default and face much higher costs than cited

Terry Maynard: "RCA has long been enthusiastic about Metrorail to Dulles via Reston, but we do not want a rail line at any price, especially one that forces Dulles Toll Road users to absorb most of the financial burden and area communities to absorb added traffic on already crowded local roads. The prospects are even worse if the WSA forecasts overestimate revenues as much as our research suggests. We hope that an independent forecast, combined with ‘value engineering’ for Phase 2 and restructuring the financial arrangements will lead to a better outcome for everyone.”
2nd stage of Dulles Rail at stake

Future Dulles toll road revenues are being used as the security for selling the debt needed to fund a $5 billion Dulles Metrorail branch line from West Falls Church through Reston County to Dulles Airport and out into Loudoun County. Over half the capital cost is proposed to be covered by toll revenue bonds of the Dulles Toll Road issued by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) that has a 50 year franchise on the tollroad and is building the rail line.

Half of the rail line is a done deal, financed and under construction but the second half remains to be approved and financed. The WSA/CDMSmith investment grade traffic and revenue study to be released any week now will be key to whether the project proceeds.

A cover letter addressed to Governor Bob McDonnell, FHWA administrator Victor Mendez and top officials of MWAA and the two local counties charges that "WSA has made many very large errors in its forecasts that have been costly to investors, bondholders, governments, and toll road users who have relied on them to approve construction of major toll road projects."

It continues: "we believe that it is imperative that a second, independent T&R forecast be completed by another forecasting group before any decision is made to move forward with the construction of Phase 2 of the Silver (Dulles Rail) Line."

The citizens association says that given Wilbur Smith's record of overestimating revenues and the unexplained discrepancies between the first two WSA studies the various parties to the Dulles project - FHWA, MWAA, the two counties Fairfax and Loudoun as well as Virginia DOT - should defer any further commitments until Wilbur Smith's forecasts have been checked against those of an independent forecaster.

VDOT is called to take the lead in having WSA's results checked out.

It calls on FHWA to develop a process of 'best practices' for traffic and revenue forecasts given that the problem of gross exaggeration of traffic and revenue (T&R) prospects is seen across the whole T&R forecasting business.

Maynard devastating about track record of forecasting

A key finding of the Maynard Report (named after principal author Terry Maynard) is that "optimism bias" is endemic in the toll forecasting business, and that Wilbur Smith which does about half the industry's forecasts is typical of the industry - driven by sponsors to produce the exaggerated forecasts they want. It cites work by Robert Bain, Bent Flyvbjerg, NHCRP, and ourselves but goes into several forecasts with original work.

Bain using work he started at Standard and Poors found that of 100 tollroad forecasts worldwide the average actual traffic was 77% of forecast or an overestimate of about 30% for year 1 and only minor improvement after that.

NCHRP looked at 26 toll road forecasts in the US over the first five years and found worse results.

Writes Maynard: "The atrocious overestimates of revenue by all the forecasters reflected in this data highlight the difficulty in forecasting demand in the 'ramp-up' period of a new toll road. They are inadequate for planning future revenues, financing, and toll rates."

And there is little indication forecasts improve much over time.

On the Dulles Toll Road forecasting WSA starts with an inflated number for current employment in the major county served (900k vs 700k) and then inflates that faster  than others with a higher growth rate (see graph nearby). Similarly on the Knik Arm bridge in Alaska WSA used exaggerated population and employment data, claiming to base them on numbers from a local University institute, which has denied its numbers are used.

Maynard picks up on what we reported (2011-04-11) as huge inconsistency in Dulles forecasting between WSA's modest projections of traffic and revenue for VDOT in 2005 and their highly bullish projections in 2009 for the new concessionaire MWAA. (see graphing of the inconsistency nearby)

Growth prospects declined in that period, and forecasts should have been lowered, not raised. WSA has never explained the basis for their large upward revisions.

"Our examination of vital population and employment input data used by WSA in its forecasts indicates it has almost always used the most optimistic data available to make its forecasts.



"This includes its 2005 and 2009 forecasts for the Dulles Toll Road. In its 2005 study, it utilized population and employment forecasts provided by GMU CRA which characterized official MWCOG forecasts as understating the area’s growth potential. Then, in 2009, it discarded the conclusions of the contractor it hired to do its socio-economic forecast, Linden Street Associates, Inc., of Alexandria, which had discounted the official MWCOG forecasts as overreaching.

"Instead, it used forecast data provided by Woods & Poole, Inc., another local demographic analysis shop, which was much more aggressive. As we have noted, in the one data point from those two studies we were able to check for Fairfax County—data from the US Census Bureau in 2010—the 2005 WSA forecast over-stated county employment by 25% and the 2009 study overstated it by 52%. In both cases, all the population forecasts we examined were within a reasonable five percentage points of the US Census 2010 count."

Detroit

In Detroit Michigan Maynard writes that an independent study by Halcrow found that WSA had used population and employment projections that were "far too high" and traffic was likely to be "about half" of WSA forecasts. He has an appendix commenting on the Detroit-Windsor DRIC/NITC bridge project.

Maynard says some of WSA's numbers are wrong, and that Halcrow's modeling is more convincing because it performs well in backward testing - not attempted by WSA.


NOTE: we're fully open to any response from WSA or any other forecasters. So far no response from WSA to the invitation to defend their work.

Couple's eminent domain fight with pipeline company

Link to article here.

Couple's fight with pipeline company pits Texans' love of oil vs. love of land

By Dianna Wray •
Originally published January 28, 2012 at midnight, updated January 29, 2012 at 8:38 a.m.

What is eminent domain?

Once used mainly to make way for roads and highways, the "public good" of supplying the rest of the country with oil and gas allows pipeline companies to compel landowners to sell. If they don't reach an agreement, the company ...

What is eminent domain?

Once used mainly to make way for roads and highways, the "public good" of supplying the rest of the country with oil and gas allows pipeline companies to compel landowners to sell. If they don't reach an agreement, the company can sue for condemnation of the property, forcing a sale.

The land is taken in a 50-foot wide easement, with a pipeline running down the center of it.

If the landowners and the company don't reach an agreement beforehand, the case is heard by three special commissioners. The commissioners are local landowners charged with determining what the land is worth and what the landowners should be paid in damages for the property.

They decide what the land being taken for an easement is worth. If the landowners and the company agree on the ruling, the matter is settled. If either side does not agree they can appeal to district court, then the court of appeals and, finally, the Texas Supreme Court.

CUERO - Blue eyes narrowed, Kathy Gips lifted her chin and stepped closer to the barbed wire fence lining her pasture land.

Eyeing the workmen on her land, she crossed her arms, a petite blond woman perched ramrod straight in the long shadow of her husband.

"It feels like we're being run over," she said, stopping to press her lips together.

Jimmy Gips looked down at his wife of 24 years and the laugh lines on his face sagged into lines of frustration.

"It is our land after all. Don't we matter?" he said, ruffling his sandy hair.

The Gipses are one of hundreds in the Crossroads with pipelines crisscrossing their property. For the Gipses and others, their worries aren't about fracking or possible pollutants. For them, the problems start with two legal words: eminent domain.

The Eagle Ford Shale play has unlocked thousands of barrels of oil from the dense brittle rock formation that lies in the depths below their feet. But the oil has to make it to market, and to do that efficiently companies need pipelines. They will buy the right to put in the steel lines, but if you don't cooperate, these private companies use their power of eminent domain - the legal authority to take privately owned land for the public good.

The Eagle Ford Shale play is booming, but the pipelines being laid to get the glut of oil to market have put those two Texas passions - landownership and the oil business - on a collision course.

THE FIGHT BEGINS

The sky glittered blue, and a northern wind tugged at the Gipses' clothes, pulled at their hair and sent the smell of the land, a mix of dried grass and the sweet stench of cow manure, into their nostrils.

In May, the Gipses got a call from a Kinder Morgan landman. The company wanted to run a pipeline through their property and wanted to start negotiations. But negotiations skidded to a halt when the company offer came in for $23.98 a foot, 15 percent less than what the Gipses got for a pipeline crossing the same stretch of land before.

Kathy Gips got a certified letter informing her she was being sued. Kinder Morgan was going to use eminent domain to condemn the land it wanted for the pipeline.

The deck was stacked against the couple. Kinder Morgan held all the cards, and the multimillion dollar company knew it. There was one thing they hadn't counted on - the Gipses aren't the kind of people used to being run over. They decided to fight.

THE ATTORNEY

Michael Sheppard is a tall man with a sharply cut profile and a ready smile that belies his years of legal experience. Sheppard, the district attorney covering DeWitt, Goliad and Refugio counties since 1997, cut his legal teeth on oil and gas law in the 1980s, and he knows his business. He was the obvious choice to represent Kathy and Jimmy Gips.


His firm, Crain and Sheppard, has handled more than 1,200 pipeline negotiations in the past three years, dozens of them with Kinder Morgan. Sheppard handled two other eminent domain cases with Kinder Morgan, but both were settled after being heard by special commissioners, one of the first steps in condemnation proceedings. Working as the DA, Sheppard has his hands full, so he limits the number of civil cases he'll take on, examining the quality of the case to weigh out if it's worth the trouble.

He took the Gipses' case.

Eminent domain is the big hammer pipeline companies use, but most try to keep things friendly.

Kinder Morgan is different, Sheppard contends.

"They use the power of eminent domain to strong-arm people. They've got so much money they want to spend and they aren't going to spend any more. They use the process and what the landowner has to go through - which is very expensive for the landowner - and they use it to their advantage," he said.

WHAT KINDER MORGAN SAYS

When a deal closes later this year, the Houston-based company, Kinder Morgan, will be the largest pipeline company in the United States and the fourth largest in North America. The company, formed by former Enron executives in 1997, will own more than 67,000 miles of pipeline across the United States.


The pipeline being laid across the Gipses' land will have the capacity to run more than 300,000 barrels of oil a day from Cuero to the Houston Ship Channel. It will cost $220 million and includes 61 miles of newly constructed pipeline and 109 miles of existing natural gas pipeline, crossing the land of 49 tracts in DeWitt County.

Only three lawsuits have gone all the way through the condemnation process, but the company started condemnation proceedings against the owners of 14 tracts the pipeline will cross in DeWitt County.

Kinder Morgan representatives filed most of these claims in mid-August.

In fact, a flurry of activity happened in the district clerk's office that month. A new law went into effect Sept. 1 changing how pipeline companies have to deal with landowners. The law requires the company to make good-faith offers to landowners before filing a lawsuit and gives landowners more time to respond to the pipeline company offers.

Larry Pierce, a spokesman for Kinder Morgan, said the company uses eminent domain rights only after all reasonable efforts have been made to make a deal with the landowner.

Despite having a reputation for rough tactics, Kinder Morgan hasn't filed as many condemnation proceedings as other companies in the area. Both ETC and Enterprise Pipeline have filed more than 40 eminent domain claims in DeWitt County to make way for their respective lines.

It is Kinder Morgan's approach to making deals with landowners that singles them out.

The same pipeline now being laid in the Gipses' property will be put into Ed Southern's land in the coming days in Cuero. The line was mapped to barrel straight through a grove of live oaks on the retired Navy man's property. Southern knew he was dealing with a tough company - "Do you know what eminent domain is?" were the first words out of the Kinder Morgan landman's mouth when they met to negotiate - and he couldn't afford a legal battle to keep the pipeline off his land. But he decided to fight to save some of his trees and Kinder Morgan rerouted the line to spare some trees after Southern's story appeared in the Victoria Advocate.

Pierce declined to comment on either Southern or the Gipses' condemnation proceedings.

When it comes down to it, and the legal paperwork is in their hands, most landowners choose to settle out of court. Choosing to fight is a difficult, time-consuming and expensive endeavor.

"For every Jimmy Gips there is who chooses to fight them, there are 50 landowners who don't," Sheppard said.


THE LAW OF THE LAND (AND WHICH WAY IT LEANS)

The law in Texas leans toward oil and gas interests, Sheppard said.

"The Supreme Court of Texas has not rendered an opinion contrary to the interests of oil companies in probably more than a decade, and that's a source of much discussion and debate within the legal community," Sheppard said, leaning forward in his leather desk chair to make the point. "I don't think we have a Supreme Court that looks out for the interests of landowners."


Decades ago when conservative Democrats held political power in Texas, the state supreme court routinely ruled in favor of landowners rights. That changed about 20 years ago when corporate energy companies stepped up and shifted the court's focus. The justices to the state's High Court are elected to their seats, and oil companies started pouring money into election coffers.

The companies know their power. During condemnation proceedings, companies will simply appeal the case all the way to the state Supreme Court in Austin, certain in the knowledge that the court will side with them, Sheppard said.

The O'Connor vs. Exxon case is a good recent example.

T. Michael O'Connor, the Victoria County sheriff, was part of one of the more recent battles duked out between oil companies and landowners. In the early 1990s, Exxon ended a lease on the O'Connor family ranch in Refugio County. But before the company left, someone trashed the wells, throwing enough junk down the holes that when another company tried to reopen the wells a few years later, they were unusable.

The O'Connor family embarked on an 18-year legal odyssey. Court after court ruled in their favor. Each time Exxon appealed the ruling. Finally, the case was heard by the state Supreme Court. After delaying their ruling for two years, the court sided with Exxon in 2009.

Kinder Morgan filed a lawsuit against Kathy Gips in July. According to eminent domain law, once condemnation proceedings have begun, there's no going back for the landowner, aside from striking a deal with the company outside of court. The land will be taken one way or another. The only question is how much the land is worth.

The district judges appointed three special commissioners, all local landowners, to decide the value of the Gipses' land: John Schlinger, of Yoakum, Ron Ledbetter, and Jim Mann, both of Cuero.

On a hot morning in September, they met at the district court annex, a small squat building across the street from the elegant red brick of the DeWitt County Courthouse. The commissioners sat on one side of the table while Kinder Morgan representatives, their lawyer, the Gipses and Sheppard pulled chairs up to the other side.

By the time the commissioners asked to be alone to discuss what they'd heard, the sun was high overhead.

The Gipses were hopeful. They felt local landowners would understand where they were coming from, what the land that has been in their family for generations was worth.

After an hour, the commissioners called everyone back to announce their decision. They agreed with the Gipses; the amount Kinder Morgan had offered to pay wasn't enough. They ordered Kinder Morgan to pay the Gipses $42.50 a foot for the easement.

The couple left the courthouse smiling. It seemed the fight was over.

Then Kinder Morgan appealed the decision to district court.

The Gipses sighed, met with Sheppard, and prepared to continue the fight. They didn't want to go to court, Kathy Gips said. They sent another offer to the company, trying to settle the issue, sign a contract and be done with it.

Kinder Morgan sent back a brief reply, declining the offer.

Then the company cut the barbed wire fence on the property and started planning for the pipeline.

"Land ownership is sacred in Texas. You don't mess with somebody else's property unless you want to take your life in your hands," Sheppard said, shaking his head.



POWER OF THE PUBLIC GOOD

In early December, the Gipses got a notice that Kinder Morgan had paid a bond allowing the company to continue pipeline construction on their land. At first they didn't believe it, that a company could get the power to come on their property while they were still in the middle of a legal dispute.

Jimmy Gips drove out that day, stepped from his truck and asked the men what they were doing on his land. Workmen were staking the easement to designate where the pipeline would be laid.

He tried to stay calm, telling them the issue was still in litigation, that nothing had been decided yet, and they needed to leave his property. The men were polite and packed up and left.

But they came back. One month later, workmen clipped the barbed-wire fence and started bulldozing the property.

Gips drove out again and found a Kinder Morgan landman on the site. Sharp words were exchanged, but the Kinder Morgan pipeline continued to be built.

Once, cutting a fence in Texas was a felony, but Kinder Morgan had eminent domain. They had the power to be on the land, and, suddenly, Jimmy realized the hard truth - there was nothing he nor his wife could do about it.



OTHER EXPERIENCES

The Gipses' experiences with most other companies have been good. Hawk Field Services, a subsidiary of Petrohawk, put in a pipeline on that same stretch of land last year. While the company was putting the line in, one of the Gipses' cattle escaped from the pasture. The workmen tried to get the heifer back into the pasture, but the frantic animal ran, terrified. They finally maneuvered her back into the fenced area, but she had run too hard and dropped dead a few hours later. The landman called Jimmy Gips to apologize. Their contract with the company didn't have any requirements about the cattle, but the man insisted on paying for the loss. Gips donated the $1,500 Petrohawk paid him to St. Michael's Catholic School; Petrohawk then matched his donation.

"They stepped up and did the right thing, even though, legally, they didn't have to," Jimmy Gips said.



WHY THEY FIGHT

The Gipses stood on the roadside, watching the men work. The mint green steel hulls of the line already had been delivered to the site and would be in the ground in a matter of days.

Because the Gipses are still in a legal dispute with Kinder Morgan, they don't have a contract written by Sheppard to protect them. Unlike the other lines on their place, this one will be buried 36 inches, instead of the 48 inches they prefer.

A red pickup motored by them slowly, heading to the pipeline site. The workers inside looked down, avoiding Jimmy Gips' eyes.

"Tree killers!" Jimmy Gips called merrily, with a wave of his hand. "I like to have fun with them. The problem is they just don't get my sense of humor."

Back at their office in Cuero, Kathy Gips hauled out a manila folder, thick with papers.

They have dealt with pipeline companies before - already two pipelines are buried on one side of the pasture and three on the other side across the road. They also have leased their mineral rights, and a rig on the horizon will pay them royalties when the oil starts flowing.

She keeps track of everything. Every phone call, every conversation and every bit of legal paperwork that is involved in these deals ends up in one of these folders.

Kathy Gips paused for a moment and stared down at the papers in her hands.

They never wanted to be noticed or known. It wasn't their goal to become crusaders. But now they are taking on the largest pipeline company in America.

The next step will be a trial in district court. The case already is on the docket, and Sheppard expects to be representing the Gipses sometime this year. If either side chooses to appeal, the case will go to the 13th Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi. If there is an appeal of that court's ruling, it'll be in the hands of the state Supreme Court, if the justices choose to hear it.

"We won't make any money in this deal. We're probably going to come out losing money on this thing, but it's what we have to do," Jimmy Gips said.

Kathy Gips nodded.

"If we back down from this, what are our kids going to say? If you're going to stand for something, you've got to stand to the end, and that's what we're doing," she said. "This could drag on for years. We could be 100 years old and still be dealing with Kinder Morgan, but it's the right thing to do."

To read the series so far, click below:

Part 1: Oil, gas development pumps life into South Texas small towns

Part 2: Boom town: Cuero awakens to a new shade of green

Part 3: Environmental concerns get little play amid oil, gas boom

Part 4 sidebar: Judon Fambrough’s 10 things to know when leasing

Keystone to blow through Texas by summer


Link to article here.

Canadian oil could reach Texas by summer if Keystone alternative found

By Tim Eaton
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Published: 10:38 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012

President Barack Obama might have rejected the enormous Keystone XL pipeline, at least for now, but that doesn't mean heavy crude from Canada won't be flowing into Texas' refineries later this year.

TransCanada Corp. — the Canadian company that proposed building the $7 billion, 830,000 barrel-a-day pipeline — has some ideas that could lead to moving oil from the oil sands region in northern Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast of Texas without the blessing of the president, the company said.

"We are still very much committed to building this pipeline," TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said in an interview with the American-Statesman.

But building the full Keystone XL pipeline could take a long time. So in the meantime, TransCanada is talking about alternatives.

One possibility of getting bituminous sands — a substance made of clay, sand, water and heavy black viscous oil that is sometimes referred to as "tar sands" or "oil sands" — to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur involves building only the southern stretch of the proposed Keystone XL.

Cunha said the company is in preliminary stages of planning a new pipeline from Cushing, Okla., where an existing TransCanada pipeline ends, to the Texas coast.
A pipeline that doesn't cross an international border doesn't need a presidential permit, the U.S. State Department said.

TransCanada isn't the only company looking to pipe Canadian heavy crude to Texas.

A competitor, Enbridge Inc., already is working in on a plan to bring oil from Canada as early as June, oil executives said. Enbridge and its American partner, Enterprise Products Partners, are hoping to use an existing patchwork of pipelines to push Canadian oil sands to refineries in Freeport, Houston and Port Arthur.

Rick Rainey, an Enterprise spokesman, said "quite a glut" of Canadian tar sands oil and regular crude oil from different regions of the U.S. is backing up in Cushing, a hub where several pipelines now end, including one that belongs to Enbridge.

Both Rainey and Oklahoma regulators said there are just too many pipelines into Cushing and too few going out.

The Enbridge/Enterprise partnership is seeking an almost perfunctory permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reverse the flow of a 36-year-old pipeline that has always pushed oil from the Texas Gulf coast to Cushing.

The Seaway Crude Oil Pipeline has mainly been used to carry both heavy and light crude from offshore drilling rigs and from Central and South America. Only relatively minor alterations will be needed to allow it to carry Canadian oil sands oil south, Rainey said.

If all goes as expected, Canadian oil could be running through Texas by June 1, bringing 150,000 barrels a day to the Gulf coast, Rainey said. By the end of 2012, it should be able to handle much more oil.

"We expect roughly 400,000 barrels to be fully contracted," Rainey said.

In the future, Enbridge and Enterprise could secure enough commitments from shippers of oil to allow them to build a parallel pipeline, which would greatly increase capacity for Canadian oil to Texas. Rainey declined to say how much.

Obama's signature was needed for TransCanada's much bigger Keystone XL pipeline — it would have the capacity for 830,000 barrels a day versus Seaway's 400,000 barrels a day — because it was slated to cross an international border. But the work-arounds being discussed by TransCanada and Enbridge don't involve crossing an international border.

The pipelines won't need state approval, either.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry, has no permitting authority with interstate pipelines, said commission spokesman Matt Skinner.

Similarly, in Texas, the oddly named Railroad Commission, which oversees the oil and gas industry, confirmed in a written statement that it "does not issue construction permits for interstate or intrastate pipelines to be built. The Railroad Commission also has no authority over the routing or siting of intrastate and interstate pipelines, and has no safety jurisdiction over interstate pipelines such as a pipeline that would be built from an adjacent state into Texas."

Obama's rejection of TransCanada's proposal to build Keystone XL this month was seen as a highly political move that drew sharp criticism from Republicans. Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential front-runner, accused Obama of putting politics ahead of policy by pandering to environmentalists in an election year. Romney and other Republicans have touted the Keystone XL pipeline as a massive job creator that would help wean the U.S. off dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

Also, Romney charged, rejection of the Keystone XL would prompt the Canadians to try to sell their oil to China.

Many of the opponents of the pipeline complained about the potential environmental harm of building a pipeline over the sensitive Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska. With about 3.3 billion acre-feet of water, the Ogallala is one of the largest aquifer systems in the world, stretching across eight states.

But the presidential rejection wasn't a total denial. The administration will allow TransCanada to apply for another permit with an altered route that avoids Nebraska's Sandhills, the environmentally sensitive area of porous land atop of the Ogallala.

The hopeful executives in Canada said they plan to reapply with the U.S. government after this fall's elections.

But in the meantime, the Canadian companies are facing a new batch of critics — this time in Texas. An unusual coalition of property rights activists has teamed with groups that often are on the other end of the political spectrum: environmentalists. The groups are working on plans together to fight pipeline development in Texas.

Property rights advocates have been a powerful force in state politics and were instrumental in defeating the Trans-Texas Corridor, the statewide network of toll roads backed by Gov. Rick Perry that many feared would have required taking over private property.

Now the libertarian-leaning conservatives are led by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina, who also was an outspoken critic of the toll road plan. Medina is protesting TransCanada's ability to condemn private landowners' property for the pipeline route. She said a quick search a few counties' records revealed 22 eminent domain disputes with TransCanada, though she suspects many more exist in other counties along the 18-county route in Texas.

Medina said she has always been pro-business but that "taking private property from landowners is not playing nice."

Some Texas environmentalists began working against the XL pipeline last year.

Trevor Lowell, environmental program coordinator at the Texas office for the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen, said he helped strategize opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline last summer.

Canadian protesters have long said they are concerned about the vast water resources needed to extract the oil sands, pollution associated with oil sands refining and the strip mining necessary to get the oil out of the earth.

Lowell said he shares the concerns of the Canadian protesters. Even worse, he said, piping Canadian heavy crude to Texas would represent surrender in the battle to curb global warming.

Like many Nebraskans who fought TransCanada, Lowell has concerns about groundwater. In Nebraska, it was about the Ogallala. In Texas, Lowell's concern is the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer, which extends from the Rio Grande Valley to parts of Arkansas and Louisiana and supplies water to 60 Texas counties.

Lowell said he also worries about the chemicals in the pipe that would help move oil sands. He believes benzene, a known carcinogen, is one of those chemicals. He pointed to several pipeline leaks over the years by the companies.

Most of the accidents, he admitted, were small, but some were major — such as in Michigan, where an Enbridge pipeline broke and spilled 19,500 barrels of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River system. The Environmental Protection Agency detected heightened levels of benzene at the site.

"This is really toxifying the water and even toxifying the air," Lowell said.

Gas tax vs tolls


Link to article here.

Funding transportation: Gas tax vs. tolls

Thursday - 1/26/2012, 5:59am  ET

WASHINGTON - A new report says the easiest way to raise more money to fix crumbling roads and bridges and aging transit systems is to make drivers pay at the pump.

The report prepared for the Transportation Planning Board of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments says indexing gas taxes to the rate of inflation is the best way to increase transportation revenues.

However, a report by transportation police group Cambridge Systematics says that's the best solution for the short term.

In the long run, the report says the region will have to look toward transportation funding streams tied to how much drivers use the roads, not to how much gasoline they buy.

That could mean solutions like a vehicle miles traveled fee, where drivers would have to pay a tax per mile driven.

From the report:

"New financing mechanisms are important in view of the anticipated shift away from petroleum-based fuels. Broad-based user fees that are not dependent on fuel consumption but on the use of the system (will become necessary)."
Still, there remains the issue of actually implementing these policies and that won't be easy.

"The greatest challenge to the region is the existence of multiple jurisdictions at several levels, each with its own tax base, tax structure, and tax policy," the report says.

Perry charges Texas taxpayers $2.6 million for security in his failed presidential run

Link to article here.

Where did this taxpayer money for Perry's security detail come from? Gas taxes (read about it here)! Perry's been running around saying there's "no money to fix our roads without tolls," all the while he's draining the scarce gas tax we do have to make Texas taxpayers pay for his security during his failed run for President.

Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign security detail bill is in, ready to be added to the pile of taxpayer-funded security tabs
Tuesday, Jan 24, 2012, 01:24PM CST
By Mark Lisheron
Texas Tribune

At $2.6 million, it might not be considered much of a bargain, but the Texas Department of Public Safety actually performed two services while on Gov. Rick Perry’s wanna-be-president security detail.

The first one was obvious, if pricey. The invaluable second was to remind taxpayers who has their best interests at heart when it comes to spending the money government coerces from them.

Gov. Perry spends nearly six months on the inaptly named stump, surrounded by DPS officers. He then returns to his home state and brazenly refuses to refund to taxpayers the cost for his protection.

Texas taxpayers know this because of the vigilance of Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, the leader of the opposition party in the House, the Texas Tribune reports.
"One way to protect taxpayers' money is by not spending it unnecessarily," Farrar wrote in a letter to the governor obtained by the Tribune. "But, if someone discovers tax dollars have been spent unnecessarily, it should be reimbursed either to general revenue or directly to taxpayers."

The necessity of the Texas governor’s security has been a matter of DPS policy at least as far back as 1999 when Gov. George Bush ran up a $3.9 million security bill he left behind for taxpayers on his way to Washington.

This DPS policy and all state agency policies are subject to review, revision and abrogation by Farrar and her colleagues in the House and the Senate.

Courageous Republicans, too, have come to the aid of taxpayers, flaying the cost of security for the Democrat-in-chief as he frolicked with his family on Hawaiian beaches.

Clearly, the cost of security for our candidates is out of control, as any Democrat can tell you when there are Republicans to protect or when important Democrats need protecting.

And just as clearly, it won’t be the Republican or the Democratic national committees relieving our burden.

Perhaps the more important question is whether or not candidates need all this security to begin with. The answer might come from the remaining Texan in this presidential race.

During the Iowa caucuses in December, a reporter for the National Journal was taking advantage of the breakfast buffet at the Embassy Suites hotel when in walks Ron Paul. Alone.

Paul made his way along the buffet line and sat down for breakfast, just himself and a copy of USA Today. When the reporter walked over to get an exclusive, Paul executed his own security at no charge to any taxpayer.

"Right now, the only thing that bothers me,” he told the reporter, “is people who don't respect my privacy enough to leave me alone for five minutes when I'm eating breakfast."

TX Senator says red light cameras about revenue, not safety

Article from: www.thenewspaper.com/news/36/3691.asp

1/17/2012

Texas: Top State Senator Says Red Light Cameras About Money
Top supporter of red light cameras in the Texas Senate now says photo enforcement is a bad deal.

State Senator John WhitmireThe most senior Texas state lawmaker admitted last week that he voted to save red light camera programs even though he knew they had no effect on public safety. State Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston), who was first elected to the legislature in 1973, appeared on KTRH radio's morning news program to discuss how public opposition to red light cameras persuaded legislators to devote some of the camera profit to trauma centers.

"People went to Austin protesting it, and so John Carona -- a senator from Dallas -- didn't want to eliminate them," Whitmire explained. "He said, you know, it's obviously a revenue source. Local communities try to sell it as public safety, cutting down on red light running. He and I and I think most people would realize it's really a revenue source. John Carona in Austin said, I'm not going to eliminate but let the state have half of that revenue dedicated to trauma care which is badly underfunded."

Though the money was promised to trauma care centers, over $40 million of this money has remained in the state's general fund and not been distributed to the trauma centers.

"The budget writers in an effort to find resources and money to balance the budget never sent that," Whitmire explained. "It's wrong. It's wrong."

Whitmire played an essential role in 2005 in blocking House legislation that would have banned red light cameras as well as an amendment that would have forced municipalities to obtain voter approval before instituting a red light camera program. The Senate voted 18 to 13 to against the referendum requirement. Whitmire explained that the mayor of Houston, a fellow Democrat, had pressed him for that vote.

"Bill White came to Austin and he had two issues," Whitmire said. "The next vote that came up was to try to repeal red light cameras. The vote was whether we'd take that away from the cities. And I don't think Austin ought to be trying to run the cities on a day-to-day basis."

Houston's cameras were ultimately shut down, but only after a heated legal and political battle. A federal judge even intervened to overturn the results of a public vote on the matter.

"It is a bad deal and the people acted on it and repealed it," Whitmire said. "The issue of red light cameras, I was always suspect about it. I never thought it was about public safety. The greatest number of red light citations are issued to people who don't come to a complete stop on turning right or similar violations. It's a civil ticket, that shows you how insincere they are about it."

New Texas law forces drillers to disclose chemicals

Link to article here.

January 14, 2012

Unlocking the Secrets Behind Hydraulic Fracturing

By KATE GALBRAITH

New York Times


Starting Feb. 1, drilling operators in Texas will have to report many of the chemicals used in the process known as hydraulic fracturing. Environmentalists and landowners are looking forward to learning what acids, hydroxides and other materials have gone into a given well.
But a less-publicized part of the new regulation is what some experts are most interested in: the mandatory disclosure of the amount of water needed to “frack” each well. Experts call this an invaluable tool as they evaluate how fracking affects water supplies in the drought-prone state.

Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting water, sand and chemicals into underground shale formations at enormous pressure to extract oil and natural gas. Under the new rule, Texans will be able to check a Web site, fracfocus.org, to view the chemical and water disclosures.
“It’s a huge step forward from where we were,” Amy Hardberger, an Environmental Defense Fund lawyer, said of the rule.

Most fracked wells use 1 million to 5 million gallons of water over three to five days, said Justin Furnace, president of the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association.

A June study prepared for the Texas Water Development Board suggested that less than 1 percent of the water used statewide went into fracking. Oil and natural gas groups say such numbers show their usage lags well behind that of cities.

But the data cited is a few years old, and drilling has since increased in places like the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. The amount of water used for fracking is “expected to increase significantly through 2020,” according to the state water plan published this month.

Dan Hardin, the water board’s resource planning director, said water use for fracking was not expected to exceed 2 percent of the statewide total.

But drilling can send water use numbers much higher in rural areas, Dr. Hardin said. For example, he projects that in 2020, more than 40 percent of water demand in La Salle County, in the Eagle Ford Shale, will go toward “mining,” a technical term that in this case means almost entirely fracking. Until recently, no water went toward mining there.

Researchers say predicting future water usage for drilling is tough, citing economic and technological uncertainties. Meanwhile, they want more data.

Jean-Philippe Nicot, a research scientist with the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin and the main author of the water board’s June study, noted that many drillers already reported water usage to the Texas Railroad Commission. (The commission’s new rule will be the first time water disclosure is required.)

Dr. Nicot would like to see more information about whether the water comes from aquifers or reservoirs, or has been recycled from other fracking operations.

Texas also needs better information about what is in water that has been in the earth and comes up in a well in addition to oil or gas, said Mark A. Engle, a geologist with the United States Geological Survey’s Eastern Energy Resources Science Center. That water can contain materials like grease and radioactive elements.

“Texas ranks pretty much dead last of any state I’ve worked with for keeping track of that sort of data,” Dr. Engle said.

PA town's water supply tainted by fracking

There are severe negative consequences from fracking that are often being overlooked in the rush to drill for domestic oil. Tainted water supplies are one of them.

Federal Agency Cancels Water Delivery to Pennsylvania Town
 
Published January 07, 2012 | Associated Press
 
ALLENTOWN, Pa. –  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency abruptly changed its mind Saturday about delivering fresh water to residents of a northeastern Pennsylvania village where residential wells were found to be tainted by a natural gas drilling operation.
 
Only 24 hours after promising them water, EPA officials informed residents of Dimock that a tanker truck wouldn't be coming after all -- an about-face that left them furious, confused and let down -- and, once again, scrambling for water for bathing, washing dishes and flushing toilets.
 
Agency officials would not explain why they reneged on their promise, or say whether water would be delivered at some point.
 
"We are actively filling information gaps and determining next steps in Dimock. We have made no decision at this time to provide water," EPA spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara said in an email to The Associated Press.
 
It's not clear how many wells in the rural community of Dimock Township were affected by the drilling. The state has found that at least 18 residential water wells were polluted. Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., which was banned in 2010 from drilling in a 9-square-mile area around the village, maintains that it is not responsible for the pollution and that the water is safe.
 
Eleven families who sued Cabot expected water from the EPA to arrive either Friday or Saturday. They have been without a reliable source of water since Cabot won permission from state environmental regulators to halt deliveries more than a month ago.

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/epa/2012/01/09/why-did-obama-epa-suddenly-cancel-fresh-water-delivery-pa-town?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FoxNation+%28Fox+Nation%29&mid=57511#ixzz1l4Xgrwm2

Pipeline builder drops eminent domain claim

Link to article here.

Pipeline builder avoids nature preserve, drops eminent domain claim

By Matthew Tresaugue, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Updated 09:52 p.m., Wednesday, January 4, 2012

A Texas company has agreed to adjust its intended route of a natural gas pipeline to avoid an environmentally sensitive area about 20 miles south of Houston.

ETC NGL Transport LLC's proposed Justice pipeline was set to run through the 144-acre Clear Creek nature preserve, a favorite stop for migratory birds and a remnant of a disappearing habitat.

Vicki Anderson Granado, an ETC spokeswoman, said the company has reached an agreement to reroute the pipeline through a nearby golf course.

ETC had threatened to condemn a portion of the preserve, asserting the right of eminent domain as a "common carrier," or an open access transporter, under state law. Lawyers for the trust that owns the Clear Creek preserve argued in court filings that the company is not a common carrier because it cannot show that the proposed pipeline would transport a product to the public or for public hire.

"We are thrilled and appreciative that they were able to work that out and keep our tract intact," said Jennifer Lorenz, executive director of the Bayou Land Conservancy, a nonprofit group that manages the property for the trust.

The group opposed the project, saying the pipeline would cause irreparable harm to an invaluable piece of land, the only protected riparian habitat along Clear Creek. A federal judge set aside the land in 2005 to offset the environmental damage caused by two abandoned petrochemical facilities located nearby at Dixie Farm Road and Beamer.

ETC had proposed a 115-foot-wide easement through the preserve, which would require the clear-cutting of water oak, cedar elm and loblolly pine and others to construct the pipeline. The pipeline would cover 129 miles and deliver natural gas liquids to processing plants in Chambers County.

Keystone decision tied to payroll tax rider


Link to article here.

February Keystone deadline tied to payroll tax rider
January 2, 2012
Associated Press

President Barack Obama and Congress are starting the election year locked in a tussle over a proposed 2,700-kilometre oil pipeline from Canada to Texas that will force the White House to make a politically risky choice between two key Democratic constituencies.

Some unions say the Keystone XL pipeline would create thousands of jobs. Environmentalists fear it could lead to an oil spill disaster.

A law Obama signed just before Christmas that temporarily extended the payroll tax cut included a Republican-written provision compelling him to make a speedy decision on whether to build the pipeline. The administration is warning it would rather say no than rush a decision in an election year.

Controverisal project

It's a dicey proposition for Obama, who enjoyed strong support from both organized labour and environmentalists in his winning 2008 campaign for the White House.

Environmental advocates, already disappointed with his failure to achieve climate change legislation and the administration's decision delay new smog standards, have made it clear that approval of the pipeline would dampen their enthusiasm for Obama in this November's election.

Some liberal donors even threatened to cut off funds to Obama's re-election campaign to protest the project, which opponents say would transport "dirty oil" that requires huge amounts of energy to extract.

If he rejects the pipeline, Obama risks losing support from organized labour, a key part of the Democratic base, for thwarting thousands of jobs.

Obama appeared to have skirted what some dubbed the "Keystone conundrum" last month when the U.S. State Department announced it was postponing a decision on the pipeline until after the 2012 election. Officials said they needed extra time to study routes that avoid an environmentally sensitive area of Nebraska that supplies water to eight states.

The affected area stretches just 104 kilometres through the Sandhills region of northern Nebraska, but the concerns were serious enough that the state's governor and senators opposed the project until the pipeline was moved.

'We've had more than enough surprises on this'—Transcanada CEO Shawn Howard
Republican Gov. Dave Heineman, who opposed the initial route, says he supports efforts to accelerate the project, noting that provisions in the payroll tax bill allow the project developer to find a new route avoiding the Sandhills.

The new route would have to be approved by Nebraska environmental officials and the State Department, which has authority because the pipeline would cross an international border.

The pipeline would carry oil from tar sands in western Canada to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. The project's developer, Calgary-based TransCanada, says the pipeline could create as many as 20,000 jobs, a figure opponents say is inflated. A State Department report last summer said the pipeline would create up to 6,000 jobs during construction.

The payroll tax cut law gives the Obama administration 60 days to decide whether to allow construction of the pipeline.

An "arbitrary deadline" for the permit decision would compromise the process, short-circuiting time needed to conduct required environmental reviews and preventing the issuance of a permit, the State Department warned in a written statement on Dec. 12. Obama administration officials confirmed that view after the payroll tax bill was approved.

Republicans call the threat little more than an excuse that allows Obama to placate environmental groups while not rejecting the pipeline outright.

Campaign issue

"The only thing arbitrary about this decision is the decision by the president to say, `Well, let's wait until after the next election,' " the Speaker of the Republican-led House John Boehner said.

Boehner and other Republicans say the pipeline would help Obama achieve his top priority — creating jobs — without costing a dime of taxpayer money. They hope to portray Obama's reluctance to approve the pipeline as a sign he favors environmentalists over jobs.

Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and chief executive, said his company would do whatever is necessary to make sure the project is approved.

"We've had more than enough surprises on this," said TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard.

In Nebraska, where the pipeline faces strong resistance, state officials are awaiting an environmental study that will determine a new route. Officials have said the review will take six to nine months.

Some landowners in the Sandhills celebrated the decision to reroute the project, but the pipeline's strongest opponents say they still have concerns about the prospect of the government using its power of eminent domain to seize land, as well as liability issues in case of a spill.

"Republicans have bullied their way to get a reckless rider attached to a bill that was supposed to be about helping middle-class families," said Jane Kleeb, executive director of the group Bold Nebraska, which opposes the pipeline.

With the bill signed into law, Obama "must do the right thing for our land, water and families' health by denying the pipeline permit," Kleeb said.

Project supporters say U.S. rejection of the pipeline would not stop it from being built. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said TransCanada could pursue an alternative route through Canada to the West Coast, where oil could be shipped to China and other Asian markets.

"Canada is going to develop this no matter what, and that oil is either going to come to the United States or it's going to go to a place like China. We want it here," said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Opponents call the West Coast option farfetched, noting that Canadian regulators have announced a one-year delay for a similar project that would carry tar sands oil to British Columbia, on Canada's western coast.

Native groups strongly oppose both the Keystone XL and the Northern Gateway pipeline proposed by TransCanada rival Enbridge. Canada's First Nations have constitutionally protected treaty rights and unsettled land claims that could allow them to block or significantly delay both pipelines.

Unions are watching closely. Unemployment in construction is far higher than other industries, with more than 1.1 million construction workers jobless, said Brent Bookers, director of construction at the Laborers' International Union of North America.

"For many members of the Laborers, this project is not just a pipeline, it is a lifeline," Bookers said, adding, "Too many hard-working Americans are out of work, and the Keystone XL pipeline will change that dire situation for thousands of them."

Roger Toussaint, international vice president of the Transport Workers Union, opposes the pipeline.

"The dangers of the pipeline are compelling, and no one should believe the claims of either the Republican leadership or the energy companies, with respect to the project being shovel ready or with respect to the number of jobs it's going to produce," he said.

Vehicle miles traveled hits 8 month low

Link to article here.

Traffic hits new low in October, 8th month of down trend - FHWA
 
October was the eighth month in which the trend line for total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on US roads declined in the second dip of the great recession, according to "Travel Monitoring" data released today by FHWA Office of Highway Policy Information. The 12-month moving total (12MMT) for October 2011 at 2,963b vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is now back down to the previous low of 2,963b or 1.3%  down on the recovery mini-high of 3,001b reached in February 2011.

The latest trend number is 2.5% off the November 2007 pre-crash high of 3,039b, and down to the level first reached in December 2004.


The first 2.5% downward slide in VMT from November 2007 as measured by the 12MMT lasted 18 months (2007-11 to 2009-05). There followed a half recovery of 1.25%-points over 21 months to the February 2011 mini-high.

All of that 21-month recovery has now been lost in just eight months of the double dip (2011-02 to 2011-10).

The recent or second drop has been proceeding a tad faster than the initial crash drop (1.25%*12/8 = 1.875%pa vs 2.5*12/18=1.67%pa.)

Of course there is no indication where traffic goes now.

The second dip may, or may not, have ended, but there is no indication in the 12MMT data so far of any end to the decline.

Oct on previous Oct

On the more conventional month this year on same month last year basis October 2011 saw an estimated 254b VMT vs 260b VMT Oct 2010, the 6b miles decline being 2.3%. The cumulative travel of ten months to end October this year was 2476b down 36b or 1.4% on the 2512b of the corresponding first ten months of 2010.

All categories down

A breakdown by categories of road shows all are seeing lower traffic volumes than last year but the drop is less for urban interstates than other classes. Rural traffic is down slightly more than urban.

All parts of country

All parts of the country are seeing declining traffic but the west somewhat less of a decline than the rest of the country.

Traffic volume trends data is derived from hourly traffic counts at some 4,000 permanent traffic count facilities around the country. It is based on a smaller sample size than the Highway Performance Monitoring System but gives a more immediate measure of what's happening with traffic.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/travel_monitoring/tvt.cfm

Chinese firms building U.S. infrastructure

Link to the News Report on YouTube here.

DMN: Tollway Authority needs to change its ways

Link to article here.

EDITORIAL: NTTA must button down on conflicts

Dallas Morning News

Jan. 4, 2012

Suppose your real estate agent and the seller of the home you wanted to buy were relatives. Or maybe they had business ties.

You’d want to know that information, right? You’d want to know it so you could judge whether the potential conflict of interest made it prudent for you to alter your plans.

The same principle holds true with public entities. Yet faced with similar conflicts, real or perceived, the North Texas Tollway Authority board often just looks the other way.

This isn’t a smart way to do business. Nor is it ethical.

As Michael A. Lindenberger’s reporting on the front page of this newspaper revealed Sunday, the tollway authority’s disclosure practices are haphazard, and its ethics policies far weaker than those at other public agencies, including Dallas Area Rapid Transit, the Dallas/Fort Worth International  Airport board and various boards and commissions at Dallas City Hall. This is unacceptable. The tollway authority board must strengthen its policies and police its actions.
For example, it is standard operating procedure for board members at many public agencies to submit annual financial disclosure statements or leave the room during deliberations if members have potential voting conflicts — or both. Amazingly, the tollway authority requires neither. This is an agency that distributes millions of dollars on road projects and services. Its actions have huge consequences. It should take seriously the appearance of favoritism. Says former chairman Victor Vandergriff: “The potential conflicts are allowed to taint everything else we do.”

The lack of clear, tough board guidelines has resulted in some Monty Python-like moments. Former authority chairman Paul Wageman says that, as chairman, he was careful to err on the side of caution and regularly abstained from voting on issues that involved his law firm. Yet, Lindenberger found that Wageman regularly participated in the board’s deliberations of those matters. The board’s legal adviser reportedly ruled that such conduct was proper. But when this newspaper requested a copy of the legal advice and the reasoning behind it, the board’s lawyer declined, citing attorney-client privilege.

That opinion should be made public.

In another instance, Kenneth Barr, the agency’s current chairman, failed to disclose that his brother has worked at Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, which has been the authority’s outside law firm since 1953. And on another occasion, Barr recommended a firm formed by Gov. Rick Perry’s former chief of staff Brian Newby and state Sen. Wendy Davis , D-Fort Worth, without telling board colleagues that Newby and Davis work at Cantey Hanger, a law firm that worked on NTTA’s Chisholm Trail Parkway, or that the Newby-Davis firm and Barr maintained offices in space owned by Cantey Hanger.

These sorts of undisclosed relationships, flushed out by a sunset-review process triggered by newspaper scrutiny, cast a cloud of doubt over the North Texas Tollway Authority’s independence and, as a result, the prudence of its business decisions. We expect Barr and the board to be true to their word and move quickly to beef up the authority’s ethics and disclosure rules. The authority board owes it to those it serves to be better than “business as usual.”

Pro-toll Wentworth, Ames-Jones lie about being anti-toll in debate

Watch the report here.

The claim that ALL three candidates are against toll roads is PURE fiction!  Both Jeff Wentworth and Elizabeth Ames Jones have voted to toll our local roads. Wentworth, more times than I can count, but here's the major ones: HB 3588, HB 2702, SB 792, HB 563, SB 1492.

Ames Jones voted to toll 281, 1604, I-35 and most of our local roads in July 2004 when she was a State Rep. and sat on the MPO.

I just can't believe Wentworth and Ames Jones had the unmitigated gall to lie to that group and then to have this story broadcast to San Antonio that all three are anti-toll when two of them are the REASON we're still facing toll roads all over town (57 toll projects are in the current MPO plan!). It's unbelievable! San Antonio deserves to know the truth!

Wentworth's law firm represented Zachry when Cintra-Zachry slapped that unsolicited bid on TxDOT's desk to takeover and toll 281& 1604 in 2005, and Wentworth blocked that contract from being subjected to the moratorium on those foreign-owned toll roads back in 2007. It wasn't until we went on radio to expose the connection that Wentworth backtracked and we got 281 & 1604 yanked from Cintra/Zachry. He's totally ingratiated himself with the highway lobby and pro-tollers his entire career. There is NO WAY he should be allowed to make such a claim and get away with it!
_________________________________________

All candidates claim to be anti-toll in Senate District 25 debate
By David Sears
KSAT 12 TV
January 19, 2012

SAN ANTONIO -

State Sen. Jeff Wentworth has been the representative for District 25 for two decades and he is looking to run again -- but not without a challenge.

Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones and Dr. Donna Campbell are both looking to take Wentworth’s chair at the state capital.

The three candidates participated in a debate sponsored by the Republican Men’s Club of Bexar County and the San Antonio Tea Party at Paesanos Restaurant on Thursday.

Once again, Wentworth’s conservatism came into question.

"It's not the record of the kind of person who is a reflection of your conservative principles and values," Ames Jones said.

“I’ve never been considered anything but conservative," Wentworth replied.

Campbell, claiming the "outsider" mantra, tried to stay above that fray and went direct.

"When I win the primary, I win the general," Campbell said.

The three candidates agreed on some issues, like no toll roads and getting rid of "ObamaCare."

There was disagreement on the topic of college tuition for illegal immigrants.

"I’m not for subsidizing illegal immigrants in any way shape or form,” Jones pointed out. But that statement was challenged by Wentworth.

"I voted no. Elizabeth Ames Jones, as state rep, voted yes to give tax subsidies to those illegal alien immigrants," Wentworth said.

Once again, Campbell had her own opinion, especially when it came to educating illegal immigrants from K through 12.

“ Does it really make sense to use taxpayer dollars to educate a child that when they graduate they cant legally be hired in our state?" Campbell said.

Still no word on when a primary election might take place since redistricting is still in the courts.

Ireland's PPP toll roads failed experiment


Link to article here.

"(We) have three 'ghost' train stations in Dublin for developments that failed and toll roads with so few cars using them that some companies who took part in the public private partnerships to build the roads are now in serious financial trouble," the minister said.

It would take us 100 years to fund new Metro -- Leo

By Cormac Murphy
Saturday, January 14 2012
Herald.ie

METRO North would not be completed for 100 years with the money currently available, Leo Varadkar has admitted.

Even if he used all the cash available to him, it would take a century to build the proposed light rail system, the Minister for Transport said.

In a letter to Fingal county councillors, Mr Varadkar said he is "as disappointed as anyone that Metro North has been deferred indefinitely".

However, it is "simply not possible" to fund it at the moment, he added.

About €1.2bn went on transport in 2011 and the figure falls to €0.8bn by 2016.

The vast majority of this will go on 'close out' payments for the motorways already built and maintenance of existing roads and railways. It leaves only about €40m a year for new roads and railways. "Metro North would have cost €3.2-3.7bn. Even spread over 10 years, that would be €400m a year. I have €40m a year. At that rate, getting the Metro to Swords would take 100 years," Mr Varadkar said.

"It just isn't affordable," he added, explaining that even if Metro North was built, fares would have to be €20 each way to cover the operating costs as "we would not be able to subsidise it". The minister raised the possibility of substituting the underground proposal with an above-ground option.

"I hope that someday it will be possible to built Metro North or perhaps an on-street project would be cheaper," he said.

He also said the transport investments made by the private sector have not worked out well.

"(We) have three 'ghost' train stations in Dublin for developments that failed and toll roads with so few cars using them that some companies who took part in the public private partnerships to build the roads are now in serious financial trouble," the minister said.

The Government announced late last year that Metro North, along with Dart Underground, the Thornton Hall prison and the Grangegorman DIT campus project, would be deferred.

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