Rick Perry’s campaign may be sidetracked by the Trans-Texas Corridor

By KENDRA MARR

Rick Perry’s small-government record has yet another blot.

It’s called the Trans-Texas Corridor.

The governor’s 2012 rivals have latched onto his executive  order mandating the HPV vaccine and his advocacy for in-state tuition for  illegal immigrants, while little has been said about his unrealized  1,200-foot-wide toll road project that would have swallowed more than 500,000  acres of Texas farmland and wildlife habitats. But as the focus of debates  increasingly turn toward President Barack Obama’s jobs agenda — a plan calling  for a heavy dose of infrastructure investment — that may change.

“Pay to play, cronyism — all those charges can be found right here in the  Trans-Texas Corridor,” said Terri Hall, founder and director of Texans United  for Reform and Freedom, a group that fought the project. “We had a Texas-sized  uprising.”

In 2002, Perry unveiled his $175 billion blueprint for Texas transportation,  calling for 4,000 miles of new toll roads, high-speed rail lines and pipelines “as big as Texas and as ambitious as our people.” Not unlike Obama, Perry  envisioned a government role in cultivating private-sector investment in  infrastructure.

But awarding new toll development to a Spanish company stoked nativist fears — and questions about a revolving door to the governor’s office. His massive  land grab through eminent domain, the practice of government seizing private  property for public use, incurred the wrath of farmers, environmentalists and  members of his own party.

Nearly 10 years later, Perry signed the death certificate for his brainchild,  scrubbing all references of the corridor project from state statutes during the  most recent Texas legislative session.

“I supported the ban of ever making a taxpayer-paid road a toll road. You  cannot do that in the state of Texas,” he said in an August interview with Des Moines-based WHO Radio,  stressing that tolling alternatives are raising taxes, asking Washington for  money or waiting for the “asphalt fairy.”

Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan said the failed initiative ultimately fostered  conversations about how to fund road projects without increased taxes or relying  on the Federal Highway Trust Fund.

“We would describe it as one starting a very important, robust public debate  and discussion of financing and developing transportation infrastructure,” he  said. “While the corridor concept is dead, the debate has resulted in more  transportation funding options and high-priority projects going forward with  some private financing and strong state and local cooperation.”

Tolling and public-private partnerships have helped the state’s  infrastructure keep up with the big influx of people moving to the state,  Sullivan said, adding that the debate had evolved in such a “positive way,” the  governor “could agree with the legislature that the corridor was no longer the  right approach for the state.”

It’s clear that Texas needs to do something about its crumbling and aging  transportation network. The state added 4 million people over the past decade,  and its population explosion isn’t expected to slow down. Nearly half of the  state’s major highways are congested, and one-third of its major roads are in  poor or mediocre condition, according to the American Society of Civil  Engineers.

At the same time, the state has borrowed heavily to fund its road projects  since 2003 and will owe $17.3 billion by the end of next year.

Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor proposal — launched during his first  gubernatorial campaign — would have run from the Mexico border to Oklahoma. It  was the answer to the challenges of a growing state that was expecting increased  international traffic under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Perry  envisioned separate lanes for cars and trucks, as well as a rail system. The  project was also slated to carry water pipes and utility lines. It was the “largest engineering project ever proposed for Texas,” according to one  transportation department report, promising to reduce congestion, cut pollution,  improve safety and speed up trade routes.

Given the state’s budget difficulties, Perry’s financing schemes included  public and private money, including some toll roads.

Republicans took control of the state Legislature in 2003, pushing the  Trans-Texas Corridor project through both chambers as part of an omnibus  transportation bill. But evidently, few lawmakers knew what the bill  contained.

When the state Transportation Department began holding public meetings about  the project in early 2004, voters were fuming at the possibility that private  corporations — particularly foreign ones — might exercise eminent domain to  build massive amounts of infrastructure for profit.

“His plan was meant to be bold, get one’s imagination working, and it turned  out to look scary to people,” said Matt Dellinger, author of “Interstate 69,” which details the fight over the Trans-Texas Corridor.

County toll authorities in Dallas and Houston complained the state was  forcing them into contracts with private companies, while voters began calling  their legislators to repeal the law. David and Linda Stall, a Republican couple  from Fayetteville, Texas, formed a group called CorridorWatch.org, which held  meetings across the state about the details of the plan and whipped up  outrage.

Environmental groups objected to the wildlife being lost, and farmers turned  on the former state agriculture commissioner, calling it an abuse of eminent  domain.

“It would have claimed a lot of farm and ranch ground — some of  the best in farm and ranch country in the entire state,” said Jim Sartwelle,  director of public policy for the Texas Farm Bureau.

Perry’s decision to award development rights to a Spanish company, Cintra,  only tapped into anxieties about immigration, free trade and border security.  Conspiracy theorists dubbed it the “NAFTA Superhighway” and protested the  alleged plot to dissolve the nation’s borders.

And voters cried foul when it came out that one of Perry’s top aides, Dan  Shelley, worked for Cintra until three months before the company was selected  for the state road project. When Shelley left the governor’s office, he signed a  lucrative lobbying contract with Cintra.

But the Perry administration held its ground. Texas Transportation  Commissioner Ric Williamson, one of Perry’s closest advisers and friends,  frequently intoned, “There is no road fairy.”

“We either build toll roads, slow roads or no roads,” Perry said in 2007.

Ultimately, the uproar forced state officials to scale back the proposal. In  2007, the Legislature dealt a blow to the main tenant of the corridor by placing  a moratorium on public-private toll partnerships. In 2009, Perry’s  Transportation Department officially killed it off with a “no build” recommendation on the corridor’s first segment, which was being handled by  Cintra.

It was one of the most controversial issues of Perry’s gubernatorial career — yet he emerged from the fight relatively unscathed.

During his 2006 reelection, there wasn’t a strong Republican challenger to  bring up the Trans-Texas Corridor. Perry, who continued to support the corridor,  won the four-way general election with 39 percent of the vote.

During his 2010 gubernatorial fight, Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison  aired a biting attack ad accusing Perry of tolling roads for the benefit of  foreign companies. Hutchison lost, and while the Democratic nominee,  then-Houston Mayor Bill White, also ran an attack ad on the project, Perry won  easily.

By the recent midterm election, the issue was too old to cause much damage.  Yet tea party activists were still vocally hesitant at what they viewed as the  government’s big private-land grab.

Will it damage Perry’s national ambitions?

“Rick Perry talks a good game about getting government out of your life, but  if there’s any utility at all for him to put government in your life, you’ve got  government in your life,” said Leland Beatty, who worked for Perry’s agriculture  predecessor Jim Hightower.

Hall fumes that some public-private partnerships are still alive and well in  Texas — even if the corridor project is dead. “There are all these sweetheart  deals for all his corporate cronies,” she said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65031_Page2.html#ixzz1Zuxk3Llw

Rick Perry and his cronies

Terri Hall, San Antonio Transportation Policy Examiner

With the pay-to-play Solyndra scandal rocking the White House, presidential  hopeful Rick Perry is embroiled in a mountain of crony capitalism  controversy all his own. During the September 12 GOP presidential debate, Michelle Bachmann exposed the money trail behind Perry’s Executive Order  mandating all 6th grade girls in Texas receive the Gardasil HPV vaccine made by  the drug company, Merck, the employer of Perry’s former Chief of Staff, Mike  Toomey, at the time. Merck funneled money to Perry, initially $5,000, but  eventually adding up to the tidy sum of closer to $400,000, sparking outrage across Texas and now the  nation.

Toomey’s just the tip of the ice berg.

A recent bill pushed through the Texas Legislature benefited the company  Waste Control Specialists, owned by #2 donor to Gov. Rick Perry, Harold  Simmons.  Just days after the bill was signed into law, Mr. Simmons  wrote a $100,000 check to Americans for Rick Perry, the super PAC supporting  Gov. Perry’s candidacy for president notes Debra Medina of We Texans.

Janet Ahmad, President of Homeowners for Better Building, pointed to  similar problems in the construction industry.  Top Rick Perry donor, Bob Perry, paid nearly $8 million in campaign contributions and sought  and received his own regulatory agency called the Texas Residential Construction  Commission in 2003.  Gov. Perry appointed industry-connected people to that  agency, including Perry Homes VP, corporate counsel John Krugh. “The  resulting agency was so anti-consumer and so counter-productive that the Texas  Legislature later decided to abolish it,” Ahmad concludes.

Texas for Sale

Then there’s Perry’s penchant for selling off Texas infrastructure to the  highest bidder, particularly to the employer of his former staffer Dan  Shelley, a Spanish company, Cintra. Shelley worked as a ‘consultant’ for  Cintra (in 2004), became Perry’s liaison to the legislature during the time that  Cintra was awarded the development rights to the $7 billion dollar Trans Texas  Corridor (in 2005), then went back to work as a lobbyist for Cintra (in 2006).  He and has daughter reportedly earned between $50,000-$100,000 on lobbying for Cintra that year.

Two key bills that just passed the Texas Legislature and signed into law by  Perry further illustrate the crony capitalism and pattern of governance in the  Perry Administration, both of which will benefit Cintra, in particular.

SB 1420 makes 15 Texas roads eligible for public private partnerships (P3s)  that sell- off Texas sovereign land/public roads to private entities in 50 year  monopolies. P3s involve public money for private profits (including gas taxes  and other public subsidies), contain non-compete clauses that penalize or  prohibit the expansion of surrounding free routes, and put the power to tax in  the hands of private corporations that result in toll rates as high as 75 cents  per mile ($13/day or like adding $15 to every gallon of gas you buy).  It’s selling off Texas to the highest bidder, which is the MOST expensive,  anti-taxpayer method of funding infrastructure.

Four road projects under SB 1420 have already been awarded to Cintra. In  fact, every single P3 for roads in Texas has gone to Cintra: SH 130 (segments 5 & 6) and I-635 and the North Tarrant Express (comprised of multiple  projects, primarily on I-820) in Dallas/Ft.Worth. All have been heavily  subsidized with gas taxes and other public money (see pages 2 & 3), yet Cintra walks away with a sweetheart  deal and guaranteed profits. Despite Cintra’s shaky financial situation (its debt rating just got lowered  due to fears of the Cintra-controlled Indiana Toll Road going into default),  Perry’s highway department continues to press ahead with these extremely  controversial and unpopular privatization projects.

Perry’s connection to Cintra explains why he endorsed Rudy Giuliani in  the last presidential election. At the time, Giuliani’s law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, was the legal firm representing Cintra in its bid to takeover SH 121 (which eventually unraveled) in the Dallas  area. Giuliani’s investment firm was purchased by an Australian firm, Macquarie,  another global player in P3s at the same time his law firm was advising Cintra  on the SH 121 deal. While many social conservatives were baffled by Perry’s  backing of Giuliani, it was no surprise to those following the Trans Texas Corridor and  Perry’s push to privatize Texas freeways.

Balfour Beatty enters the scene

Perry likes to brag ‘Texas is Open for Business’ and here’s what that means  to property rights and taxpayers. The second key public private partnership  bill, SB 1048, Perry signed into law will mean Katie-Bar-the-Door on selling off  virtually everything not nailed down. The bill was written by lobbyist Brett Findley on behalf of another infrastructure firm,  British company Balfour Beatty, and it will allow all public buildings,  nursing homes, hospitals, schools, ports, mass transit projects, ports,  telecommunications, etc. to be sold-off to corporations using P3s. Unlike the 50  year cap on road P3s, SB 1048 gives no limit on the length of time a P3s can  last or whether such broad authority expires.

Two particularly anti-taxpayer provisions in SB 1048 are the fact taxpayers  secure the private entity’s debt (2267.061 (f)) and that it authorizes public  subsidies for private profits by raiding taxpayers’ money through loans from the  State Infrastructure Bank.

Michelle Malkin called P3s corporate welfare. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are P3s and  required massive taxpayer bailouts. P3s socialize the losses and privatize the  profits. These contracts also eliminate competitive bidding and grant  government-sanctioned monopolies (with guaranteed profits) to the  well-connected.

Public interest not protected, kept secret

These contracts can be negotiated in SECRET, without financial disclosures  (like financing, the structure of the ‘user fees’ or lease payments, viability  studies, public subsidies, or whether or not it contains non-compete clauses or  other gotcha provisions). There is no meaningful public access to P3s before  they’re signed, and the few guidelines created simply exist to advise  governmental entities outside the public purview.

Eminent domain for private gain


P3s represent eminent domain for private gain — the source of much of the  backlash to the Trans Texas Corridor, where P3s were the financing mechanism  that granted these private entities the control of not just the facility, but  the right of way/surrounding property where private companies make a killing on  concessions. A plurality of Texans don’t like the idea of foreign ownership of  our public infrastructure and they dislike eminent domain for private gain even  more.

Of course, it started with the Trans Texas Corridor, known at the federal level as high  priority corridors, corridors of the future, or the NAFTA superhighways. Just in  Texas, it was to be a 4,000 mile multi-modal network of toll roads, rail lines,  power transmission lines, pipelines, telecommunications lines and more. It was  going to be financed, operated, and controlled by a foreign company, Cintra,  granted massive swaths of land 1,200 feet (4 football fields) wide taken  forcibly through eminent domain.

Called the biggest land grab in Texas history, it was going to gobble up  580,000 acres of private Texas land (the first corridor alone was to displace 1  million Texans) and hand it over to well-connected global players using PPPs,  who would gain exclusive rights to determine the route and what hotels,  restaurants, and gas stations were along the corridor in a government-sanctioned  monopoly for a half century. It was the worst case of eminent domain for private  gain ever conceived.

Property rights shredded
The Trans Texas Corridor, and P3s in general,  represent an imminent threat to private property rights. While lawmakers  repealed the Trans Texas Corridor from state statute only months ago due to the  public backlash, the corridor lives on through these P3s.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Perry & his cronies: The Shelley-Cintra-Giuliani connection – San Antonio Transportation Policy | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/transportation-policy-in-san-antonio/perry-his-cronies-the-shelley-cintra-giuliani-connection#ixzz1YgNIsDOA

Gov. Perry’s Proposed Road in Texas Had Few Friends and Could Still Take a Political Toll

By AMANDA PETERKA

The less the Trans-Texas Corridor is brought up during the Republican presidential primaries, the better for Rick Perry.

Although it was officially killed in the most recent Texas legislative session, the proposed massive transportation and infrastructure project and ensuing debacle could still end up being a thorn in the governor’s side as he preaches his anti-big government mantra on the campaign trail.

As originally proposed and backed by Perry, the state of Texas would have taken more than 500,000 acres of private land to build the 1,200-foot-wide toll road. The majority of those acres were agricultural lands and wildlife habitats, and many are part of the state’s Blackland Prairies, some of the richest farmland in the country.

“It was so expansive and so wide, unlike any highway ever built. It was an enormous size,” said Terri Hall, founder and director of Texans United for Reform and Freedom, a group that has opposed the project. “A fully built-out interstate is only about 400 feet wide. It was a huge land grab.”

There is no argument that Texas needs to do something about its roads. In the past decade, Texas has added more than 4 million people to its population, stressing the transportation infrastructure well beyond state coffers.

The state’s population is projected to grow further, and most of the growth is expected to occur in the north-south corridor from San Antonio to the Oklahoma border.

To fund road projects, Texas has borrowed heavily, and its debt will be $17.3 billion by the end of 2012 for road repairs made since 2003 (Greenwire, Aug. 17).

In 2002, Perry proposed the $175 billion, 4,000-mile Trans-Texas Corridor, which would have carried Texans from the Mexico border to Oklahoma. Perry envisioned separate lanes for cars and trucks, and a rail system to be built in the middle. The project would also have potentially carried water pipes and utility lines.

With the state’s budget difficulties, “the tolling aspect was one of the selling points from Rick Perry’s perspective,” said Ken Kramer, director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Once Republicans took control of the state Legislature after redistricting in 2003, the TTC was pushed through the House and the Senate as part of an omnibus transportation bill that allowed for the private funding of public highways, the tolling of such a road and the use of eminent domain to acquire land for the project.

“It was not until lawmakers got back home that they discovered what they had done and there was going to be pushback,” said Harvey Kronberg, editor of The Quorum Report, an online Texas political tip sheet.

And there quickly was plenty of pushback. Environmental groups objected to the wildlife habitat that would be lost and advocated for expanded public transportation rather than allowing more cars. Others objected to tolling as a means to raise money to build highways.

And when Perry awarded the development rights to a Spanish company, Cintra, there were complaints that foreign interests were taking over American roads and that Perry was rewarding his cronies. A former legislative director of Perry’s, Dan Shelley, went to work for Cintra after leaving the governor’s office.

Jim Sartwelle, public policy director at the Texas Farm Bureau, said that his organization is not necessarily anti-toll road. For farmers and ranchers, the problem with the project was the taking of so much agricultural and ranch land — and the fact that Perry himself is a former farmer heightened their outrage. Some of that land had been in families for hundreds of years.

“Agriculture’s biggest concerns were property rights concerns,” Sartwelle said. “What happens if the state takes a large piece of property and cuts it into two pieces? It leaves a landlocked piece with no access. Now the land’s not worth as much. … It was an extremely emotional issue to many of our members.”

Perry spent two terms as agriculture commissioner in the 1990s, his first statewide post. He was elected lieutenant governor in 1998 and became governor after George W. Bush was elected president in 2000.

Leland Beatty, who worked for Perry’s agriculture predecessor Jim Hightower, looked at the TTC as Perry betraying the state’s agricultural interests.

“Once he became lieutenant governor, agriculture never mattered in any way, shape or form,” Beatty said, who also is the retired communications director for the Environmental Defense Fund. “He had always been a big property rights fan, he was always talking about farmers’ right to defend against condemnation. Once he became governor and had a big chance to do the toll road deal, he didn’t care.”

The project became one of the most controversial issues of Perry’s tenure as governor. But while it generated a lot of acrimony and played a huge role in state legislative elections, Perry emerged relatively unscathed.

“There was a lot of screaming and yelling and complaining, and legislators just wanted to eviscerate the TTC. But there was no penalty against Perry,” Kronberg said.

When he was up for re-election in 2006, Perry had no effective Republican primary challenger to bring up the issue. He won the four-way general election that year with 39 percent of the vote.

By that time, the pushback against the project forced state officials to scale back their proposal. One part of it, Texas Highway 130, was begun as a tolled bypass around Austin. The scale was nowhere near that of the original plan.

The TTC concept was shelved in 2009 when legislators decided not to pass a public-private toll bill that would have made it possible. In the 2010 gubernatorial election, Houston Mayor Bill White, the Democratic nominee, did run an ad attacking Perry over the project, but bigger issues dominated the dialogue, and Perry won easily.

“Talk has died down because it was so thoroughly trashed by so many people,” Kramer of the Sierra Club said.

This past legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill repealing the TTC, ending years of dispute.

The mood of the Legislature was, “If it ain’t dead already, we’re just going to formally say we’re putting a nail in this coffin,” said David Weinberg, president of the Texas League of Conservation Voters.

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