Truth Be Tolled

Federal bills seek to halt tolling

By Jill Dunn

From etrucker.com

U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, has introduced the Toll Road Prohibition Act, the latest bill designed to prevent tolling on federally built highways.

HR 3802, introduced Oct. 10, would require states and cities to repay the U.S. government all federal funds used for construction of highways, bridges or tunnels, along with “reasonable interest,” before introducing tolls. “The American people should not be required to pay for the same highway twice, once through their tax dollars and again through new tolls on federal interstate highways,” Boswell said.

The legislation would not prohibit the states from entering into public-private toll agreements, but it would force them to repay the federal Highway Trust Fund first. The bill has been referred to the House transportation and infrastructure committee.

Also before that committee is a bill introduced Sept. 7 by U.S. Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa. HR 3510 would prohibit tolls on federal highways and on any highways bought back from the federal government by states. Peterson said it was part of his opposition to his state’s plan to toll Interstate 80.

Peterson’s bill is the House companion to S2019, introduced by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. The Texas Department of Transportation wants a change in federal law to allow state buybacks of federal highways for the purpose of tolling.

Hutchison’s bill is a rare instance of a Republican on Capitol Hill at odds with a Republican governor’s administration at home. Many of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s ambitious toll-financed transportation plans have proved unpopular within his own party. The Texas GOP opposes Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor, for example, arguing it will require the confiscation of too much privately owned land.

Prop 12 gives us deja vu

"Proposition 12 is the largest proposed new debt on the ballot this year. It would authorize up to $5 billion dollars of state road debt to be repaid with general revenue, instead of dedicated transportation funds. Yet another accountability breech as TxDOT is eager to become an unaccountable taxing authority.

In 2001, Prop 15 (the first Tax Wolf in sheep's clothing) was put on the ballot and politicos promised it would help solve our transportation crisis by establishing the Texas Mobility Fund. Texans trusted TxDOT and legislators and voted for "mobility" and Prop 15 became a constitutional amendment. Much like this years Prop 12, the ballot language of Prop 15 did not openly inform voters that TxDOT would use Texas Mobility Fund exclusively to shift our freeways to toll ways. Prop 15 took accountability and the will of the people out of the equation - so special interests could seize OUR LAND and OUR ROADS for profit.

Don’t be fooled again, help stop the tax wolf and vote NO on Prop 12. Election day is Nov 6th."

--Sal Costello, founder of the Texas Toll Party, in Beware of the Hungry Tax Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Yikes!

Here comes $100 oil, and $3 gas

By Steven Hargreaves

From CNN Money.com

NEW YORK -- With oil prices setting records over $90 a barrel - and $100 looking ever more likely - experts say there's a good chance drivers will see $3 gasoline before the end of the year.

"Three dollar gasoline in this market is unavoidable," said Stephen Schork, publisher of the industry newsletter the Schork Report. "At this rate, we're going to see $4 a gallon."

Crude oil prices have soared nearly 30 percent over the last month, mainly over fears that supply won't meet demand, a falling U.S. dollar, and what some say is a high degree of speculative investment money.

But so far drivers have been lucky. The national average price for gasoline has risen barely one cent, going from $2.81 last month to $2.82 this month, according to the motorist organization AAA, although in many areas of the country gasoline is already over $3.

Analysts have said the relatively stable gasoline price is due to slack demand following the high-demand summer driving season.

$90 oil won't kill the bull
But the relatively cheap gas prices are causing profit margins to slip for refiners, who have to pay top dollar for crude but aren't passing along the extra costs for consumers, yet.

"That doesn't seem sustainable," said Kevin Norrish, a commodities analyst at Barclays in London.

Norrish said it's likely refiners will scale back gas production, just as the higher demand holidays approach.

"At some point, it has to happen," he said.

Schork also said a lack of refining capacity means U.S. refiners will struggle to produce both gasoline and heating oil, so the country will end up importing more gas during the holidays. And he noted that importing gas with a weak U.S. dollar is an expensive proposition.

"We could easily see $3 by the end of the year," he said.

Not all analysts agree.

Nauman Barakat, an energy trader at Macquarie Futures, the trading arm of Macquarie investment bank, said gasoline prices near $3 a gallon have kept demand down.

The Energy Information Administration says gasoline demand has been about flat for the last few months, whereas it usually grows by about 1.5 percent a year.

"We're not going to see a similar increase in gas prices," said Barakat. "But if [oil] prices stay at these numbers, then of course it will be a different story come spring."

And therein lies the catch. All the analysts in this story expect crude to hit $100 a barrel.

"It's a matter of when, not if," said Norrish.

Norrish said it was fundamentals, not speculative investment money, driving oil prices - strong demand, falling inventories, no production increases from OPEC.

"The underlying market balance will continue to tighten, and if the geopolitical situation worsens, we'll get to $100 very quickly," he said.

Barakat said there are now more traders betting oil will rise to $100 than there were betting it would cross $90 back when crude was still in the $80s.

And Schork noted the sheer amount of oil contracts trading, and the fact that OPEC tried to cool prices back in September with a production increase, did nothing but send prices higher.

"There's a tremendous amount of bull energy in this market," he said. 'There's no reason we can't get to $100."

Boo!

Judge rips into toll critics in 'State of the County' speech

By Jim Forsyth

From WOAI

Bexar County Judge Nelson W. Wolff used his State of the County address today to tear into opponents of toll roads in Bexar County, saying they are 'crazy' and 'dangerous' and suggesting once that if he 'named the other members of Commissioner's Court who support toll roads it might endanger their lives.'

Wolff said toll roads are 'the right way,' and he urged the Chamber of Commerce audience to cheer Metropolitan Planning Organization Chair Sheila McNeil, who was sued along with the MPO this week by toll road opponents who claim that the organization is illegally pushing for toll roads.

"We have some people who have had to take a lot of heat," Wolff said. "One of them is Sheila McNeil who is the head of the MPO. Sheila, stand up. We owe you a round of applause for taking the heat from these crazy people who are jamming it down your throat every day!"

Wolff has been a long time supporter of toll roads, and he has mentioned the importance of building toll roads in his previous two State of the County speeches. But the vehemence of his denunciation of toll road opponents surprised some in his generally pro toll audience. Wolff didn't mention by name which toll road opponents he thinks are 'crazy' or 'dangerous' but he did cite an incident following a meeting to discuss toll roads.

"We had an incident not too long ago, where the anti toll road people were here and sort of jumped (Regional Mobility Authority Chairman) Bill Thornton and I in the parking lot. I tried to get away from him and he kept following me. I finally turned around and asked him to get away from me, and he said 'give me your best shot.' I called the deputy across the street, and he came over and kept him away from me. Let me tell you, they are dangerous people."

"We're barely holding on with a three two vote on Commissioners Court supporting this project," Wolff said. "I won't tell you who the other two commissioners are, I don't want to endanger their lives."

Lyle Larson and Tommy Adkisson are toll road opponents on Bexar County Commissioner's Court.

Then, Wolff suggested that Bexar County residents should be grateful that toll roads are being built.

"The roads on the side will be free, the toll lanes will be in the middle, you don't have to get onto the toll lane, you should be happy we're building it, because there will be less traffic on the free lanes."

Wolff said he opposes any concessions agreement which would allow "a company from Spain" to build the toll roads, a reference to the Cintra-Zachry partnership which has the contract to build 40 miles of the State Highway 130 toll road.

"TexDOT wants to give it (the US 281 toll lane construction contract) to a company from Spain," Wolff said. "We prefer that the public be involved. We need to stick with the public sector, we need to keep the tolls as low as possible, and allow that money to stay right here and not go someplace else, whether it be Spain or someplace else in Texas."

Terri Hall, founder of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, the leading anti toll group, agrees there is a lot that is crazy about toll roads, but toll road opponents aren't among them.

"What's crazy is charging us over and over again for what's already paid for," Hall said. "What's crazy is claiming that they're not tolling existing roads, when that's exactly what they're doing. And what's dangerous is TexDOT failing to construct overpasses on 281 where deaths have occurred, so they can build 'cash cow' toll roads."

Hall says she's 'amazed' that a Chamber of Commerce audience cheered Wolff's pro toll remarks, when toll roads will hurt local businesses and harm the county's tax base.

"People are not going to go to the store, or buy that pair of shoes, when they have to pay all that money on tolls. That is going to hurt the tax base of Bexar County, and that's the bottom line."

Yesterday's press conference

New toll road lawsuit is front page news

"It needs to be cured. The willpower to do that, it doesn't exist on this current board."

--Tommy Adkisson, Bexar County Commissioner and MPO Board member, quoted by
WOAI News

Adkisson, Terri Hall, David Van Os and David Leibowitz, all featured in Truth Be Tolled, led the fight against freeway hijacking yesterday at a press conference about TexasTurf.org's new federal lawsuit, one week after Hall's victory securing a three-month continuance in her separate lawsuit alleging the misuse of funds in TxDOT's $9 million PR campaign.

Read the press release about the new lawsuit here.

By Patrick Driscoll

From the San Antonio Express-News

With a U.S. 281 tollway plan racing toward the finish line, critics Monday filed yet another lawsuit they hope will slam on the brakes.

This time, they went to a federal court in San Antonio and reached back to the First and 14th amendments of the Constitution, which protect freedom of speech and provide equal protection under the law.

The lawsuit seeks to remove non-elected officials from the Metropolitan Planning Organization board and to ban Sheila McNeil, a city councilwoman who serves as chairwoman, from squelching some discussions on toll issues.

"The people of Texas are fed up with out-of-control, abusive government," said Terri Hall of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom. "This is taxation without representation."

Planning organization Director Isidro Martinez said federal law dealing with local oversight of transportation funds calls for staff officials from major agencies as well as elected leaders to serve on such boards.

Eleven of the 19 members of the planning board have been elected to city councils, the Bexar County Commissioners Court and the Legislature.

"It's just the way we've always done it," he said. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

McNeil said it's disappointing that no one first tried to resolve differences with her.

"Whoever's filing a lawsuit has not come to me and asked me to reconsider or do anything," she said. "It's a waste of court time."

Board member David Leibowitz, a state representative, said McNeil has repeatedly blocked consideration of a resolution that would advise the Texas Department of Transportation to stop spending up to $9 million to promote toll roads.

McNeil put the resolution on last month's agenda but, she said, pulled it after reading it. She said an unwritten policy lets the chairwoman set the agendas.

"It got inadvertently put on the agenda," she told the board last month. "It is not a matter for this MPO. We're a planning organization. We don't tell other organizations or entities how to spend their money."

The maneuver was just the latest to spark the lawsuit, Hall said. Others include a split vote in July to push aside a toll critic and install McNeil as chairwoman, and a sudden policy change in May to try to keep a toll advocate on the board despite leaving elected office.

San Antonio has four council members on the board, more than any other entity. The city also has two staff officials who serve, and they typically vote with their bosses.

"We've done everything in our power to exert the political pressure to change this unconstitutional board," Hall said. "But when a powerful unelected voting bloc is allowed to persist unchecked, we have no choice but go to court."

The lawsuit's lead attorney, David Van Os, who last year ran as the Democratic candidate for state attorney general, said he'll ask for a hearing before the planning board meets Dec. 3.

In December, the board plans to set U.S. 281 toll rates and shift more public money to subsidize the toll road, from $69 million allocated now to $112 million. With the extra funds, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority could build 8 miles of tollway instead of 4.

The mobility authority hopes to start construction next summer and open the toll road in 2012, with express lanes running from Loop 1604 to either Marshall Road or Comal County. Toll rates might start at 17 cents a mile for cars and rise 2.75 percent a year through 2017 and then 3 percent annually.

But that's if the project doesn't get shoved into a legal ditch. A 2005 lawsuit filed in a state district court forced more environmental study, which stopped work for more than two years. Construction costs have since gone up by a third.

Help preserve Big Bend

Please consider signing this petition to ask Governor Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott to stop the sale of the Christmas Mountains.

Environment Texas petition

"On Friday, the National Park Service announced they would like to add the Christmas Mountains to Big Bend National Park. Big Bend's superintendent asked Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson to delay the sale of the Christmas Mountains to private interests in order to give them time to put together a proposal.

Unfortunately, Patterson turned the park service down, saying he didn't want them to manage the property unless they changed their policy that prohibits concealed hand guns on the property. This is a completely unrelated issue and shouldn't stand in the way of the protection of the Christmas Mountains."

Also, visit Stop the Trucks.org to learn more about La Entrada al Pacifica, the trade corridor threatening Big Bend and the beautiful small towns of west Texas.

Thanks.

Oink, oink.

"According to the media report, TxDOT's vendor refers to those who host or call talk radio as 'pigs.' This is just another sad example of the total lack of respect certain segments of government have for the people it is to serve.

I welcome you on the air anytime to discuss our critical transportation issues. Prior to your interview, I would be happy to give you a couple pointers on how to deal with us, the taxpayers ..."

--Senator Dan Patrick, in his letter to Ric Williamson regarding TxDOT training documents explaining how to respond to "off-message" talk radio questions

The talk radio training is part of TxDOT's $9 million taxpayer-funded public relations campaign to promote toll roads and the Trans-Texas Corridor. The document advised TxDOT representatives to "keep calm" in the face of on-air disagreements and to "leave wrestling to the pigs. They always end up looking like pigs."

Senator Dan Patrick is a radio station owner who has received the Lone Star Award for best talk host in Texas.

Give TxDOT the red light

Commentary by Colonel Ken Allard

From the San Antonio Express-News

Forgive me, fellow Texans, but I'm just a newcomer who looks ridiculous in a cowboy hat and doesn't even own an SUV. Quickly recognizing Eastern transplants, tourist shops try to sell me bumper stickers: "Wasn't born in Texas, but I got here just as soon as I could."
So can you help me connect these dots while we wait for the daily Boerne-Loop 410-airport-Seguin-San Marcos traffic jam to clear up?

News item No. 1: Pleading a funding shortage, the Texas Department of Transportation announced it will cut $1.8 billion in road construction, including at least $57 million (apparently earmarked in a weak moment) to widen clogged San Antonio highways.

News item No. 2: Today, Travis County District Judge Orlinda Naranjo will decide if TxDOT officials acted illegally in spending taxpayer funds to drum up political support for toll roads (TxDOT's preferred solution to the state's transportation crisis).

News item No. 3: A private contractor received more than $750,000 from TxDOT to send road condition surveys to 150,000 presumably startled motorists whose license plates were "randomly recorded" by TxDOT surveillance cameras hidden in orange barrels on Interstate 35 from Laredo to Dallas.

As a one-time regular on his MSNBC simulcast, I would often hear radio shock jock Don Imus exclaim, "You just can't make this stuff up!" Indeed you can't when it comes to TxDOT, which gives an entirely new meaning to the phrase "out of control."

Has no one in the Lone Star State ever heard of "checks and balances"? (Hint to local high schoolers about to endure new rounds of standardized testing: This term does not refer to financial matters!)

Had TxDOT somehow been cast as a character on "The Sopranos," the only question would be: How long before Paulie Walnuts takes 'em out to get whacked?

While the arrogance of government agencies and personalities is the hardiest of all perennials, there is always the inevitable downside.

A powerful congressman such as Wilbur Mills winds up cavorting with stripper Fanne Fox in the Tidal Basin. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover is eventually revealed to have had a fondness for basic black, apparently accessorized with really nice pumps and pearls.

So just how far can TxDOT push its luck before somebody wakes up and gives the agency its long overdue comeuppance?

Had anything like the trifecta of excesses outlined above occurred in Washington rather than Austin, the offending agency director would have been instantly summoned to appear before investigating committees, with the usual tiers of media mavens and photographers-in-waiting. With cameras scrutinizing every flinch, the tough questions for the TxDOT director would begin.

Who decides which road improvements are funded by your agency — and with whose concurrence? What public input is solicited, and why should the public believe TxDOT when you say you're running out of money?

What gives you the idea that a taxpayer-funded public agency has any business using those tax dollars to lobby for its own interests? And why waste almost a million dollars on a "Big Brother" survey about road conditions that your department should have understood to begin with?

Until such questions are asked and answered, simply think of TxDOT as a state agency being gradually auctioned off to a hot-bidding coalition of builders, developers, heavy equipment contractors and construction magnates.

One thing is certain: We are quickly losing much of San Antonio's special character to chaos — unbridled expansion, high-density housing and utterly unplanned growth. Despite growing questions about its transparency and competence, TxDOT acts as an obliging accomplice while fields, forests and the last remnants of an irreplaceable frontier culture are bulldozed into 24 lanes of privatized, toll-bearing concrete, complete with access roads.

Know what San Antonio will look like if these guys win? Houston!

Know what we are if we let that happen? Stupid!

Reasons enough to demand that our political leaders bring TxDOT's antics to a screeching halt before it starts putting up toll booths at the end of your driveway.

(Got here just as soon as I could to warn you.)

Perry-Giuliani-TTC ties

"A law firm would solidify Rudy's financial empire--but not just any firm would do. Partner Giuliani wanted to become President Giuliani. He needed money and, more important, political connections. Bracewell offered a gateway into the lavish world of Texas Republican fundraising and easy access to the same titans of industry who had helped make the Bush family rich and propelled W. into the White House. The former mayor of one of the bluest cities in the country had just inked a whole lot of red."

--Ari Berman, describing the law firm partnership of Bracewell and Giuliani, in Rudy's Dirty Money, in The Nation

"Moreover, [Rick] Perry has been a major booster of a controversial proposed toll superhighway, known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, which Rudy's law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, has helped represent."

--Ari Berman, Texas Gov Goes Giuliani

"More recently, [T. Boone] Pickens has been prospecting in Texas's new oil: water. His company, Mesa Water, owns groundwater rights to 200,000 acres of land north of Amarillo (in Texas, unlike other Western states, groundwater is considered private by virtue of a 'right to capture' law), which he's said he plans to sell to cities like El Paso, San Antonio and Dallas, potentially netting him $1 billion over the next thirty years. Pickens claims to be the 'number-one steward of the land,' but locals are wary of what Fortune magazine dubbed a Chinatown-esque scheme to divert water from the Panhandle, earning Pickens the status of 'regional reprobate,' as Salon put it."

--Berman, on the associations of Pickens and Giuliani in the Presidential candidate's Texas campaign efforts in Rudy's Dirty Money

"For three years the Governor and his TXDOT gang denied that [State Highway] 130 had anything to do with the TTC. However, when it changed to an advantage to them, suddenly this tax-payer funded state highway was and is, supposedly, part of the tolled TTC-35.

Why the change in their 'story'? Could it be because the recent two-year moratorium placed on new toll corridors by our Texas legislature this past spring, might not cover a project that has already been started? Therefore, 'they' now tell us, 'of course 130 is part of the TTc-35!'

Well, even if you have not been concerned about the Trans Texas Corridor some 10-15 miles from our Milam county, perhaps this perfect visual of our local water leaving our water district from our precious aquifer and heading through a huge new 'transport pipeline' to an even larger - 90-foot - pipeline to flow out and away down the TTC, perhaps this will concern you.

Remember, TxDOT, an unelected agency of our state government, has recently granted powers to actually make treaty-like agreements with other states and other countries for permits and concessions along a corridor such as the TTC would be.

Even though some of us have been trying to warn citizens about the TTC and this water threat issue, this recent clear article and visual drawing brought the fact home, even quicker than I expected it to happen."

--Margaret Green, in a letter to the editor of the Cameron Herald of central Texas, referencing a drawing of a proposed pipeline

“I won’t consider that, let me just tell you."

--Governor Rick Perry, quoted by W. Gardner Selby in the Austin American-Statesman responding to reporters who questioned whether he is considering a Vice Presidency run with Rudy Giuliani, whose campaign he endorsed yesterday