Thread: Texas trying to save 'NAFTA Superhighway'? Gov. Perry calls

PREMEDITATED MERGER

Texas trying to save 'NAFTA Superhighway'?

Gov. Perry calls special legislative session on transportation

Posted: July 03, 2009
12:10 am Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2009 WorldNetDaily



Opponents of the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor believe Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry is proceeding with toll road plans under the cover of a special session of the legislature.

Perry's stated goals include extending the authority of the Texas Department of Transportation, TxDOT, to operate for two more years with an allocation of $2 billion in state funds that could be targeted for building toll roads along Interstate Highways 35 and 69 in what was previously called TTC-35 and TTC-69 under the Trans-Texas Corridor plan.

The Houston Chronicle acknowledged transportation would the main focus of the special session and that an emphasis will be on a measure that allows private companies to build more toll roads across the state – an idea that opponents have dubbed "the largest tax increase in history."

TxDOT itself will be forced to cease operating under the state's Sunset Act, unless the state legislature passes new legislation authorizing the agency to continue.

WND called Perry's office for comment but received no return call.

According to the Austin Business Journal, five state agencies stand to be abolished without legislative action: Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Department of Insurance, Texas Racing Commission, Office of Public Insurance Counsel and Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation.

Since 2005 – when Perry-appointed Texas Transportation Commissioner Ric Williamson began pushing plans to build TTC-35 under a public-private contract with Cintra, a Spanish transportation infrastructure company – Texas voters have challenged the agency's centralized authority.

Toll road opponents in Texas charged Williamson ignored widespread public objections to the development of private toll roads under public-private partnerships with foreign companies that would collect tolls under long-term leases.

Williamson died unexpectedly of a heart attack Dec. 30, 2007.

"Gov. Perry wants to get the legislature to reauthorize through 2013 the ability of Texas to enter into Comprehensive Development Agreements, or CDAs, with foreign developers to develop Texas highways under public-private partnerships," Hank Gilbert, a board member with TexasTurf.org, or Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, told WND.

The Houston Chronicle concurred, reporting Perry wants the special legislative session to end a state legislature-imposed moratorium on new toll road CDAs by obtaining new legislation that would extend authorization for CDAs through 2013.

"We are fighting to defeat any attempt by Gov. Perry to extend CDAs," he said. "Without CDAs, TxDOT will have a difficult time getting foreign development companies to come into Texas to convert our freeways to toll roads."

Gilbert told WND the Trans-Texas Corridor program in Texas was "alive and well."

"When Gov. Perry came out and said the Trans-Texas Corridor program was dead, all TxDOT did was to get rid of the name," he said. "It was all a lie."

WND has reported Gov. Perry has taken steps to engage in a public relations effort designed to distance TxDOT from the Trans-Texas Corridor.

WND has been reporting since 2006 that the TTC project planned by TxDOT over a 50-year period involved a 4,000-mile network of new four football-field-wide "NAFTA Superhighway" truck-train corridors and pipelines for oil, gas and water.

"Our big push right now is to get enough support in the Texas House of Representatives to kill any CDA legislation in this special session," Gilbert said.

The CDA with the Spanish company Cintra called for expending billions to develop TTC-35 parallel to I-35 from Laredo, Texas, at the Mexican border, to the Texas border with Oklahoma, north of Dallas-Fort Worth.

In exchange, TxDOT agreed to allow Cintra to collect tolls on I-35 for 50 years after the highway is completed.

The current TxDOT website also affirms that a public-private partnership proposal for developing I-69 has been submitted under a public-private partnership structure by ACS Infrastructure Development Inc., a highway infrastructure company headquartered in Madrid, Spain.

"As far as I know, the CDAs signed with Cintra for TTC-35 and with ACS for TTC-69 are still in place, despite what Governor Perry and TxDOT say," Gilbert charged.

The current TxDOT website substantiates Gilbert's accusation.

KeepTexasMoving.org, the official TxDOT website, continues to devote a section to making clear that while the name "Trans-Texas Corridor" has been phased out, the corridor construction projects continue, typically under their original designations.

The TxDOT website identifies the following components of the original TTC project remain active: TTC-35 and I-69/TTC environmental studies, the "Ports-to-Plains Corridor" intended to extend the original TTC corridor design into Colorado, and a new project called "La Entrada al Pacifico Corridor," or "The Entrance to the Pacific Corridor," intended to connect Texas with ports in Mexico along the Pacific Ocean.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php? ... eId=102913

Nowhere near everyone in the immigration enforcement lobby is a neomerc though we definitely have a fringe group.

Perry's upcoming gubernatorial race depends on him crushing this attempt.

The CDA with the Spanish company Cintra called for expending billions to develop TTC-35 parallel to I-35 from Laredo, Texas, at the Mexican border, to the Texas border with Oklahoma, north of Dallas-Fort Worth.

In exchange, TxDOT agreed to allow Cintra to collect tolls on I-35 for 50 years after the highway is completed.

And are any stimulus dollars slated for this?

And are any stimulus dollars slated for this?

Maybe not. What's going on here with taxpayers buying a bank for Spain?
U.S. Helps Spanish Company to Buy Texas Bank

Published: August 21, 2009
Guaranty Bank, a deeply troubled Texas lender, was sold on Friday to Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria of Spain in one of the largest government-assisted deals offered to a foreign firm.

The federal government agreed to absorb most of the losses on $11 billion of Guaranty Bank assets in the sale agreement.

Federal regulators seized Guaranty Bank and simultaneously brokered the sale of its branches as well as most of the deposits and assets to BBVA Compass, the Spanish bank’s American subsidiary. The government, however, agreed to absorb most of the losses on $9.7 billion, or more than 80 percent, of the Guaranty assets included in the deal.

The failure is the fourth-largest since the financial crisis began, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation projects that it will cost its deposit insurance fund about $3 billion.

Regulators also arranged for the sales of three smaller banks in Alabama and Georgia on Friday, bringing the total number of bank failures so far this year to 81. That compares with only 25 bank failures in all of 2008.

News that BBVA had submitted the winning bid leaked out earlier this week, but regulators waited until late Friday to orchestrate the takeover. That may be another sign that confidence in the financial system is being restored, since in contrast to past leaks, regulators did not immediately seize the bank over fears of rumors stoking a bank run.

Stockholders in Guaranty Bank will be wiped out, but the deal ensures that its depositors will not suffer losses. Although BBVA did not take control of the failed bank’s $344 million of brokered deposits, the F.D.I.C. said that it would reimburse brokers directly for those funds.

The government also agreed to shoulder the bulk of the losses on all of Guaranty’s loans — a deal sweetener that the government has rarely extended to overseas buyers.

BBVA agreed to buy $12 billion of the $13 billion assets left at Guaranty Bank, which it will ultimately sell to private investors. The F.D.I.C. agreed to take on the remaining $1 billion of assets, as well as cover losses on the $9.7 billion pool of risky loans that BBVA bought. The agreement calls for the government to take on about 80 percent of the first $2.3 billion of losses, and 95 percent of the losses above that threshold.

Loss-sharing agreements have become a standard part of the F.D.I.C.’s toolkit for resolving troubled banks, but rarely have they covered such a big portion of a failed bank’s assets.

And seldom are they offered to foreign buyers. Indeed it appears the last time that an overseas bank received federal assistance in a failed bank deal was when the Bank of Ireland scooped up four New Hampshire banks in September 1991.

Analysts say the BBVA deal may signal that the F.D.I.C. will be more open to bids from foreign banks. Many of the strongest American banks are occupied with deals they did last fall, while private equity firms have struggled to meet the high bar set by regulators. Weaker banks, meanwhile, have been hamstrung by their own losses. That has left regulators scrambling to drum up buyers.

José Maria Garcia Meyer, the head of BBVA’s American operations, said in a statement that the deal provided convincing evidence of the bank’s strength and stability during the current crisis. “This transaction further demonstrates BBVA’s clear commitment in building its U.S. franchise,â€