Thread: Stop The Corridor

What Tangled Webs We Weave!
Mr. Cheney you and your pals... hands are in the candy jar again!!!!!and again and again...when are you boys ever satisfied

http://indytexans.org/

Stop The Corridor

Voters from all party affiliations agree that our political system has been seriously compromised by partisan special interests. The increase in independent voters in the country (remember, according to many public opinion polls, we independent voters now hold a plurality that is growing!) dictates a major overhaul of our political process, not to mention Texas voting and Texas politics. This section explains what we mean by political reform -- not just rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic! Join Independent Texans to enact these changes for Texas voters in order to win fair elections for every Texan.

This page is a work in progress (so keep checking back up for regular updates) to help get people from across the state ready to contact their legislators to help stop the Corridor and urban freeway toll schemes, in the 2007 legislative session. The Governor's spokesman was quoted the day after Christmas touting Rick Perry's "legacy" as the Trans-Texas Corridor. What kind of legacy is it for the Governor to create the largest eminent domain seizure in the history of the United States, and without a vote of the people, for an international trade route being negotiated behind closed doors? Dr. Pat Choate's paper (linked on the right side of this page), makes clear how much a national and international issue the Corridor truly is. Expect Congress to start deliberations on this issue, simultaneous to the Texas legislature. Again, keep coming back to this page -- and be sure to get on our mailing list, and join Independent Texans today on this web site.

How to Take Back Texas!

Step One: Go to our Calendar Section for information on our January 21 conference entitled, "The Road to Texas Independence, Without the Corridor & Tolls!" and January 22, Citizens Lobby Day, where folks from across the state will hear from the experts and go meet with their legislators. It's free, but you must make a reservation!

Step Two: Read all the links on this page to arm yourself with all the information you need.

Step Three: Share this information with 3 others and ask them to do all three steps too.

We're going to teach this Governor, and his special interest friends, that the only legacy that really counts, is the one that respects the rights of the people! Join us! -- Linda Curtis, founder, Independent Texans


The Trans-Texas Corridor’s Central Role

in

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America

Presented at the Toll and Corridor Summit II

By Pat Choate

Austin, Texas

October 7, 2006

_____________________________________

The United States Constitution: “The Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.”

(Article 1, Section 8, U.S. Constitution)



President George W. Bush: “Section 1634(e) (H.R. 4) purports to require the United States Trade Representative to submit to congressional committees the contents of the negotiating positions of the United States and foreign countries in certain international trade negotiations. The executive branch shall construe section 1634(e) in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to conduct the Nation's foreign affairs including negotiations with foreign countries, supervise the unitary executive branch, and to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties.” (George W. Bush, Signing Statement, White House, August 17, 2006.)

_____________________________________

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a trade and investment pact between the United States, Mexico and Canada. But it is about more than trade. It is also a trilateral agreement on intellectual property rights, immigration, transportation, regulatory standards and food safety, among many other measures. Most important, NAFTA is seen by the Administration of President George W. Bush as the first step in a longer-term initiative to tightly integrate the economies and political institutions of the three nations.



By ratifying NAFTA, the U.S. Congress authorized the Executive Branch to participate in more than two-dozen trilateral committees and working groups whose purpose is to harmonize national policies and regulations on a wide range of issues including trade in agriculture and goods, setting standards for telecommunications, the automotive industry, land transport, rules of origin, and food safety among many other issues. To deal with trade disputes, NAFTA authorized the creation of a new trilateral judicial process, outside each nation’s judicial system, but whose decisions were binding on the three nations.



In February 2001, President George Bush and President Vincente Fox announced their intention to develop a more integrated “North American” approach to development. Subsequently, this was diverted by the 9/11 attacks on the United States.



In 2004, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) created an effort to reignite the “North American” approach. It announced on October 15, 2004 that the Council would join with leading business and foreign policy groups in Mexico and Canada to create a trilateral task force that would review and make recommendations on (1) deepening economic integration among the three nations (2) reducing the development gap (3) harmonizing regulatory policy (4) enhancing security, and (5) devising better mechanisms for resolving disputes that arise out of greater trilateral integration.



The Task Force consisted of ten panelists from each nation. Mexico was represented by the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales (COMEXI) and Canada by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) that nation’s premier business association. The U.S. participants consisted of people who had negotiated NAFTA.



The principal recommendations from the CFR study (Building a North American Community, May 17, 2005) were: (1) Establish a common security perimeter by 2010 (2) Develop a North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers (3) Develop a unified border action plan and expand border customs facilities (4) Create a single economic space (5) Adopt a common external tariff (6) Allow the seamless movement of goods within North America; (7) Move to full labor mobility of goods within North America ( Move to fully labor mobility between Canada and the U.S. (9) Develop a North American energy strategy (10) Review those sectors of NAFTA that were excluded (11) Expand temporary worker programs (12) Establish a North American Investment Fund to build infrastructure in Mexico (13) Institutionalize the partnership (14) Establish a permanent tribunal for trade and investment disputes (15) Convene an annual North American summit meeting of the three leaders to monitor progress, and (16) Establish a Tri-national Competition Commission.



A month earlier, the Council of the Americas (COA) released A Strategy for Building Competitiveness Within North America. James R. Jones, former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, led the COA study. Ambassador Jones was also a U.S. representative on the CFR Task Force. The Council of the Americas is an advocacy organization composed of almost 200 members from finance, communications, manufacturing, mining, pharmaceuticals and service sectors whose literature says that they, “form a unique collaborative network that supports efforts to conduct business successfully in Latin America.”



The COA report includes several of the same recommendations as that of the CFR, including the creation of a “robust, enforceable temporary worker program,” creation of a Development Fund for Mexico, expanded border and energy security, and regulatory harmonization with the United States.



Representatives of the three governments were given advance copies of these reports. The President of the United States, Prime Minister of Canada and President of Mexico met in Waco, Texas on March 23, 2005, and announced in a joint statement the establishment of the “Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America (SSP).” Their joint press release said that the three countries “would develop common border-security strategies, pursue regulatory cooperation and promote sector cooperation in energy, transportation, financial services, technology and other areas.”



President Bush issued a separate statement in which he stated the SSP would minimize regulatory barriers, seek new ways to strengthen the competitiveness of North American industries, facilitate multimodal corridors that would reduce congestion and relieve bottlenecks at the border, lower transportation costs, rationalize external tariffs, and further the movement of business persons within North America, among other sought outcomes.



To fulfill this mandate, the three leaders also announced that ministerial-level working groups would be established to set specific, measurable, achievable goals and identify concrete steps to these goals. Work on the SPP began immediately. Trilateral Prosperity Working Groups (cabinet-level and high-level corporate) were created in 2005 to develop an integrated North American strategies for 20 industries, including steel, autos, and e-commerce. Their initial work agenda is listed in Attachment 1.



The North American Competitiveness Council


One year later (March 30-31, 2006), President Bush, Prime Minister Harper and President Fox met in Cancun to discuss North American SPP progress and priorities. As part of that meeting, the three heads of state met with 15 business leaders (five from each country). In that meeting, the three heads of state agreed to create a North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) composed of senior business leaders from the three nations.



President Bush appointed The Council of the Americas and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to jointly serve as the U.S. Secretariat. Also, these two business groups were authorized to name the U.S. members, all which are corporate leaders. (See Attachment 3 – Not all the names of the corporate representatives on the U.S. delegation have been made public) Other important interests, including labor, environment, and consumer groups, are not part of the NACC.



In September 2006, the U.S. Section of the North American Competitiveness Council announced their recommendations for this first cycle of NACC work. These recommendations deal with six major sets of issues: (1) Standards and Regulatory Cooperation; (2) Border Security and Infrastructure; (3) Supply Chain Management/Trade Facilitation/Customs Reform; (4) Energy Integration; (5) Innovation; and (6) External Matters. Under each of these sets, specific recommendations are made for changes in policies and regulations by the three countries.



Simultaneously, the SPP program has developed a series of security recommendations for the three nations, which were also presented to the President in September 2006. They are published at www.spp.gov. They are not included herein.





The SuperNAFTA Corridor


The SuperNAFTA Corridors are the principal transportation elements of the SPP. Two routes are being planned.



The first SuperNAFTA Corridor will extend from three deep-water ports in Southwestern Mexico thru Laredo, Austin, Dallas, Oklahoma City and then onto Kansas City, which will serve as an inland customs port. The Corridor will split in Kansas. One leg will go to Winnipeg through Omaha, Nebraska. The other will go to Toronto via Des Moines, Chicago and Detroit. This Corridor will be one-fifth of a mile wide, contain 10 lanes of Interstate-quality roads, double rails, pipelines and space for future expansion.



A second SuperNafta Corridor is being planned from Brownsville, Texas to Houston, through Arkansas, into Memphis and onto Norfolk, Virginia.



The principal use for these SuperNafta Corridors is to speed the overland movement of goods from Asia into the heavy population areas of the Central and Eastern United States. Advocates of this project estimate that transport costs can be cut by 10-20 percent for Asian producers.



The Texas portion of this Corridor will be designed, built, financed and operated by a private corporation under a 50 year lease from the State. This company will set toll rates. Stockholders are being promised a 12 percent annual report. Investors are being promised a 12-18 percent return. Initial construction work is imminent.



The Texas authorizing legislation allows the State to acquire property, as they see necessary or convenient, to build the Texas portion of the SuperNAFTA Corridor. The State is also empowered to then lease or sell any portion of that property to private or public entities for use as commercial activities including for placing gas stations, garages, stores, hotels, restaurants, or billboards. The State of Texas will need an estimated 145 acres of land per mile, or 540,000 acres in total, to build this Corridor.



The U.S. government and the State of Texas have enacted legislation that authorizes the building of the Texas portion of the SuperNAFTA Corridor and the lease of public roads for tolling purposes.



Conclusion



The SPP process involves trade, regulatory and administrative decisions that earlier involved Congress. Now, only the Executive Branch knows the SPP’s long-term agenda. To the present, the SPP recommendations (prosperity and security) have not been the subject of Congressional hearings. The public information released about these recommendations is vague. National media coverage has been virtually nonexistent, focusing only on the fact that the three leaders met.



The SPP is modeled on the Energy Task Force created and chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney during the first years of the Bush Administration. As with it, the participants in the SPP effort and their work are largely secret.



The President’s signing statement of August 2006 makes clear that the Administration believes it has the Constitutional right to withhold from the Congress information about the SPP negotiations and its work. Apparently, the Administration’s aim is to implement these recommendations by Executive action, with little or no disclosure to the Congress and with little or no input from the American people.



The Trans-Texas Corridor is the most visible and immediate part of a larger strategy to integrate the economies of the United States, Mexico and Canada and create new political institutions to manage a North American Union, something similar to the European Union.




Attachment 2



SPP Goals



(1) Develop a trilateral Regulatory Cooperation Framework by 2007;

(2) Devise a North American Steel Strategy;

(3) Create a trilateral Automotive Partnership Council of North America;

(4) Combat counterfeiting and piracy;

(5) Arrange corresponding Canada and U.S. specifications for carriers used to transport dangerous goods;

(6) Mutually recognize results from testing laboratories about measurement standards in North America;

(7) Facilitate trade in medical devices;

( Expand market access to natural health products in North America;

(9) Develop a U.S. -Canada protocol for single notification of new chemical substances;

(10) Develop a common approach for textile labeling;

(11) Enhance regulatory cooperation in marine safety equipment and pleasure craft;

(12) Enhance the exchange of information and public health and safety cooperative activities on the safety of consumer products;

(13) Explore cooperative opportunities for coloration in key areas, including biotechnology, nanotechnology, supply chains and logistics management, forest products, small and medium-sized enterprises, building materials, fiber content labeling, Green Suppliers Network, and on an approach to emerging markets;

(14) Reduce “rules of origin” costs on goods traded between the three nations;

(15) Increase trade facilitation;

(16) Devise common principles for electronic commerce;

(17) Give legal effect to the use of electronic signatures and e-contractual relationships;

(1 Implement the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission Mutual Recognition Agreement on Conformity Assessment;

(19) Create an agreement on mechanisms to ensure bilateral/trilateral consultations on telecommunications and spectrum policy issues;

(20) Create new and amended agreements on coordinating and sharing frequency bands in border areas;

(21) Review technical assistance programs for bank, securities and insurance regulators and supervisors;

(22) Joint financial/literacy education;

(23) U.S. and Mexico to promote Fedach International Mexico automated clearing-house mechanism;

(24) U.S. and Canada to consider elimination of withholding taxes and branch-level interest tax imposed on cross-border interests payments;

(25) Strengthen financial sector information sharing;

(26) Negotiate with regulators direct access to existing stock exchanges by 2007);

(27) Ease availability and lower costs of insurance for carriers engaged in cross-border commerce in North America;

(2 Explore opportunities for expanding air transport relations on a bilateral and trilateral basis:

(29) Increase North American airspace capacity;

(30) Allow business aviation, including fractionally owned aircraft, to fly freely between the three nations;

(31) Work toward a strong U.S. – Mexico Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement;

(32) Jointly analyze bottlenecks on border crossings and trade flows;

(33) Expand border infrastructure and cross-border commuter services;

(34) Enhance shortsea shipping (waterways);

(35) Coordinate North American rail safety;

(36) Harmonize North American motor carrier regulations and standards;

(37) Jointly examine intermodal transportation for North America;

(3 Promote cleaner and more efficient energy sources and technologies;

(39) Increase energy regulatory cooperation; (3 Enhance electricity collaboration through an interconnected grid system;

(40) Increase production from oil sands; (40) Increase natural gas collaboration;

(41) Enhance nuclear collaboration;

(42) Enhance cooperation on hydrocarbons;

(43) Improve transparency and coordination in energy information, statistics and projects;

(44) Reduce sulphur in fuels;

(45) Develop better data on ship-source air pollution;

(46) Develop joint methods for reporting on air quality in North America;

(47) Joint U.S. -Canada review of The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement;

(4 Develop a trilateral agenda to improve North America’s water quality;

(49) Work trilaterally to identify invasive alien species and devise a joint action strategy to reduce their impacts;

(50) Improve ballast water management;

(51) Devise joint strategies for safe habitats and migration routes for migratory species;

(52) Collaborate on management planning For shared marine resources;

(53) Devise a trilateral trans-boundary environmental impact assessment cooperation agreement;

(54) Devise a North American food safety coordinating mechanism;

(55) Revise and speed the identification, management, and recovery from food safety, animal, and plant disease hazards in North America;

(56) Develop trilateral labeling of foods;

(57) Resolve differences in trilateral pesticide residue limits;

(5 Recognize equivalent diagnostic performance and identification methodologies to select animal diseases;

(59) Identify the appropriate group to facilitate the implementation of food safety laboratory initiatives;

(60) Support a cooperative effort of various biotech activities with the three nations;

(61) Draft and sign a trilateral protocol for mutual assistance in a cross-border public health emergency;

(62) Develop a North American plan for pandemic influenza;

(63) Assist Mexico create low-cost medical stockpiles for emergencies;

(64) Improve surveillance and laboratory activities involved with dangerous pathogens;

(65) Develop Web-based mapping of West Nile virus activity in Canada and the U.S.;

(66) Expand efforts to prevent alcohol abuse and suicide among indigenous people in North America;

(67) Identify and implement best practices in production/distribution of pharmaceutical products; and

(6 Create a North American program to share information on pharmaceutical safety.




Attachment 2



Corporate Members of the U.S. Section of the North American Competitiveness Council and Their Named Representatives


Campbell Soup-- Archie van Beuren, President for Canada, Mexico, and Latin America.



Chevron



Ford



FedEx



General Electric



General Motors



Kansas City Southern Industries -- Warren Erdman, Senior Vice President



Lockheed Martin Corporation -- Ron Covais, President, The Americas



Merck



Mittal Steel USA -- Louis L. Schorsch, President and CEO

New York Life



United Parcel Post -- Amgad Shehata, Vice President for Strategic Development and Public Affairs



Wal-Mart -- Craig Herkert, CEO of the Americas



Whirlpool



CLICK TO LEARN MORE

Dr. Pat Choate on the Corridor As It Relates to the Security & Prosperity Partnership of North America



Governor's Business Council Report - Sharing the Competitive Advantage of Texas Metropolitan Regions

Bush and his gang look more and more like dictators everyday.

Originally Posted by TyRANTosaur

Bush and his gang look more and more like dictators everyday.

That's just what they want. I'm sure GW wants to be King George with his 7 rulers of the world.