By Terri Hall - TURF - Aug. 9, 2008 Alliance for I-69 is the biggest pro-TTC-69 lobby group in the state. Their chief lobbyist, Gary Bushell, is also the same lobbyist TxDOT illegally hired with taxpayer money to lobby elected officials in the path of the TTC-69. Bushell is also a notable campaign contributor to MANY politicians, Bexar County Rep. Frank Corte among them. Today, Alliance for I-69 teamed up with Zachry, who along with Spanish company ACS won the development rights to TTC-69 in June, hit Victoria with their dog and pony show, and they’ve been in Austin hitting up lawmakers, too. Their logo on the material they left with lawmakers even has a Canadian, Mexican, and U.S flag morphed together, yet TxDOT denies the Trans Texas Corridor is about NAFTA, international trade, the movement of freight/goods, or the economic integration of the three countries.
I-69 partners make presentation Victoria Advocate - August 05, 2008
The Alliance for I-69 Texas and U.S.-owned company Zachry American Infrastruture have partnered up and are traveling across the state giving presentations on I-69. On Tuesday, they stopped in Victoria.
During the short initial meeting, city leaders met with Gary Bushnell of the advocacy group and Gary Kuhn, senior project manager for Zachry, the firm awarded the contract for the superhighway.
The Interstate 69 corridor project is a proposed multi-use, statewide network of transportation routes in Texas that will incorporate existing and new highways, railways, utility right-of-ways and toll roads. Zachry was awarded the contract for the project in June by the Texas Transportation Commission.
The presentation focused on ways Victoria could use I-69 to their economic advantage and about the potential the corridor has in terms of new transportation technology.
According to Kuhn, Zachry is working on a master plan that takes into account local projects Texas communities want to do and how the company can help improve local economic development. Kuhn also discussed Zachry’s proposal for a freight shuttle that would go alongside the existing route of U.S. 77 in Victoria. According to Kuhn, the freight shuttle combines the best characteristics of the rail and truck transportation, but is more efficient, cheaper and causes less pollution. He added that it would run on electromagnetic pulses that create motion and a freight shuttle system across Texas could be up and running by as early as 2015.
“We’ve been working with the Alliance to visit all the communities involved in the I-69 Interstate. There is a lot of collaboration that needs to take place among these communities,” Kuhn said. “It’s a kind of one for all and all for one deal.”
The meeting included Mayor Will Armstrong, Dale Fowler of the Victoria Economic Development Corp. and Lee Swearingen of the Victoria County Navigation District.
TURF presented Sunset Commission never before seen footage of TxDOT admitting they broke the law & committed perjury!
TURF releases explosive footage of depositions from ad campaign/lobbying lawsuit to Sunset Commission By TURF - Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Some very damaging footage of TxDOT’s top brass under oath was presented to the Sunset Advisory Commission at its hearing on the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) today (view here or go to www.TruthBeTolled.com to view). As part of TURF’s lawsuit against TxDOT to stop its illegal lobbying and ad campaign called Keep Texas Moving to promote toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor in violation of Texas Government Code Chapter 556, several top officials of TxDOT were deposed under oath where they perjured themselves.
TURF gave each member of the Commission a DVD of a new documentary film, Truth Be Tolled TURF Special Edition, made about TxDOT’s Keep Texas Moving campaign that shows portions of legal depositions of TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz, Director of Government and Public Affairs Division Coby Chase, and Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton.
TURF showed the Sunset Advisory Commission that TxDOT has made an unprecedented push to win public approval for its controversial toll road and Trans Texas Corridor project, using public money, which is not only illegal, it unfairly stacks the deck against citizens.
Houghton swore under oath that TxDOT had not hired registered lobbyists when these invoices show they have (as well as Houghton’s own admission during a Town Hall Meeting in Hempstead). State law prohibits state agencies from hiring lobbyists and prohibits them from using public money for a political purpose. State agencies are to implement policy, not shape it. Video clips from the Town Hall meeting in Hempstead, January 22, also show Houghton trying to sway the crowd in favor of the Trans Texas Corridor while under oath he was adamant that TxDOT and he had not done so.
PULL ANY ADVOCACY CAMPAIGNS FROM TXDOT Keep Texas Moving advocates the Trans Texas Corridor, privatization of infrastructure, and tolling. The information in this campaign only extols the benefits of tolling and privatization (and never includes criticisms).
The stated goal of the campaign found in TxDOT documents is: "To shift perception among those who are opposed to or on the fence about the TTC" and to change the political environment to “make it less hostile to the TTC" and to promote the “benefits of TTC…and help inoculate it from negative attacks" as well as “increase support of TxDOT programs."
“This is no public information campaign. It’s a taxpayer-funded political ad campaign, which is not only illegal, but it also abuses the taxpayers in order to line TxDOT’s pockets with the MOST EXPENSIVE transportation tax,” says Terri Hall, TURF Founder who testified before the Sunset Commission
. TxDOT hired 5 registered lobbyists to the tune of $100,000/month to directly lobby Congress and other elected officials for more CDAs, the TTC, and tolling. Saenz, Chase, and Houghton all claimed ignorance of the law under oath, but Chapter 556.009 says all state officers and employees are given the law prior to taking a position with the State and a record of their acknowledgment of receipt is to be kept in writing.
“So any claim of ignorance of the law by the top brass is no get out jail free card,” Hall said.
This document shows TxDOT targeted County Judges in the path of the TTC-69. Houghton testified in the TURF lawsuit that lobbyist Gary Bushell is who arranged Houghton’s meetings with the County Judges. County Judges are key in appointing an arbitration committee between landowners and the State in eminent domain cases. So TxDOT’s lobbying effort was clearly to give the State an advantage in eminent domain proceedings for the Trans Texas Corridor.
Despite the TURF lawsuit and the suspension of hiring outside lobbyists, TxDOT recently hired an in-house lobbyist, Rebecca Reyes, to lobby Democrats in Congress through TxDOT’s Washington office and joined a lobby group named Transportation Transformation, or T2, with 4 other DOTs and private investors, like Goldman Sachs, to lobby Congress for more CDAs.
TxDOT also conducted push polls seeking to gain public approval of the TTC, which included asking overtly political questions like political party affiliation and if the respondent voted straight ticket in the last election.
In another document, it states TxDOT’s messages in the ad campaign would promote tolling over gas taxes with statements like, “tolls are better than gas taxes to fund roads”.
“The Sunset Commission needs to strongly recommend the repeal of Section 228.004 from the transportation code and remove from TxDOT any ability to promote toll roads. They’ve become an arm of private industry that cannot be trusted to expend funds in a way that protects the public interest,” insisted Hall.
END FREEWAY TO TOLLWAY CONVERSIONS TURF and many of its supporters addressed the reforms the citizens demand in order to restore trust in the agency, anywhere from replacing the unelected 5 member Transportation Commission with a single ELECTED commissioner to fixing how decisions to toll roads are made (and giving the public real veto power), to getting an accurate figure of road funding needs independently of TxDOT, as well as ending freeway to tollway conversions.
The complete conversion of US 281 from a freeway, already built and open to traffic for decades, to a toll road shocked the Commission and was a central part of the hearing. Representative Linda Harper-Brown questioned TxDOT’s perversion of a state law, HB 2702, that prohibits conversions without a public vote and requires them to leave as many non-toll lanes that exist before adding toll lanes. But TxDOT is tolling every single express lane (or main lane) on US 281 and downgrading the non-toll lanes to access roads with slower speed limits and permanent stop lights, an unfair replacement say critics.
Even worse, the 281 improvements have been funded with gas taxes starting in 2003 ($100 million plan total), but it was turned into a toll road simply to generate revenue for other area projects, clearly a discriminatory, targeted tax. Now as a toll road, the pricetag has ballooned to a whopping $1.3 billion!
“With highway robbery of this scale, it’s no wonder the supposed funding gap for future roads swelled to $86 billion. This is insane! Rep. Joe Pickett once stated we can build 4 freeways for the price of one toll road. In the case of US 281, we can build 10 freeways for the price of one toll project!” notes an outraged Hall.
TURF also delivered disks of all the evidence in their lawsuit to the Travis County District Attorney’s office to press them to file criminal charges against guilty parties.
“Texans are tired of one legal standard for them and another for those in power. The Truth Be Tolled TURF Special Edition DVD (www.TruthBeTolled.com) is enough evidence to show TxDOT is guilty of lying under oath and prosecuting an illegal ad and lobbying campaign on the taxpayers’ dime. Blood’s in the water now, and the sharks are circling. The people demand justice,” Hall commented. Read more by TURF
By Jim Snyder - The Hill - January 15, 2008 Business groups are looking at Tuesday’s release of a transportation study as a start-your-engines moment to what is likely to be one of the most aggressively lobbied highway bills in recent memory.
A panel of public and private officials who reviewed the country’s transportation needs for the past two years wrote the long-awaited report. Congress formed the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission in the last highway bill.
“Every stakeholder in the transportation industry … has been waiting for this report to come out,” said Janet Kavinoky, director of transportation infrastructure at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“Nothing like this has been done before,” said Rosario Palmieri, vice president for infrastructure policy at the National Association of Manufacturers.
The report will examine all four components of the transportation infrastructure system: freight rail lines, highways and bridges, ports, and mass transit systems.
The current highway bill lasts until 2009, but lobbyists anticipate the debate over surface transportation will begin this year given the rising importance of transportation bottlenecks on operating costs. An anticipated $4 billion shortfall in transportation accounts in 2008 is also likely to drive the transportation debate on Capitol Hill.
One key element of the debate is whether the gas tax should be significantly increased to help pay for new spending.
Under the plan endorsed by a majority of panel members, the federal share of transportation spending would increase from 37 percent to 40 percent, according to one lobbyist.
There is a broad coalition of forces arrayed in support of tax increases, but increasing the gas tax is likely to remain politically difficult.
“A special commission came up with an old, cold, bad idea,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee. “This is a disappointment and probably even a big waste of tax dollars,” Grassley said in a statement anticipating the panel’s report.
Transportation lobbyists said the committee itself was split on the need to raise taxes. The Bush administration opposes a tax hike, and current Transportation Secretary Mary Peters reportedly is one of the panel members to have argued against raising taxes as a way to spend more on infrastructure.
However, groups like NAM and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, normally allergic to tax hikes, in this case have joined contractors, civil engineers and others in support of higher user fees.
“This is a priority for [our members] as the costs for logistics are increasing much faster than they have before,” Palmieri said.
The issue of infrastructure spending “has never been more important to them. It is very high on the agenda,” he said.
He noted one estimate that congestion adds $8 billion a year in prices for consumer goods.
Kavinoky, who is also the executive director of Americans for Transportation Mobility, one of several infrastructure coalitions formed in anticipation of the next highway bill debate, defended the tax.
“Right now, a user fee is the simplest and most straight-forward way to collect revenues,” she said.
Even though the bulk of the new money would come from an increased gas tax, long the mainstay in transportation funding, business lobbyists also anticipate the report will recommend the sort of paradigm shift they were looking for.
One lobbyist, for example, expected the report to call for the creation of a permanent commission that would develop a transportation bill through a process that mirrors the Base Closure and Realignment Commission method Congress adopted to handle the politically sensitive work of closing military bases.
Under that scenario, Congress would approve or reject the commission’s transportation report. But lawmakers would not be able to amend the legislation.
The report is also expected to advocate for a performance-based matrix that would tie funding to improvements in safety, congestion and maintenance efforts.
“That is the equivalent of a massive earthquake in transportation policy,” Kavinoky said.
Kavinoky said federal dollars are distributed by program with little regard to how the money will improve performance.
A variety of other funding mechanisms are expected to be proposed by panel members to improve system performance.
Those are likely to include public-private partnerships for toll roads that are controversial in some quarters, and a transit tax to support expansion of public transportation programs. Read more in THE HILL
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DFW Regional Concerned Citizens attempts to examine issues from all directions. When a story says "By Faith Chatham" it contains my viewpoint. When it is by others, but posted by Faith Chatham, it is from someone else's viewpoint. When I discover contents which is on topic for this site, I frequently link to other sites. Usually those sites contain content which differs from my viewpoint (and frequently that of other members of DFW-RCC).
