By Sterry Butcher - Texas Observer - August 4, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/58669/
The talk in West Texas this summer is La Entrada al Pacífico, and it's either a great opportunity to develop an international trade route, or it's a wretched plan that would ruin the pristine and unique qualities of the Big Bend region on the Rio Grande border with Mexico. There's not much sentiment in between.
Both sides hope a study by the Texas Department of Transportation will clarify La Entrada's short- and long-term impacts. At the crux of the issue are three questions: Are the trucks coming, and if they are, how many, and when?
La Entrada's pitch goes like this. Cargo ships from Asia and overflow ship traffic from Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Seattle will put in at a deepwater port in Topolobampo, Sinaloa, on Mexico's Sea of Cortez. From there, merchandise will be loaded onto trucks and railcars and transported across the vertiginous Sierra Nevada and Copper Canyon, through Chihuahua City eastward until it crosses into the U.S. at Presidio. Then the trucks will rumble up U.S. Highway 67, through Shafter ghost town and by Chinati Peak. Past Donald Judd's concrete boxes outside Marfa, the trucks will hang a right at the town's single, blinking red light and head for Alpine, where they'll duck under a low train overpass and chug straight through downtown. A few miles out of town, it's a left turn to Fort Stockton, then on to McCamey before turning onto U.S. 385 to Midland and Odessa.
The Midland-Odessa area is known for oil rather than commercial shipping or distribution. La Entrada promoters have set out to change that. The notion of the Entrada corridor was born in the mid-1990s, when the price of crude was generally less than $20 a barrel and the Permian Basin's oil-driven economy wasn't as bullish as today. Launched by a group called the Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance, or MOTRAN, and members of Chihuahua state's economic development department, La Entrada promised to lift northern Mexico and the Permian Basin out of economic doldrums, and diversify business and job opportunities.
Midland-Odessa may be 800 miles from the Pacific Ocean, but folks from the Permian Basin dream big. "We originally started looking at an extension of I-27 from Lubbock to Midland-Odessa," says Charles Perry, MOTRAN's founder and a current director. "It helped to anchor it with a route on into Mexico, because at that time, NAFTA had just passed, and there was a push for better connections to Mexico. The more we looked at it, the more it really made good sense."
Over the years, MOTRAN has successfully lobbied for state and federal funding to improve highway infrastructure around the basin; some of the roads are linked to Entrada's route for commercial traffic. And they're proud of the support they've had at home: MOTRAN's website prominently features a photo of then-governor George W. Bush, a Midlander, signing legislation naming La Entrada an official state corridor back in 1997. Bush was in office -- this time in the White House -- when La Entrada won its 2005 federal designation as a "high priority corridor" on the national highway system. The group helped push for federal designation of the route. Little green signs that read "La Entrada al Pacífico" dot sections of the highway.
Big Bend residents have kept a collective eye on La Entrada for years, especially because of Mexico's progress with its road upgrades. Mexico, it seemed, was eager to advance. A new bypass was engineered and built around the steep, winding Peguis mountain range between Chihuahua City and the border town of Ojinaga. Economic development and transportation officials from Sinaloa and Chihuahua told Texas transportation officials about specific plans for the Entrada route through their states. Many of those improvements still have a long, long way to go before they're completed, but dire predictions started appearing in West Texas about the anticipated increase in truck traffic on La Entrada. Freight traffic at the Presidio port of entry has risen in the last decade from 2,897 crossings in 1996 to 6,616 last year. Those numbers don't offer an accurate window into how future traffic may evolve. Traffic projections for Entrada so far are wildly variable.
"There have been published figures that go from 25 trucks a day both ways to 4,000 a day," says Don Dowdey, president of the very active Big Bend chapter of the Sierra Club. "People tell me they've seen 5,000 a day published."
A 2006 report by Texas Transportation Institute researcher William Frawley strikes Dowdey as more accurate than others he's seen. Frawley calculates that 35 to 292 trucks going both ways per day would be diverted to the Presidio port within about five years.
"He went to Chihuahua and talked to shippers there about what they'd be shipping," Dowdey says. "It's the only study I've seen based on real data. And that's still a very large gap."
The route's multiple logistical problems make it hard to answer the "if, how many, and when" questions. The port at Topolobampo needs significant improvement -- maybe two years of work that hasn't yet begun, says a Chihuahua official. It must be deepened to handle really large commercial ships, and no port management firm has signed on to oversee the facility. There's no highway built yet that could sustain semitrucks carrying goods across the Sierra Nevada. The tunnels for rail traffic through Copper Canyon are too low to double-stack container cars, and the grade is too steep in places for long trains. Commercial traffic is processed by customs and border-protection personnel from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., weekdays only, at Presidio's international bridge. A plan to allow Mexican trucks and drivers into the U.S. -- and U.S. drivers into Mexico -- is still pending. La Entrada's original proposal calls for a four-lane highway through communities now served only by two lanes. Those little towns, like Marfa and Alpine, are ill-equipped for a tremendous increase in traffic volume, and construction of more lanes or bypasses would be years away.
That's what makes the current TxDOT study, the first comprehensive look at the route, so important. MOTRAN lobbied for the $1 million in federal funds that were eventually set aside for the study; the state kicked in another $600,000.
"What we're looking at is determining the feasibility of a four-lane, divided highway between Midland-Odessa and Presidio," says Peggy Thurin, statewide planning coordinator for TxDOT. "We'll be looking at the nationally designated La Entrada route and also other potential routes that the public has identified and our data have identified."
Then there's the awfulness factor. The Big Bend is wide and empty and isolated and severe, and that's why people like it. The city of Presidio could use the economic boost additional truck trade could bring, but locals in the rest of the area worry that traffic from a four-lane highway would spoil the country, blacken the air, and thwart tourists who come by the thousands. There's more state parkland in Brewster and Presidio counties than in all the rest of the state, say conservationists. Big Bend National Park alone is 801,000 acres.
"We're a place you can come to and get away," says Fran Sage, a Sierra Club member from Brewster County. "For us, La Entrada would be the destruction of one of the last places you can go to live or visit and have a satisfying experience with other people and the land. Once you run trucks through this area, it will never be the same again. Once it's gone, it's gone."
Dowdey adds: "To say this is a special area and needs saving is not a radical idea at all."
The TxDOT study began last fall, and by this spring, it was time to hold public meetings. The audience at Alpine's meeting on March 13 was 400-strong. The school auditorium was too small to hold everyone, and the crowd spilled onto the sidewalk. Asked for a show of those in favor of La Entrada, one soul, a trucking operator from Presidio, raised his hand. There were passionate speeches and strong feelings. About 40 people spoke, bringing up concerns that ranged from health issues to the safety of Mexican trucks to the desire for peace and quiet. Some thought the route benefited Midland-Odessa at the expense of the Big Bend.
"It grieves me that our state leaders would sacrifice this region for a few people in Midland," says Bill Addington, an activist and Sierra Blanca resident.
Many at the Alpine meeting also attended similar gatherings in Fort Stockton and Midland.
"I was a little surprised at the number of people who were at the Alpine meeting," Thurin says. "I think it's great. What the whole process is about is to talk to folks -- and they were willing to talk."
To tackle issues involved in the trade route, the consulting firm working on the study with TxDOT is meeting this summer with small groups of stakeholders to focus on La Entrada. A second round of public meetings will be held in late August or early September. A third round occurs around the first of next year. The research involves traffic models, current traffic, and a forecast of traffic in 20 to 30 years, information gleaned in part from discussions with the Mexican side of the Entrada equation. The study will be complete in spring 2008.
"Generally, at the end of the feasibility study, the results are turned over to district engineers," Thurin says. "If we find a four-lane, divided highway isn't feasible, but that we may see quite a bit of traffic, say around Marfa, one of our recommendations may be to look at a relief route. From that point, the districts would still need route-location studies to pinpoint exactly where the route would go and find funding. It's not like at the end of the study we'd be throwing down pavement immediately."
She assured the Alpine crowd this spring that the study would have no foregone conclusions.
"This is not a done deal," she says. "A lot of people assume that because there's a designated corridor, that we're going through the motions. That's not what we're doing, I promise. We're giving a good, unbiased eye to the corridor and seeing what we find."
Thurin had never visited the Big Bend before the Entrada study. "It's beautiful out there," she says. "I can appreciate people wanting to protect it. But if you have a lot of trucks that are really coming, it's better to prepare to address those should that be the case."
But are they coming? Big Bend residents aren't waiting for solid numbers and traffic forecasts to tell TxDOT what they think of the Entrada corridor. They've responded to the study and its call for public comment with zeal. A blog called Stopthetrucks.org is now online. The group Stewards of the Big Bend has organized. Letter-writing campaigns have been carried out. Café workers wear "Stop La Entrada" shirts. Petitions about La Entrada circulate at Marfa's weekly farmer's market. Homemade "Stop La Entrada" signs have popped up.
Despite the percolating anti-Entrada vibe in the Big Bend, Perry remains a staunch booster. Commercial traffic, he says, is like water -- it will seek the path of least resistance. He believes truckers will look to Presidio to escape the snarled port at El Paso.
"Some locals don't want it," he says. "I try to tell them, whether this traffic comes is not my decision. Realistically, this route is easier than going through El Paso. We should get ready for what we think is coming in the future and not wait until someone is strangling with traffic. Let's get the bypasses built first so we don't disrupt the local communities. A truck is not going to be diverted by a T-shirt or a sign in the yard."
Alternate routes have been floated at area commissioners' court meetings, though some don't seem too viable. One follows the Rio Grande through Candelaria and then up to Van Horn. Parts of it are difficult without a high-clearance vehicle, but the trucks would skip Marfa and Alpine entirely that way. Another would send trucks west from Marfa to Jeff Davis County, where they'd be shunted toward Interstate 10 at Kent on a section of a lovely, winding road known as the "Scenic Loop." The absolute shortest route from Presidio to I-10 goes through downtown Marfa and Fort Davis. It doesn't seem like there's a good alternative out there.
Unless you start thinking rail. It's possible that hundreds of trucks could be taken off the roads if their cargo containers were put on rail at Presidio. TxDOT owns the South Orient rail line from Presidio to San Angelo, and it's leased to a Mexican company called Texas-Pacífico. Here, too, are multiple problems: The track is decrepit in many places, and the speed on much of the line tops out at 10 mph. It would take many millions to get rail running, but according to one Chihuahua state official, rail is how the cargo will come -- if it comes.
"The road is not complete; there's still 250 kilometers to do on the road," says Armando Correa, an engineer for the Chihuahua state office of industrial development. "The highway at this moment is not possible because the Mexican government has no money to finance it. It's all mountain, it's too expensive, and we need the money for more uses than that road. The plan is to do it by rail. The railroad can only pull 20 cars; the most it can run is two runs per day, 40 cars. And we still have problems because the port has to be redone. We have a long way to go."
Correa points out that for Chihuahua, the goal of the Entrada corridor isn't simply to funnel goods to the U.S. "That's not the purpose of the corridor," he says. "If that were to be the case, there'd be no gain; we'd only see a train go by, and that would not give us any work. The purpose is to improve the conditions of the mountain region, which is very poor."
Once the shipping trade from Topolobampo gets going, he says, much of the merchandise would stay with Chihuahuan maquiladoras or be carried on to Juarez.
"Later on, maybe three, four, or five years, then some of the merchandise will go to Dallas," Correa adds.
While the Entrada corridor is being parsed here, some lively port planning is going on elsewhere. Government officials in Baja, California, this summer announced plans to open bids later this year for construction and development of a $9 billion "megaport" at Punta Colonet, south of Ensenada. The 6,200-acre megaport, which includes a rail component, will be adjacent to Baja's modern, transpeninsular highway that zips straight to San Diego two hours to the north. Promoters say it will be larger than the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports combined, handling 6 million to 8 million container units annually. Other Pacific port developments are ongoing at Lázaro Cárdenas and Manzanillo.
Perry is undaunted by the specter of competition. He maintains there's room for everyone.
"Topolobampo is a long-term deal," he says. "The ports at Long Beach and L.A. are going to continue to handle the traffic they can. With Topolobampo, we're talking years in the future, when they can no longer handle the traffic."
Still, the improvements needed at Topolobampo, the other ports in development, building the transmountain highway, constructing extra lanes or bypasses around Marfa and Alpine, pouring money into rail upgrades to the South Orient -- taken piece by piece, the logistics and cost of La Entrada seem nearly insurmountable, like maybe it won't happen.
"It will," Perry says. "When we started this, I said it would not happen in my lifetime. I'm 77, and it's not going to happen in my lifetime. We felt like this is a 40-year project, and it probably is. Over the next several years, we'll see steadily increasing traffic counts. As the congestion increases in the major areas like El Paso, then everybody is going to look for alternate routes to avoid that congestion. How do you stop it?"
Sterry Butcher is a journalist with the Big Bend Sentinel in Marfa.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View story online
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Friday, August 03, 2007
Terri Hall of T.U.R.F. & San Antonio Toll Party explains Market Valuation
By Terri Hall - T.U.R.F.
SB 792 ... unleashed an entirely new animal called "market valuation." This is Rick Perry's and the highway lobby's deceptive gimmick to make you think they can somehow apply free market competitive principles to government-run monopolies, aka - highways. Sounds great, right? Let's look inside. Our government tolling authority will now have URS, KPMG, and Citigroup determine how much profit the RMA can make by raiding YOUR wallet by charging you a toll tax to drive on what your taxes already built and paid for. Let's say the amount of profit over and above the cost of actually building the road is $4 billion. The RMA would then have to sell bonds to come up with that up front $4 billion fee that will then go into a TxDOT account to be used on roads elsewhere in the region. So the toll isn't a user tax (as we've contended all along). This translates into the HIGHEST POSSIBLE TOLL TAX, even Jaime Castillo of the Express-News agreed. So now your toll will cover the cost of construction AND the up front fee just as if Cintra were doing it!
It's the most elaborate Robin Hood scheme and unfair distribution of transportation taxation ever devised. ALL traditional turnpikes have been replaced by the "market-based" toll deception. How high is high, we're seeing rates as high a $1.50 a mile in Austin. The average is more like 40 cents a mile (compared with 1-3 cents a mile in gas taxes). Go to our toll tax calculator on the home page of our web site and calculate how many THOUSANDS in NEW TAXES you'll have to pay IN ADDITION to skyrocketing gas prices! Add to that, the Texas A&M Study last fall flat out stated WE DO NOT NEED TO TOLL A SINGLE ROAD. Yet, the Legislature failed to address the gas tax issue preferring instead to tap the vein (revenue stream) of commuters stuck in congestion. Folks, if you keep voting for the same recycled candidates and for politics as usual, we're going to keep getting fleeced. It doesn't matter how much tax money you give them, it'll NEVER BE ENOUGH! We need a revolution! VOTE THE BUMS OUT!
...
Here's the 19 who voted AGAINST this nonsense: Nathan Macias led the charge along with David Leibowitz, Lon Burnam, Joaquin Castro, Garnet Coleman, Joe Farias, Jessica Farrar, Stephen Frost, Ana Hernandez, Jodie Laubenberg, Trey Martinez Fischer, Ruth McClendon, Sid Miller, Ken Paxton, Robert Puente, Joe Straus, Senfronia Thompson, Marc Veasey, and Mike Villarreal.
Support them with your money not just your vote!
SB 792 ... unleashed an entirely new animal called "market valuation." This is Rick Perry's and the highway lobby's deceptive gimmick to make you think they can somehow apply free market competitive principles to government-run monopolies, aka - highways. Sounds great, right? Let's look inside. Our government tolling authority will now have URS, KPMG, and Citigroup determine how much profit the RMA can make by raiding YOUR wallet by charging you a toll tax to drive on what your taxes already built and paid for. Let's say the amount of profit over and above the cost of actually building the road is $4 billion. The RMA would then have to sell bonds to come up with that up front $4 billion fee that will then go into a TxDOT account to be used on roads elsewhere in the region. So the toll isn't a user tax (as we've contended all along). This translates into the HIGHEST POSSIBLE TOLL TAX, even Jaime Castillo of the Express-News agreed. So now your toll will cover the cost of construction AND the up front fee just as if Cintra were doing it!
It's the most elaborate Robin Hood scheme and unfair distribution of transportation taxation ever devised. ALL traditional turnpikes have been replaced by the "market-based" toll deception. How high is high, we're seeing rates as high a $1.50 a mile in Austin. The average is more like 40 cents a mile (compared with 1-3 cents a mile in gas taxes). Go to our toll tax calculator on the home page of our web site and calculate how many THOUSANDS in NEW TAXES you'll have to pay IN ADDITION to skyrocketing gas prices! Add to that, the Texas A&M Study last fall flat out stated WE DO NOT NEED TO TOLL A SINGLE ROAD. Yet, the Legislature failed to address the gas tax issue preferring instead to tap the vein (revenue stream) of commuters stuck in congestion. Folks, if you keep voting for the same recycled candidates and for politics as usual, we're going to keep getting fleeced. It doesn't matter how much tax money you give them, it'll NEVER BE ENOUGH! We need a revolution! VOTE THE BUMS OUT!
...
Here's the 19 who voted AGAINST this nonsense: Nathan Macias led the charge along with David Leibowitz, Lon Burnam, Joaquin Castro, Garnet Coleman, Joe Farias, Jessica Farrar, Stephen Frost, Ana Hernandez, Jodie Laubenberg, Trey Martinez Fischer, Ruth McClendon, Sid Miller, Ken Paxton, Robert Puente, Joe Straus, Senfronia Thompson, Marc Veasey, and Mike Villarreal.
Support them with your money not just your vote!
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Federal Panel on Voter Fraud Scrutinized
NPR News - All Things Considered - July 31, 2007 The Election Assistance Commission, a small group with the responsibility of finding good voting technologies and distributing federal funds, is being examined by congressional committees. It drew Democratic complaints when it reported that the amount of vote fraud is unclear. Democrats point to the commission consultant's report, which says there is little fraud. It's an issue that splits along the Democratic/Republican divide.
Listen to report by Pam Fessler
Read More
Listen to report by Pam Fessler
Read More
Groups Call for Alaska Senator to Leave Committees over Corruption
NPR News - All Things Considered - Aug. 31, 2007
Two Congressional watchdog groups Tuesday called on Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) to step down from his seats on the Senate's Commerce and Appropriations committees.
On Monday, agents from the FBI and IRS raided Stevens' home in a resort community near Anchorage, Alaska. He's being investigated as part of a political corruption inquiry that includes his son and the state's only member of the House.
Richard Mauer, staff writer for the Anchorage Daily News talks with Melissa Block about reactions there.
FBI Searches Home of Alaska's Sen. Stevens
Federal agents photographed the home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens during a search related to a public corruption probe, law enforcement officials said.
Stevens, 83, an Alaska Republican, is under a federal investigation for his relationship with Bill Allen, an oil field services contractor who was convicted this year of bribing state lawmakers.
A renovation project in 2000 that more than doubled the size of Stevens' home in the ski resort community of Girdwood was overseen by Allen, who is founder of VECO Corp. The Alaska-based oil field services and engineering company has reaped tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts.
Agents from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service started their search of the senator's home Monday afternoon, Dave Heller, FBI assistant special agent, told The Associated Press. He said he could not comment on the nature of the investigation.
About 15 agents took photos and video of various angles of the structure, climbing onto the roof at one point, and eventually entered. They later carried out a garbage bag full of unidentifiable materials and loaded it into an unmarked white van.
The curtains were drawn during most of the search.
A law enforcement official familiar with the case confirmed that the raid on Stevens' home was focused on records related to the ongoing VECO investigation. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
An e-mail statement issued by Stevens through his Washington, D.C., spokesman said federal agents had alerted his attorneys that they wanted to search his home.
FBI Searches Home of Alaska's Sen. Stevens
Stevens, who has been in office since 1968 and is among the longest-serving senators in history, said the interests of justice would be best served if he commented after the investigation.
"I continue to believe this investigation should proceed to its conclusion without any appearance that I have attempted to influence its outcome," Stevens said. "The legal process should be allowed to proceed so that all the facts can be established and the truth determined."
Located 40 miles south of Anchorage, Girdwood is nestled in a valley next to Mount Alyeska and has evolved from a gold mining town into Alaska's only year-round resort community.
Hear NPR's Report
From NPR reports and The Associated Press
Two Congressional watchdog groups Tuesday called on Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) to step down from his seats on the Senate's Commerce and Appropriations committees.
On Monday, agents from the FBI and IRS raided Stevens' home in a resort community near Anchorage, Alaska. He's being investigated as part of a political corruption inquiry that includes his son and the state's only member of the House.
Richard Mauer, staff writer for the Anchorage Daily News talks with Melissa Block about reactions there.
FBI Searches Home of Alaska's Sen. Stevens
Federal agents photographed the home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens during a search related to a public corruption probe, law enforcement officials said.
Stevens, 83, an Alaska Republican, is under a federal investigation for his relationship with Bill Allen, an oil field services contractor who was convicted this year of bribing state lawmakers.
A renovation project in 2000 that more than doubled the size of Stevens' home in the ski resort community of Girdwood was overseen by Allen, who is founder of VECO Corp. The Alaska-based oil field services and engineering company has reaped tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts.
Agents from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service started their search of the senator's home Monday afternoon, Dave Heller, FBI assistant special agent, told The Associated Press. He said he could not comment on the nature of the investigation.
About 15 agents took photos and video of various angles of the structure, climbing onto the roof at one point, and eventually entered. They later carried out a garbage bag full of unidentifiable materials and loaded it into an unmarked white van.
The curtains were drawn during most of the search.
A law enforcement official familiar with the case confirmed that the raid on Stevens' home was focused on records related to the ongoing VECO investigation. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
An e-mail statement issued by Stevens through his Washington, D.C., spokesman said federal agents had alerted his attorneys that they wanted to search his home.
FBI Searches Home of Alaska's Sen. Stevens
Stevens, who has been in office since 1968 and is among the longest-serving senators in history, said the interests of justice would be best served if he commented after the investigation.
"I continue to believe this investigation should proceed to its conclusion without any appearance that I have attempted to influence its outcome," Stevens said. "The legal process should be allowed to proceed so that all the facts can be established and the truth determined."
Located 40 miles south of Anchorage, Girdwood is nestled in a valley next to Mount Alyeska and has evolved from a gold mining town into Alaska's only year-round resort community.
Hear NPR's Report
From NPR reports and The Associated Press
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Backward Texas law may make man pay with life for deed he didn't do
Austin American Statesman Editorial Board - Saturday, July 28, 2007
Kenneth Foster didn't commit murder. But that won't stop the State of Texas from executing the Austin native Aug. 30.
It was Mauriceo Brown who shot and killed Michael LaHood in San Antonio 12 years ago — not Foster. Even the prosecution agrees that Foster was 85 feet away from the murder scene. But because of the Texas Law of Parties, that simply does not matter.
Under the 33-year-old law of parties, a person can be held responsible for a crime committed by someone else. According to the law, Foster "should have anticipated" that Brown would commit murder.
Though the law has its supporters, the application in the Foster case highlights flaws.
Only a few states have a law of parties as severe as Texas and no other state applies it as frequently to capital murder cases as Texas. About 80 inmates are on death row awaiting execution under the law of parties. They may not have done the actual killing, but they were along for the ride.
In a case similar to Foster's, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment "does not allow the death penalty for a person who is a minor participant in a felony and does not kill, attempt to kill, or intend to kill."
New testimony shows Foster didn't play a major role in the shooting that took the life of LaHood on Aug. 14, 1996.
In the original trial, Foster's court-appointed lawyer failed to bring up key points that might have vindicated Foster. The same lawyer submitted a 20-page appellate brief in the Foster case — laughably short for a death penalty case. The lawyer also failed to pursue key testimony.
When Keith Hampton, an Austin lawyer skilled in criminal appellate work, took over Foster's case, he remembers thinking, "Wait a minute, this guy is on death row?" He uncovered new testimony that ultimately won a stay in Foster's case. Unfortunately, the ruling was overturned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Foster was no angel. He and three other men in the car — Brown, Julius Steen and Dwayne Dillard — had committed two armed robberies earlier that night. But the new testimony from Steen and Dillard shows that the men had no role in planning or carrying out a murder.
According to Steen and Dillard, Foster repeatedly pleaded with them and Brown, while in the car, to return home before they encountered LaHood. He also tried to drive away when he heard the gunshots, but Steen and Dillard made him stop and wait for Brown, who was executed for his part in the crime last year.
With a month left until Foster's scheduled execution, his supporters are left with two options: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must rule in favor of Foster, or the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles must recommend commuting Foster's sentence. If the Board of Pardons and Paroles recommends commutation, Gov. Rick Perry decides Foster's fate.
Considering Perry's track record on commuting executions, it is unlikely that Perry will decide in favor of Foster, even though he should.
Neither the governor nor the Court of Criminal Appeals should allow the state to execute a man for a crime someone else committed. Foster should be punished for his part in the robberies. But the state shouldn't take his life for failing to anticipate that his friend would commit murder.
Read more and listen to audio
Kenneth Foster didn't commit murder. But that won't stop the State of Texas from executing the Austin native Aug. 30.
It was Mauriceo Brown who shot and killed Michael LaHood in San Antonio 12 years ago — not Foster. Even the prosecution agrees that Foster was 85 feet away from the murder scene. But because of the Texas Law of Parties, that simply does not matter.
Under the 33-year-old law of parties, a person can be held responsible for a crime committed by someone else. According to the law, Foster "should have anticipated" that Brown would commit murder.
Though the law has its supporters, the application in the Foster case highlights flaws.
Only a few states have a law of parties as severe as Texas and no other state applies it as frequently to capital murder cases as Texas. About 80 inmates are on death row awaiting execution under the law of parties. They may not have done the actual killing, but they were along for the ride.
In a case similar to Foster's, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment "does not allow the death penalty for a person who is a minor participant in a felony and does not kill, attempt to kill, or intend to kill."
New testimony shows Foster didn't play a major role in the shooting that took the life of LaHood on Aug. 14, 1996.
In the original trial, Foster's court-appointed lawyer failed to bring up key points that might have vindicated Foster. The same lawyer submitted a 20-page appellate brief in the Foster case — laughably short for a death penalty case. The lawyer also failed to pursue key testimony.
When Keith Hampton, an Austin lawyer skilled in criminal appellate work, took over Foster's case, he remembers thinking, "Wait a minute, this guy is on death row?" He uncovered new testimony that ultimately won a stay in Foster's case. Unfortunately, the ruling was overturned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Foster was no angel. He and three other men in the car — Brown, Julius Steen and Dwayne Dillard — had committed two armed robberies earlier that night. But the new testimony from Steen and Dillard shows that the men had no role in planning or carrying out a murder.
According to Steen and Dillard, Foster repeatedly pleaded with them and Brown, while in the car, to return home before they encountered LaHood. He also tried to drive away when he heard the gunshots, but Steen and Dillard made him stop and wait for Brown, who was executed for his part in the crime last year.
With a month left until Foster's scheduled execution, his supporters are left with two options: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must rule in favor of Foster, or the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles must recommend commuting Foster's sentence. If the Board of Pardons and Paroles recommends commutation, Gov. Rick Perry decides Foster's fate.
Considering Perry's track record on commuting executions, it is unlikely that Perry will decide in favor of Foster, even though he should.
Neither the governor nor the Court of Criminal Appeals should allow the state to execute a man for a crime someone else committed. Foster should be punished for his part in the robberies. But the state shouldn't take his life for failing to anticipate that his friend would commit murder.
Read more and listen to audio
Friday, July 27, 2007
George W. Bush Library call for submission of bids
George W. Bush Presidential Materials Project, Dallas, TX
General Information
Document Type: Presolicitation Notice
Solicitation Number: NAMA-07-SEM-0004
Posted Date: Jul 26, 2007
Original Response Date: Sep 24, 2007
Current Response Date: Sep 24, 2007
Original Archive Date:
Current Archive Date:
Classification Code: X -- Lease or rental of facilities
Naics Code: 531190 -- Lessors of Other Real Estate Property
Contracting Office Address
National Archives and Records Administration, NAA, Acquisition Center, 8601 Adelphi Road, Room 3360, College Park, MD, 20740-6001, UNITED STATES
Description
The United States Government announces its intent in procuring the services of a developer for the development of a presidential material records storage facility to be leased by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for its own use. The development must be of sufficient size to accommodate the following requirements:
* This solicitation is for a new single-story, contiguous, turn-key facility (site and building). The Facility is to serve the National Archives and Records Administration?s (NARA?s) needs for the George W. Bush Presidential Materials Project, Dallas, TX .
* The overall size of the Project Site for a new Presidential Library must be at least 60,000 BOMA usable square feet. Of that space, approximately 8,400 square feet must be suitable for office activities and outfitted for general office usage (Class A). The remaining approximately 51,600 square feet must be outfitted for holdings storage (general textual, general non-textual, national security classified, and museum collections), processing areas, and general support spaces.
* The facility is scheduled to be delivered by the October, 1, 2008, for occupancy.
* The Developer must provide all management, supervision, labor, materials, shelving, supplies, and equipment (except as otherwise provided), and must plan, schedule, coordinate and assure effective performance of all construction to meet NARA requirements. The Developer will perform the construction in accordance with the design specifications, drawings, and the provisions of the lease agreement.
* Offer shall 1) be for space located in a quality building of sound and substantial construction as described in the SFO, 2) facility have all the perimeter 100 foot setbacks and building have a potential for efficient layout, 3) be within the square footage range to be considered, and 4) be in compliance with all of the Government?s requirements set forth in the SFO. This can be a new building, or a renovation to an existing building.
* The facility and site must meet all applicable local, county, and state building and fire safety codes, as well as generally meeting the NARA Office of Presidential Libraries, Architectural and Design Standards for Presidential Libraries, Part 3.
* Lease term will be a Base Year (starting October 1, 2008), and Five (5) Option Year (to September 30, 2014) renewals, as operating, full service and below prospectus level.
* The proposed facility and site must lie within 25 miles of the center of intersection of U.S Highway 75 (North Central Expressway) and Lovers Lane, Dallas , TX:
* The Solicitation for Offers (NAMA-07-SEM-0004) will be offered on or about August 24, 2007, and will be due on or about September 24, 2007. The SFO will be available as electronic files at THIS WEBSITE. Additionally, any updates or supplementary, public information will be posted on this website throughout the developer selection process.
All questions about and expressions of interest in this solicitation should be directed to the contact listed below.
Ronald C. Noll
Contracting Officer
National Archives and Records Administration
8601 Adelphi Road, Room 1150
College Park MD 20740
ph(301) 837-3648
fax (301) 837-3657
ronald.noll@nara.gov
Point of Contact
Ronald Noll, Contracting Officer, Phone 301-837-3648, Fax 301-837-3657, Email ronald.noll@nara.gov - Ronald Noll, Contracting Officer, Phone 301-837-3648, Fax 301-837-3657, Email ronald.noll@nara.gov
Place of Performance
Address: DALLAS, TX
Postal Code: 75205
Country: UNITED STATES
There is a potential upside for researches who applaude and for those who are critical of the adminstration of George W. Bush. Those who support him will have a library nearby. Those who feel this nation has strayed from its path under this administration will have the documentation nearby for utilization in critiques and academic papers about how government should not be done in the USA.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Toll road financing flawed: academic - modelling on which the projects are engineered is to maximise profits to investment banks not benefits to users
Michael West - The Australian - September 27, 2006
AUSTRALIA'S toll road projects, including Sydney's Cross City Tunnel, Lane Cove Tunnel and the M2, will not survive without continuing government subsidies and are likely to fail anyway, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for billions of dollars in debt, a transport conference will hear today.
Reopening criticisms of toll road financing he first made a year ago, a paper by Sydney academic John Goldberg claims the modelling on which the projects are engineered is to maximise profits to investment banks rather than provide the best possible service for motorists. A copy of the paper - "The fatal flaw in the financing of private road infrastructure in Australia" - obtained by The Australian, says the Cross City Tunnel (CCT), Lane Cove Tunnel (LCT) and M2 (Hills Motorway) projects are "not likely to be able to amortise (pay down) debt by the end of the concession periods".
"The analysis shows that the probability of insolvency is generally very high even if the time value of money is ignored.
"Unless the government has guaranteed the project against failure, equity investors will lose heavily," says the report.
Dr Goldberg cites the experience of the Sydney Airport Railway public-private partnership (PPP) project which collapsed in 2000 leaving taxpayers to foot the $800 million bill.
The NSW Government has refused to make public the toll road project documents, except for the CCT, claiming it does not want to breach confidentiality agreements with the operators.
If there is no government guarantee, Dr Goldberg claims superannuation funds and investors might be liable for the debts in the event of collapse as they owned units in the stapled trust structure.
Dr Goldberg's analysis is based on Macquarie Bank's base case model for the M2 project.
Spokespeople for the LCT, Transurban (M2, M7, and City Link in Melbourne) and the CCT rejected Dr Goldberg's thesis yesterday. "We didn't agree with Dr Goldberg last time he made claims like this and we don't agree now," said Transurban's general manager corporate affairs, Mike Roberts.
Some 40 per cent of City Link's revenue and 35 per cent of M2 revenue consists of government subsidies under the infrastructure bond scheme.
Dr Goldberg claimed the traffic forecasts for the CCT had been made to fit in with the investment case for the project.
"Even if the traffic projections were to be met, there would be insufficient cash flow to amortise (pay down) debt and pay equity dividends," says the report.
Last year's paper from Dr Goldberg was rejected by the toll road operators and Macquarie Bank executive Warwick Smith complained to University of Sydney vice-chancellor Gavin Brown demanding that the university dissociate itself from the academic. Professor Brown subsequently issued a press release dissociating the university from Dr Goldberg.
Read more in The Australian
AUSTRALIA'S toll road projects, including Sydney's Cross City Tunnel, Lane Cove Tunnel and the M2, will not survive without continuing government subsidies and are likely to fail anyway, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for billions of dollars in debt, a transport conference will hear today.
Reopening criticisms of toll road financing he first made a year ago, a paper by Sydney academic John Goldberg claims the modelling on which the projects are engineered is to maximise profits to investment banks rather than provide the best possible service for motorists. A copy of the paper - "The fatal flaw in the financing of private road infrastructure in Australia" - obtained by The Australian, says the Cross City Tunnel (CCT), Lane Cove Tunnel (LCT) and M2 (Hills Motorway) projects are "not likely to be able to amortise (pay down) debt by the end of the concession periods".
"The analysis shows that the probability of insolvency is generally very high even if the time value of money is ignored.
"Unless the government has guaranteed the project against failure, equity investors will lose heavily," says the report.
Dr Goldberg cites the experience of the Sydney Airport Railway public-private partnership (PPP) project which collapsed in 2000 leaving taxpayers to foot the $800 million bill.
The NSW Government has refused to make public the toll road project documents, except for the CCT, claiming it does not want to breach confidentiality agreements with the operators.
If there is no government guarantee, Dr Goldberg claims superannuation funds and investors might be liable for the debts in the event of collapse as they owned units in the stapled trust structure.
Dr Goldberg's analysis is based on Macquarie Bank's base case model for the M2 project.
Spokespeople for the LCT, Transurban (M2, M7, and City Link in Melbourne) and the CCT rejected Dr Goldberg's thesis yesterday. "We didn't agree with Dr Goldberg last time he made claims like this and we don't agree now," said Transurban's general manager corporate affairs, Mike Roberts.
Some 40 per cent of City Link's revenue and 35 per cent of M2 revenue consists of government subsidies under the infrastructure bond scheme.
Dr Goldberg claimed the traffic forecasts for the CCT had been made to fit in with the investment case for the project.
"Even if the traffic projections were to be met, there would be insufficient cash flow to amortise (pay down) debt and pay equity dividends," says the report.
Last year's paper from Dr Goldberg was rejected by the toll road operators and Macquarie Bank executive Warwick Smith complained to University of Sydney vice-chancellor Gavin Brown demanding that the university dissociate itself from the academic. Professor Brown subsequently issued a press release dissociating the university from Dr Goldberg.
Read more in The Australian
PREMEDITATED MERGER - Controversy erupts over leaser of U.S. toll roads
Foreign firm part of public-private partnerships funding highway network
By Jerome R. Corsi - © 2007 WorldNetDaily.com - July 20, 2007
Investment analysts in New York and Australia charge that Macquarie, the Australian conglomerate leasing U.S. toll roads, is a "house of cards" that has made billions by spinning off the highway assets into over-valuated investment trusts controlled by the bank.
Macquarie has been an active participant in the "public-private partnerships" sponsored by Mary Peters when she was head of the Federal Highway Administration.
As documented on the FHWA website, Macquarie recently concluded long-term leasing deals on the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road.
In both projects, Macquarie has partnered with Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A., the Spanish investment consortium also involved in financing and leasing the Trans-Texas Corridor.
The criticism of Macquarie can be traced to a paper published last year by John L. Goldberg, an honorary associate at the School of Architecture, Design Science, and Planning at the University of Sydney in Australia.
Titled "The Fatal Flaw in the Financing of Private Road Infrastructure in Australia," the paper argued equity investors in Macquarie investment trusts are likely to suffer heavy losses by excessive valuations Macquarie makes of financed toll roads that are packaged together to be sold to pension funds and other institutional investors.
Goldberg also argued that government guarantees on Macquarie projects are often buried in the confidential part of toll road "comprehensive development agreements," such that the public taxpayer liability only comes to light when a toll road project fails.
Jim Chanos, a founding principal in the New York investment firm Kynikos Associates, has been equally critical of Macquarie.
Kynikos, founded in 1985, specializes in short-selling the stock of companies the firm believes are overvalued by the financial markets and likely to fall in price. Chanos distinguished himself as one of the most active critics of Enron prior to the company's fall.
In a May 30 radio interview with Australian talk-show host Mark Colvin, Chanos charged that the "Macquarie model" was seriously flawed.
"The bank scours the world buying assets," Chanos told the radio audience, "buying assets, everything from toll roads to bowling alleys and selling them into separate trusts that the bank controls. This generates triple fees for Macquarie Bank: one for the up-front purchase; a second for selling the assets into the trust; then ongoing management and performance fees from the funds."
Chanos charged that the loser in the scheme was the investor.
"If you look at the financial accounts of the trusts," Chanos explained to the Australian talk show, "you'll see that in almost all the cases the companies are using Australian re-valuation accounting which is legal under [Generally Accepted Accounting Practices] in your country to write up the value of the asset annually and put that through operating income and into equity."
Chanos argued that the practice only works in a financial environment in which cheap credit is readily available and valuations for infrastructure projects are generally rising.
"You need a credit environment that looks the other way, or you need a credit environment where the people lending are just lending on reputation or not numbers," Chanos said.
Eventually, he contended, the self-dealing between Macquarie and the Macquarie-controlled funds into which the infrastructure assets are sold is likely to crash.
"All I would tell your listeners," Chanos said in the radio interview, "is simply just go to the trusts, the financial statements, and simply extract out the asset re-valuation number, which is basically management's guess as to how much, what the asset's worth and just see what the cash flow looks like. In many cases, the cash flows are diminished or actually go negative. That's the simple litmus test to the Macquarie model."
Still, Chanos argued that despite the problem in the underlying cash flows, Macquarie makes hefty profits.
"Capital gains alone in the fiscal year 2007, just for flipping these types of assets into the trusts, accounted for half of the pre-tax income of Macquarie Bank," Chanos asserted.
Macquarie Bank has hit back strongly against both critics.
According to newspaper reports in Australia, Macquarie Bank executive Warwick Smith complained to University of Sidney Vice Chancellor Gavin Brown, demanding that the university dissociate itself from Goldberg over his critical research.
In response, Brown issued a statement clarifying that Goldberg is not an employee of the University of Sydney, though he has been given the title of honorary associate by the Faculty of Architecture. In his statement, Brown claimed Goldberg "speaks as an individual and the university accepts no responsibility for his comments which it does not endorse."
In the subsequent controversy that erupted in Australia, Goldberg was featured as a case study in "Silencing Dissent," a book critical of the administration of Prime Minister John Howard, published in Australia by Clive Hamilton, the executive director of a prominent Australian think-tank, and his co-editor Sarah Maddison.
In the book, Hamilton and Maddison charged that the Howard government used strong-arm tactics to challenge the tax status of non-government organizations and ruin the reputations of academics who were critical of governmental policies, including the sale of highway infrastructure leasing rights to private investment concerns in Australia.
Macquarie used a similar personal attack to discredit Chanos following the interview on Australian radio.
In a May 31 statement posted on the Macquarie website, the investment group charged that Chanos, "a hedge fund short-seller of equities," had an economic self-interest in advancing "incorrect claims" that could cause the stock price of Macquarie to fall.
When contacted for comment, Macquarie's New York representative referred WND to the company's online statement, in which Macquarie asserts that all assets acquired by funds controlled by Macquarie are valued directly from the market and subject to the approval of independent directors of the funds.
The published Macquarie response to Chanos also cited a May 25 Bloomberg report which quoted Chanos as saying Kynikos maintains a short position on Macquarie.
Short-selling is a Wall Street practice in which an investor borrows and sells stock the investor does not own, anticipating the stock will go down in value. The short-seller profits by buying shares at a lower price to replace the shares that originally were borrowed and sold at the higher price.
Short-sellers lose money if the price of the stock increases and the cost to purchase shares to replace those borrowed is greater than the price for which the borrowed shares were sold.
Macquarie Infrastructure Group is a separate subsidiary from Macquarie Bank.
The website of Macquarie Infrastructure Group bills the company as "one of the largest private developers of toll roads in the world."
Read more in World Net Daily
By Jerome R. Corsi - © 2007 WorldNetDaily.com - July 20, 2007
Investment analysts in New York and Australia charge that Macquarie, the Australian conglomerate leasing U.S. toll roads, is a "house of cards" that has made billions by spinning off the highway assets into over-valuated investment trusts controlled by the bank.
Macquarie has been an active participant in the "public-private partnerships" sponsored by Mary Peters when she was head of the Federal Highway Administration.
As documented on the FHWA website, Macquarie recently concluded long-term leasing deals on the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road.
In both projects, Macquarie has partnered with Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A., the Spanish investment consortium also involved in financing and leasing the Trans-Texas Corridor.
The criticism of Macquarie can be traced to a paper published last year by John L. Goldberg, an honorary associate at the School of Architecture, Design Science, and Planning at the University of Sydney in Australia.
Titled "The Fatal Flaw in the Financing of Private Road Infrastructure in Australia," the paper argued equity investors in Macquarie investment trusts are likely to suffer heavy losses by excessive valuations Macquarie makes of financed toll roads that are packaged together to be sold to pension funds and other institutional investors.
Goldberg also argued that government guarantees on Macquarie projects are often buried in the confidential part of toll road "comprehensive development agreements," such that the public taxpayer liability only comes to light when a toll road project fails.
Jim Chanos, a founding principal in the New York investment firm Kynikos Associates, has been equally critical of Macquarie.
Kynikos, founded in 1985, specializes in short-selling the stock of companies the firm believes are overvalued by the financial markets and likely to fall in price. Chanos distinguished himself as one of the most active critics of Enron prior to the company's fall.
In a May 30 radio interview with Australian talk-show host Mark Colvin, Chanos charged that the "Macquarie model" was seriously flawed.
"The bank scours the world buying assets," Chanos told the radio audience, "buying assets, everything from toll roads to bowling alleys and selling them into separate trusts that the bank controls. This generates triple fees for Macquarie Bank: one for the up-front purchase; a second for selling the assets into the trust; then ongoing management and performance fees from the funds."
Chanos charged that the loser in the scheme was the investor.
"If you look at the financial accounts of the trusts," Chanos explained to the Australian talk show, "you'll see that in almost all the cases the companies are using Australian re-valuation accounting which is legal under [Generally Accepted Accounting Practices] in your country to write up the value of the asset annually and put that through operating income and into equity."
Chanos argued that the practice only works in a financial environment in which cheap credit is readily available and valuations for infrastructure projects are generally rising.
"You need a credit environment that looks the other way, or you need a credit environment where the people lending are just lending on reputation or not numbers," Chanos said.
Eventually, he contended, the self-dealing between Macquarie and the Macquarie-controlled funds into which the infrastructure assets are sold is likely to crash.
"All I would tell your listeners," Chanos said in the radio interview, "is simply just go to the trusts, the financial statements, and simply extract out the asset re-valuation number, which is basically management's guess as to how much, what the asset's worth and just see what the cash flow looks like. In many cases, the cash flows are diminished or actually go negative. That's the simple litmus test to the Macquarie model."
Still, Chanos argued that despite the problem in the underlying cash flows, Macquarie makes hefty profits.
"Capital gains alone in the fiscal year 2007, just for flipping these types of assets into the trusts, accounted for half of the pre-tax income of Macquarie Bank," Chanos asserted.
Macquarie Bank has hit back strongly against both critics.
According to newspaper reports in Australia, Macquarie Bank executive Warwick Smith complained to University of Sidney Vice Chancellor Gavin Brown, demanding that the university dissociate itself from Goldberg over his critical research.
In response, Brown issued a statement clarifying that Goldberg is not an employee of the University of Sydney, though he has been given the title of honorary associate by the Faculty of Architecture. In his statement, Brown claimed Goldberg "speaks as an individual and the university accepts no responsibility for his comments which it does not endorse."
In the subsequent controversy that erupted in Australia, Goldberg was featured as a case study in "Silencing Dissent," a book critical of the administration of Prime Minister John Howard, published in Australia by Clive Hamilton, the executive director of a prominent Australian think-tank, and his co-editor Sarah Maddison.
In the book, Hamilton and Maddison charged that the Howard government used strong-arm tactics to challenge the tax status of non-government organizations and ruin the reputations of academics who were critical of governmental policies, including the sale of highway infrastructure leasing rights to private investment concerns in Australia.
Macquarie used a similar personal attack to discredit Chanos following the interview on Australian radio.
In a May 31 statement posted on the Macquarie website, the investment group charged that Chanos, "a hedge fund short-seller of equities," had an economic self-interest in advancing "incorrect claims" that could cause the stock price of Macquarie to fall.
When contacted for comment, Macquarie's New York representative referred WND to the company's online statement, in which Macquarie asserts that all assets acquired by funds controlled by Macquarie are valued directly from the market and subject to the approval of independent directors of the funds.
The published Macquarie response to Chanos also cited a May 25 Bloomberg report which quoted Chanos as saying Kynikos maintains a short position on Macquarie.
Short-selling is a Wall Street practice in which an investor borrows and sells stock the investor does not own, anticipating the stock will go down in value. The short-seller profits by buying shares at a lower price to replace the shares that originally were borrowed and sold at the higher price.
Short-sellers lose money if the price of the stock increases and the cost to purchase shares to replace those borrowed is greater than the price for which the borrowed shares were sold.
Macquarie Infrastructure Group is a separate subsidiary from Macquarie Bank.
The website of Macquarie Infrastructure Group bills the company as "one of the largest private developers of toll roads in the world."
Read more in World Net Daily
Jaime Castillo: Toll road proponents: Motorists can — and should — pay more
Jaime Castillo - San Antonio Express News - 07/22/2007
They say you don't kill the messenger, but can you at least throttle him?
The "him" in this instance is Dye Management Group Inc., which recently completed a draft audit on toll roads for the Texas Transportation Commission.
After taking a look at existing toll rates of 10 to 15 cents a mile in Dallas, Houston and Austin, the firm determined that local toll authorities aren't charging drivers enough.
The logic — a term that should be used loosely — is that motorists can and will pay more, which would bring in more cash for the state's yawning road needs.
"Tolls charged by local authorities are lower than studies indicate that their customers would be willing to pay," the audit reads. "As a result, congestion goals will not be met."
Translation: "If you want to raise funds for other projects, keep jacking up the toll price until drivers cry 'uncle,' and then back it off a penny or two."
As reported by Express-News transportation writer Patrick Driscoll, the audit "mirrors much of what officials have been saying for years."
Hope Andrade, a transportation commission member from San Antonio, told Driscoll:
"It just confirms the emergency situation that we're in. We can no longer support toll rates that are not market value."
If this were part of a political handbook on winning support for toll roads from a skeptical public, charging "market value" — or as much as you can get — on tollways would be relegated to the section titled: "How to lose even more support in 30 seconds or less."
And this isn't the fault of people like Andrade, either. State and federal lawmakers continually saddle transportation officials with a losing poker hand.
In the last 16 years, the state's population — and construction costs — have grown exponentially. Yet, the gas tax — the primary source of highway funding — has been frozen since 1991.
And not only has it remained static in an ever-changing world, state lawmakers can't keep their hands off of it either.
Continuing its long-running budgetary shell game, the Legislature's latest two-year budget will see one-tenth, or $1.6 billion, of the highway fund diverted from building and maintaining roads.
With fiscal constraint apparently off the table, raising the gas tax must be looked at seriously. While difficult with gasoline prices hovering around $3 a gallon, it could be done if the entire state leadership — the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker — supported the change.
That way, lawmakers, who already quietly concede that the gas tax is too low, could stick their necks out and not fear being singled out as the pigeons that supported higher taxes.
The alternative is to unnecessarily gouge those who will use toll roads. If the recommendations by Dye Management Group are the guide, toll riders will soon have the privilege of paying the highest tolls possible and paying the 20-cent-a-gallon gas tax.
A recent trip to the car dealer landed me in a shuttle van with several other car-less souls.
The shuttle van driver, exasperated by a 15-minute wait to go a couple of miles on U.S. 281 North, said to no one in particular:
"This almost makes you want to see toll roads."
To which, a homeowner who lives near the intersection of 281 and Bulverde Road blurted out:
"I don't care what they do as long as they do something soon."
With that kind of captive — and infuriated — audience, state and local transportation officials are banking that they will get their way eventually.
But it still doesn't make it right.
Read Jaime Castillo's column in the San Antonio Express News on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
They say you don't kill the messenger, but can you at least throttle him?
The "him" in this instance is Dye Management Group Inc., which recently completed a draft audit on toll roads for the Texas Transportation Commission.
After taking a look at existing toll rates of 10 to 15 cents a mile in Dallas, Houston and Austin, the firm determined that local toll authorities aren't charging drivers enough.
The logic — a term that should be used loosely — is that motorists can and will pay more, which would bring in more cash for the state's yawning road needs.
"Tolls charged by local authorities are lower than studies indicate that their customers would be willing to pay," the audit reads. "As a result, congestion goals will not be met."
Translation: "If you want to raise funds for other projects, keep jacking up the toll price until drivers cry 'uncle,' and then back it off a penny or two."
As reported by Express-News transportation writer Patrick Driscoll, the audit "mirrors much of what officials have been saying for years."
Hope Andrade, a transportation commission member from San Antonio, told Driscoll:
"It just confirms the emergency situation that we're in. We can no longer support toll rates that are not market value."
If this were part of a political handbook on winning support for toll roads from a skeptical public, charging "market value" — or as much as you can get — on tollways would be relegated to the section titled: "How to lose even more support in 30 seconds or less."
And this isn't the fault of people like Andrade, either. State and federal lawmakers continually saddle transportation officials with a losing poker hand.
In the last 16 years, the state's population — and construction costs — have grown exponentially. Yet, the gas tax — the primary source of highway funding — has been frozen since 1991.
And not only has it remained static in an ever-changing world, state lawmakers can't keep their hands off of it either.
Continuing its long-running budgetary shell game, the Legislature's latest two-year budget will see one-tenth, or $1.6 billion, of the highway fund diverted from building and maintaining roads.
With fiscal constraint apparently off the table, raising the gas tax must be looked at seriously. While difficult with gasoline prices hovering around $3 a gallon, it could be done if the entire state leadership — the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker — supported the change.
That way, lawmakers, who already quietly concede that the gas tax is too low, could stick their necks out and not fear being singled out as the pigeons that supported higher taxes.
The alternative is to unnecessarily gouge those who will use toll roads. If the recommendations by Dye Management Group are the guide, toll riders will soon have the privilege of paying the highest tolls possible and paying the 20-cent-a-gallon gas tax.
A recent trip to the car dealer landed me in a shuttle van with several other car-less souls.
The shuttle van driver, exasperated by a 15-minute wait to go a couple of miles on U.S. 281 North, said to no one in particular:
"This almost makes you want to see toll roads."
To which, a homeowner who lives near the intersection of 281 and Bulverde Road blurted out:
"I don't care what they do as long as they do something soon."
With that kind of captive — and infuriated — audience, state and local transportation officials are banking that they will get their way eventually.
But it still doesn't make it right.
Read Jaime Castillo's column in the San Antonio Express News on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Failures at oil refineries raise gas prices - A third of USA refineries reported fires, power failures, leaks, spills and other disruptions this year
By Jad Mouawad - THE NEW YORK TIMES - Sunday, July 22, 2007
Oil refineries across America have had a record number of fires, power failures, leaks, spills and breakdowns this year, causing dozens to shut down temporarily or trim production. The disruptions are helping drive gasoline prices to highs not seen since last summer's records.
These mechanical breakdowns, which one analyst likened to an "invisible hurricane," have created a bottleneck in domestic energy supplies, helping push up gasoline prices 50 cents this year to well above $3 a gallon. A third of the country's 150 refineries have reported disruptions to their operations since the beginning of the year, a record, according to analysts.
There have been blazes at refineries in Texas, Louisiana, Indiana and California, some of them caused by lightning strikes. Plants have suffered power losses that disrupted operations; a midsize refinery in Kansas was flooded by torrential rains last month.
American refiners are running roughly 5 percent below their normal levels at this time of the year.
"You have a system that is taxed to the limit," said Adam Robinson, an energy research analyst at Lehman Brothers. "This is what happens when spare capacity is eroded."
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted the nation's energy lifeline almost two years ago, oil companies delayed maintenance on many of their plants to make up for lost supplies and take advantage of the high prices. But, analysts say, they are now paying a price for deferring repairs.
As a whole, refining disruptions have been considerably higher than in previous years: They averaged 1.5 million barrels a day in the first quarter, compared with 700,000 to 900,000 barrels a day from 2001 to 2005. In the days after the hurricanes, refiners were forced to briefly halt as many as 5 million barrels of production.
In 2006, when refiners were still reeling from the impact of the hurricanes, disruptions in the first quarter averaged 1.35 million barrels a day.
Many factors have led to the rise in gas prices, including disruptions in oil supplies from places such as Nigeria and Norway. But analysts say the refining bottleneck in North America has been one of the main drivers of higher energy prices this year.
The refining crunch has pushed wholesale gasoline prices up 35 percent this year. It has also contributed to a 23 percent gain for crude oil prices in the same period. Oil futures in New York closed at $75.57 a barrel on Friday.
Some critics have theorized on Internet blogs that the squeeze on gasoline and other refined products points to a deliberate effort by oil companies to bolster profits by keeping supplies tight. But experts point out that the companies have little incentive right now to hold back on fuel supplies.
"Every refinery would like to run as much crude as possible, but they simply can't," said David Greely, senior energy economist at Goldman Sachs. "These are more complex systems. There are more chances for things to go wrong. And when things go wrong, they tend to back up the system."
Meanwhile, refiners have been scrambling to meet a raft of environmental regulations, phase out toxic additives, add ethanol to the fuel mix and introduce new ultra-low sulfur standards for gasoline and diesel. Industry insiders attribute much of the fragility of refining operations to the difficulty of making these cleaner fuels, which they were not originally designed to do.
This year's problems have raised alarms about the safety of refining operations, especially after an accident at a BP refinery in Texas two years ago that killed 15 workers. The A third of the country's refineries have reported fires, power failures, leaks, spills and other disruptions this year the Federal Chemical Safety Board issued a critical report blaming a broken safety culture at BP. But the board's chairwoman, Carolyn Merritt, said there was a pattern in many other refinery incidents that the board had investigated.
"There is a lack of investments in modern equipment," Merritt said. "The overwhelming preponderance is that if you have inadequate engineering and equipment, poor process safety management and poor staffing, you're set up for a catastrophe."
Merritt, who was appointed by President Bush and will retire after her five-year term ends in August, also singled out the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which she said does not conduct enough inspections. "There is no enforcement," she said.
OSHA defended its record and said it inspected almost 500 refineries from 1994 to 2004. The agency said it would inspect all refineries under its jurisdiction in the next two years.
Meanwhile, demand has been rising relentlessly, providing little respite to the nation's aging energy infrastructure. Even as consumers complain loudly about high prices, they show no signs of scaling back. Gasoline consumption reached 9.66 million barrels a day in the first week of July, the second-highest level on record.
"The cushion that used to be available five to seven years ago for these unplanned perturbations is no longer there," said Jeet Bindra, Chevron's president of global refining. "When a refinery has a hiccup, there are consequences on supplies."
Read more in the Austin American Statesman
Oil refineries across America have had a record number of fires, power failures, leaks, spills and breakdowns this year, causing dozens to shut down temporarily or trim production. The disruptions are helping drive gasoline prices to highs not seen since last summer's records.
These mechanical breakdowns, which one analyst likened to an "invisible hurricane," have created a bottleneck in domestic energy supplies, helping push up gasoline prices 50 cents this year to well above $3 a gallon. A third of the country's 150 refineries have reported disruptions to their operations since the beginning of the year, a record, according to analysts.
There have been blazes at refineries in Texas, Louisiana, Indiana and California, some of them caused by lightning strikes. Plants have suffered power losses that disrupted operations; a midsize refinery in Kansas was flooded by torrential rains last month.
American refiners are running roughly 5 percent below their normal levels at this time of the year.
"You have a system that is taxed to the limit," said Adam Robinson, an energy research analyst at Lehman Brothers. "This is what happens when spare capacity is eroded."
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted the nation's energy lifeline almost two years ago, oil companies delayed maintenance on many of their plants to make up for lost supplies and take advantage of the high prices. But, analysts say, they are now paying a price for deferring repairs.
As a whole, refining disruptions have been considerably higher than in previous years: They averaged 1.5 million barrels a day in the first quarter, compared with 700,000 to 900,000 barrels a day from 2001 to 2005. In the days after the hurricanes, refiners were forced to briefly halt as many as 5 million barrels of production.
In 2006, when refiners were still reeling from the impact of the hurricanes, disruptions in the first quarter averaged 1.35 million barrels a day.
Many factors have led to the rise in gas prices, including disruptions in oil supplies from places such as Nigeria and Norway. But analysts say the refining bottleneck in North America has been one of the main drivers of higher energy prices this year.
The refining crunch has pushed wholesale gasoline prices up 35 percent this year. It has also contributed to a 23 percent gain for crude oil prices in the same period. Oil futures in New York closed at $75.57 a barrel on Friday.
Some critics have theorized on Internet blogs that the squeeze on gasoline and other refined products points to a deliberate effort by oil companies to bolster profits by keeping supplies tight. But experts point out that the companies have little incentive right now to hold back on fuel supplies.
"Every refinery would like to run as much crude as possible, but they simply can't," said David Greely, senior energy economist at Goldman Sachs. "These are more complex systems. There are more chances for things to go wrong. And when things go wrong, they tend to back up the system."
Meanwhile, refiners have been scrambling to meet a raft of environmental regulations, phase out toxic additives, add ethanol to the fuel mix and introduce new ultra-low sulfur standards for gasoline and diesel. Industry insiders attribute much of the fragility of refining operations to the difficulty of making these cleaner fuels, which they were not originally designed to do.
This year's problems have raised alarms about the safety of refining operations, especially after an accident at a BP refinery in Texas two years ago that killed 15 workers. The A third of the country's refineries have reported fires, power failures, leaks, spills and other disruptions this year the Federal Chemical Safety Board issued a critical report blaming a broken safety culture at BP. But the board's chairwoman, Carolyn Merritt, said there was a pattern in many other refinery incidents that the board had investigated.
"There is a lack of investments in modern equipment," Merritt said. "The overwhelming preponderance is that if you have inadequate engineering and equipment, poor process safety management and poor staffing, you're set up for a catastrophe."
Merritt, who was appointed by President Bush and will retire after her five-year term ends in August, also singled out the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which she said does not conduct enough inspections. "There is no enforcement," she said.
OSHA defended its record and said it inspected almost 500 refineries from 1994 to 2004. The agency said it would inspect all refineries under its jurisdiction in the next two years.
Meanwhile, demand has been rising relentlessly, providing little respite to the nation's aging energy infrastructure. Even as consumers complain loudly about high prices, they show no signs of scaling back. Gasoline consumption reached 9.66 million barrels a day in the first week of July, the second-highest level on record.
"The cushion that used to be available five to seven years ago for these unplanned perturbations is no longer there," said Jeet Bindra, Chevron's president of global refining. "When a refinery has a hiccup, there are consequences on supplies."
Read more in the Austin American Statesman
Saturday, July 21, 2007
China closes chemical plant and factories which produced tainted pet food, cough syrup and toothpaste
Damage control
ASSOCIATED PRESS - July 21, 2007
BEIJING -- China moved to sharpen its product safety image yesterday, shutting down a chemical plant linked to dozens of deaths in Panama from tainted medicine and closing two companies tied to pet deaths in North America.
The measures come as Beijing fights to reassure global customers that it takes food and drug safety seriously amid concerns over chemicals and toxins that have been found in its products.
The closures come months after links between the companies' products and the deaths became known but only days ahead of high-level visits by U.S. and European officials.
EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva arrives next week and has said she will press China to be much more vigilant about product safety. On July 31, a five-day meeting between officials of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and China's food safety agency begins in Beijing. Chinese officials have said the sides will discuss setting up a collaborative food safety mechanism.
Two of the companies that had their licenses revoked and offices shut by China's product safety watchdog were the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd. and Binzhou Futian Biology Technology Co. Ltd.
Products from both were implicated in the deaths of dozens of pets in North America. Reports of the deaths and links to China emerged in March.
The third company closed was the Taixing Glycerin Factory, which has been accused of selling what it called industrial "TD glycerin," a mix of 15 percent diethylene glycol and other substances. The diethylene glycol, a thickening agent found in antifreeze, was passed off as harmless glycerin, a more expensive sweetener commonly used in drugs.
It eventually ended up in Panamanian cough syrup and other medicines that killed at least 94 persons. The deaths were first reported last October, with the link to China emerging in early May.
Chinese quality officials have said "TD glycerin" is a misleading label because it could be mistaken for glycerin. But they also said the bulk of the blame lies with Panamanian merchants they accused of fraudulently mislabeling the "TD glycerin" as medical glycerin.
Gabriel Pascual, leader of a group of families who lost loved ones after they were poisoned by the tainted cough syrup and other medicines, applauded the closure of the Chinese chemical company. But, he added: "We will continue demanding justice in Panama."
While the government has announced the detention of an unspecified number of managers from Xuzhou Anying and Binzhou Futian, yesterday's action was the most definitive yet against the manufacturers linked to melamine-tainted wheat gluten blamed for the pet deaths.
The General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine also said police were investigating the two companies, but did not elaborate.
Following the pet-food deaths, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint. Chinese-made toothpaste containing diethylene glycol has also been rejected or recalled in North and South America, Asia and Europe.
Xuzhou Anying, located in Jiangsu province, "unlawfully added melamine in some of its products which could not meet the protein content requirement set in the contracts," the quality administration said. "This behavior of adulteration severely violated the feed quality and safety standards."
Binzhou Futian, headquartered in neighboring Shandong province, "added melamine in some of its products which could not meet the protein content requirement ... constituting severe adulteration," the statement said.
Melamine, used in plastics, fertilizers and flame retardants, has no nutritional value but is high in nitrogen, making products to which it is added appear to be higher in protein — a way to cut costs for the manufacturer.
Bates Gill, a China specialist at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said yesterday's actions struck him as "too little, too late."
"This problem of poor quality and lack of oversight has been around for a decade or more," he said. "What's different this time is how the shoddiness of their factories has become apparent to the world."
Read more/ see photos in The Washington Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS - July 21, 2007
BEIJING -- China moved to sharpen its product safety image yesterday, shutting down a chemical plant linked to dozens of deaths in Panama from tainted medicine and closing two companies tied to pet deaths in North America.
The measures come as Beijing fights to reassure global customers that it takes food and drug safety seriously amid concerns over chemicals and toxins that have been found in its products.
The closures come months after links between the companies' products and the deaths became known but only days ahead of high-level visits by U.S. and European officials.
EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva arrives next week and has said she will press China to be much more vigilant about product safety. On July 31, a five-day meeting between officials of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and China's food safety agency begins in Beijing. Chinese officials have said the sides will discuss setting up a collaborative food safety mechanism.
Two of the companies that had their licenses revoked and offices shut by China's product safety watchdog were the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd. and Binzhou Futian Biology Technology Co. Ltd.
Products from both were implicated in the deaths of dozens of pets in North America. Reports of the deaths and links to China emerged in March.
The third company closed was the Taixing Glycerin Factory, which has been accused of selling what it called industrial "TD glycerin," a mix of 15 percent diethylene glycol and other substances. The diethylene glycol, a thickening agent found in antifreeze, was passed off as harmless glycerin, a more expensive sweetener commonly used in drugs.
It eventually ended up in Panamanian cough syrup and other medicines that killed at least 94 persons. The deaths were first reported last October, with the link to China emerging in early May.
Chinese quality officials have said "TD glycerin" is a misleading label because it could be mistaken for glycerin. But they also said the bulk of the blame lies with Panamanian merchants they accused of fraudulently mislabeling the "TD glycerin" as medical glycerin.
Gabriel Pascual, leader of a group of families who lost loved ones after they were poisoned by the tainted cough syrup and other medicines, applauded the closure of the Chinese chemical company. But, he added: "We will continue demanding justice in Panama."
While the government has announced the detention of an unspecified number of managers from Xuzhou Anying and Binzhou Futian, yesterday's action was the most definitive yet against the manufacturers linked to melamine-tainted wheat gluten blamed for the pet deaths.
The General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine also said police were investigating the two companies, but did not elaborate.
Following the pet-food deaths, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint. Chinese-made toothpaste containing diethylene glycol has also been rejected or recalled in North and South America, Asia and Europe.
Xuzhou Anying, located in Jiangsu province, "unlawfully added melamine in some of its products which could not meet the protein content requirement set in the contracts," the quality administration said. "This behavior of adulteration severely violated the feed quality and safety standards."
Binzhou Futian, headquartered in neighboring Shandong province, "added melamine in some of its products which could not meet the protein content requirement ... constituting severe adulteration," the statement said.
Melamine, used in plastics, fertilizers and flame retardants, has no nutritional value but is high in nitrogen, making products to which it is added appear to be higher in protein — a way to cut costs for the manufacturer.
Bates Gill, a China specialist at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said yesterday's actions struck him as "too little, too late."
"This problem of poor quality and lack of oversight has been around for a decade or more," he said. "What's different this time is how the shoddiness of their factories has become apparent to the world."
Read more/ see photos in The Washington Times
Senate Democrats foil attempt to bar 'Fairness Doctrine'
By Kara Rowland - The Washington Times - July 20, 2007
Senate Democrats last night beat back a Republican attempt to attach an anti-Fairness Doctrine bill as an amendment to education legislation.
The doctrine, a former requirement that broadcasters present opposing points of view on political issues, was scrapped in 1987 by the Federal Communications Commission, which said the policy restricted journalistic freedom. The bill by Sen. Norm Coleman, Minnesota Republican, would prevent the FCC from reinstating the doctrine.
"We live in an age of satellite radio, of broadband, of blogs, of Internet, of cable TV, of broadcast TV. There is no limitation on the ability of anyone from any political persuasion to get their ideas set forth," Mr. Coleman argued in support of the Broadcaster Freedom Act of 2007. "The public in the end will choose what to listen to."
By a vote of 49-48, senators voted not to consider Mr. Coleman's amendment after Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, raised a point of order. Senate rules require 60 votes to waive a point of order.
An attempt by Mr. Coleman last week to attach his bill as an amendment to a defense authorization bill was similarly blocked by Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat.
In a swipe at Mr. Coleman, Mr. Kennedy accused sponsors of unrelated amendments of delaying passage of the education bill and "basically insulting the families of this country."
Mr. Coleman countered by linking a prohibition of the Fairness Doctrine to education.
"This bill is about educating young people," he said. "Well, let them have unfettered access to information."
The Fairness Doctrine has been a hot topic in the last month after a liberal think tank on June 20 concluded that political talk radio is "dominated" by conservatives 9-to-1. The report, by the Center for American Progress, said the talk-radio landscape does not serve all Americans.
Air America, a prominent liberal talk-radio network, was bailed out of bankruptcy in January by real estate tycoon Stephen L. Green.
Days after the release of the Center for American Progress report, Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, shared a conversation he said he overheard three years earlier between Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barbara Boxer of California, in which the women called for a "legislative fix" to counter the influence of "extremist" talk-radio hosts. Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Boxer denied the conversation took place.
While the current Republican-led FCC poses no threat of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, Republicans in both the House and Senate were quick to introduce bills that would prohibit a future Democrat-led agency from doing so. In the House, Rep. Mike Pence, Indiana Republican, has 135 co-sponsors of his version of the Broadcaster Freedom Act.
Mark S. Fowler, the former FCC chairman who led the charge to shelve the doctrine prior to its later repeal, said calls for its revival are "unacceptable."
Asked whether there is any viable chance of the policy being reinstated, Mr. Fowler told editors and reporters at The Washington Times yesterday: "I don't think so; I hope not."
"The electronic press that uses electrons and airwaves should be as free as the press that uses ink and paper, period," he said.
He asserted that lawmakers who say the doctrine is in the public interest are "politicians trying to control part of the press. To say the airwaves belong to the people — all these reasons they use to regulate are excuses. They're not reasons."
Meanwhile yesterday, the Senate Committee on Science, Commerce and Transportation approved the "Protecting Children From Indecent Programming Act," a bill that reaffirms an FCC policy on so-called "fleeting expletives."
Under the bill — sponsored by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia Democrat — the commission can penalize broadcasters for airing a single indecent word or image. The legislation comes more than a month after a federal court invalidated the policy as an "arbitrary and capricious" departure from previous policy and instructed the agency to either show further justification for it or eliminate it.
Mr. Rockefeller said he plans to introduce legislation to curb violent programming on broadcast, cable and satellite television. The FCC only has authority over broadcast content.
Read more/ see photos
Senate Democrats last night beat back a Republican attempt to attach an anti-Fairness Doctrine bill as an amendment to education legislation.
The doctrine, a former requirement that broadcasters present opposing points of view on political issues, was scrapped in 1987 by the Federal Communications Commission, which said the policy restricted journalistic freedom. The bill by Sen. Norm Coleman, Minnesota Republican, would prevent the FCC from reinstating the doctrine.
"We live in an age of satellite radio, of broadband, of blogs, of Internet, of cable TV, of broadcast TV. There is no limitation on the ability of anyone from any political persuasion to get their ideas set forth," Mr. Coleman argued in support of the Broadcaster Freedom Act of 2007. "The public in the end will choose what to listen to."
By a vote of 49-48, senators voted not to consider Mr. Coleman's amendment after Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, raised a point of order. Senate rules require 60 votes to waive a point of order.
An attempt by Mr. Coleman last week to attach his bill as an amendment to a defense authorization bill was similarly blocked by Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat.
In a swipe at Mr. Coleman, Mr. Kennedy accused sponsors of unrelated amendments of delaying passage of the education bill and "basically insulting the families of this country."
Mr. Coleman countered by linking a prohibition of the Fairness Doctrine to education.
"This bill is about educating young people," he said. "Well, let them have unfettered access to information."
The Fairness Doctrine has been a hot topic in the last month after a liberal think tank on June 20 concluded that political talk radio is "dominated" by conservatives 9-to-1. The report, by the Center for American Progress, said the talk-radio landscape does not serve all Americans.
Air America, a prominent liberal talk-radio network, was bailed out of bankruptcy in January by real estate tycoon Stephen L. Green.
Days after the release of the Center for American Progress report, Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, shared a conversation he said he overheard three years earlier between Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barbara Boxer of California, in which the women called for a "legislative fix" to counter the influence of "extremist" talk-radio hosts. Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Boxer denied the conversation took place.
While the current Republican-led FCC poses no threat of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, Republicans in both the House and Senate were quick to introduce bills that would prohibit a future Democrat-led agency from doing so. In the House, Rep. Mike Pence, Indiana Republican, has 135 co-sponsors of his version of the Broadcaster Freedom Act.
Mark S. Fowler, the former FCC chairman who led the charge to shelve the doctrine prior to its later repeal, said calls for its revival are "unacceptable."
Asked whether there is any viable chance of the policy being reinstated, Mr. Fowler told editors and reporters at The Washington Times yesterday: "I don't think so; I hope not."
"The electronic press that uses electrons and airwaves should be as free as the press that uses ink and paper, period," he said.
He asserted that lawmakers who say the doctrine is in the public interest are "politicians trying to control part of the press. To say the airwaves belong to the people — all these reasons they use to regulate are excuses. They're not reasons."
Meanwhile yesterday, the Senate Committee on Science, Commerce and Transportation approved the "Protecting Children From Indecent Programming Act," a bill that reaffirms an FCC policy on so-called "fleeting expletives."
Under the bill — sponsored by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia Democrat — the commission can penalize broadcasters for airing a single indecent word or image. The legislation comes more than a month after a federal court invalidated the policy as an "arbitrary and capricious" departure from previous policy and instructed the agency to either show further justification for it or eliminate it.
Mr. Rockefeller said he plans to introduce legislation to curb violent programming on broadcast, cable and satellite television. The FCC only has authority over broadcast content.
Read more/ see photos
Thursday, July 19, 2007
An Earned Tribute to Laura Miller
By Faith Chatham - July 18, 2007
This is being posted here because I believe in balance. I've devoted a lot of space recently to the Trinity Park/Toll Road in Dallas. Laura Miller has been a major player in the Trinity Commons Foundation pushing for the toll road through the park. Laura Miller has ended her tenure as Mayor of Dallas. Some like her. Some detest her. Whatever the assessment, she's never been a fence-sitter. She looks things over and makes up her mind. When she has made up her mind, she moved to make things happen. I personally wish she'd been more flexible on the Trinity Park issue. As it evolved from a park with a road on the levee to a park with a toll road through most of the park, she probably could have "inspired" planners to come up with a better plan. Instead Angela Hunt emerged and Mayor Miller ended her term covered in referumdum dust.
Dust or no dust, she dialed her way to heroine status on another issue. She noted an agenda item that smelled and took time to give Joe Blow citizen who doesn't frequent City Hall and isn't into the political scene a call. Jim Schutze of the Dallas Observer, who has frequently been on Mayor Miller's case, covered the fiasco in several articles in the the DALLAS OBSERVER. He concluded it with "THE GOOD LAURA or How Bill Blaydes locked up the Bastard of the Year Award" in the May 31st issue of the Dallas Observer.
Schutze wrote about Jack Pierce, who took over his father's business, Hollywood Doors, which has operated from the same location since 1938. Schutze describes it as "a series of metal barns on nine acres down in a hollow near Walnut Hill and White Rock Trail, in a little leftover remnant of countryside swallowed up by the city." His neighbors are a small equestrian center and a DART train track and Jackson Branch creek. Schutze says "You could pass this place a thousand times and never know it's there."
A developer tried to buy Jack Pierce's nine acres and he turned down the offer. "Over the last seven decades, his family has developed a good regional trade based in part on having the business right where it is." ... his "company employs 40 people, and it makes a product, which it actually sells to other people."
I'm pulling most of this directly from Jim Schutze's article. I'll leave some of the quotes unattributed. They come from Jim Schutze.
Pierce, part owner with his brother and sister of Hollywood Door, told the city council last week:
Jim Schutze comments:
Schutze said he wasn't at the meeting but listened to a tape the next day in the City Secretary's office which left him speechless. That in itself would probably be enough reason to bring this issue to the forefront. Schutze is rarely speechless. He was referring to Ed Oakley's speech. Schutze described it:
According to Schutze, Pierce had not intended to attend the meeting. He's been advised by an "well-known high-dollar zoning lawyer" that it was futile to fight it; "they would not be able to prevaile against Blaydes."
Then Laura Miller enters the scene:
Schutze wrote:
Schutze continued:
He said: "I ran into the mayor in the city secretary's office. Our relations have been strained of late. But you know, two veterans of the newspaper business can still talk about a good story."
It's worth posting this here because it is about a journalist turned politician following the hunch and making a positive difference.
Since I'm only recanting what Jim Schutze wrote in his column, I'll conclude with his summary of Laura Miller:
Hollywood Door won. They should have won. They shouldn't have even been pursued by the overreaching arm of agressive city council people and their developer friends. But they were. It's important that they won because this story is a little bit about all of us. It's another verse of the same eminent domaine for public development/private gain saga with a familar twist. Greedy "visionary" covents neighbors property and entices elected officials to utilize the law against the rightful owner. Others in the community get wind of the shady dealings and urge the citizen to stand up and fight. Other officials react as they should .. and vote down the agressors.
In conclusion I'll end this with a cheer for Laura Miller. This one is to you for this and other times you smelled a rat and made a phone call. May you continue using your nose and staying on the right side of issues in the future. You've just ended your tenure as mayor. You haven't gone away. You'll continue finding things that are "off kilter" and finding ways to change them. You did before you were Mayor of Dallas so you'll probably find ways to nudge things the way you think they should go as "citizen, Laura Miller."
Laura Miller, this one is "to you!"
This is being posted here because I believe in balance. I've devoted a lot of space recently to the Trinity Park/Toll Road in Dallas. Laura Miller has been a major player in the Trinity Commons Foundation pushing for the toll road through the park. Laura Miller has ended her tenure as Mayor of Dallas. Some like her. Some detest her. Whatever the assessment, she's never been a fence-sitter. She looks things over and makes up her mind. When she has made up her mind, she moved to make things happen. I personally wish she'd been more flexible on the Trinity Park issue. As it evolved from a park with a road on the levee to a park with a toll road through most of the park, she probably could have "inspired" planners to come up with a better plan. Instead Angela Hunt emerged and Mayor Miller ended her term covered in referumdum dust.
Dust or no dust, she dialed her way to heroine status on another issue. She noted an agenda item that smelled and took time to give Joe Blow citizen who doesn't frequent City Hall and isn't into the political scene a call. Jim Schutze of the Dallas Observer, who has frequently been on Mayor Miller's case, covered the fiasco in several articles in the the DALLAS OBSERVER. He concluded it with "THE GOOD LAURA or How Bill Blaydes locked up the Bastard of the Year Award" in the May 31st issue of the Dallas Observer.
Schutze wrote about Jack Pierce, who took over his father's business, Hollywood Doors, which has operated from the same location since 1938. Schutze describes it as "a series of metal barns on nine acres down in a hollow near Walnut Hill and White Rock Trail, in a little leftover remnant of countryside swallowed up by the city." His neighbors are a small equestrian center and a DART train track and Jackson Branch creek. Schutze says "You could pass this place a thousand times and never know it's there."
A developer tried to buy Jack Pierce's nine acres and he turned down the offer. "Over the last seven decades, his family has developed a good regional trade based in part on having the business right where it is." ... his "company employs 40 people, and it makes a product, which it actually sells to other people."
I'm pulling most of this directly from Jim Schutze's article. I'll leave some of the quotes unattributed. They come from Jim Schutze.
Then he gets a letter. An official letter. A City Hall letter. It appears that Bill Blaydes, the council person for that area, wants to call a hearing to see whether the city should yank the man's zoning out from under him, which would force him to sell.
Pierce, part owner with his brother and sister of Hollywood Door, told the city council last week:
"The first time I became aware of this item was when I received notice in the mail.
"I called for additional information and was told that Councilman Blaydes had placed this item on the agenda. So I spoke to Mr. Blaydes.
"I was informed that it was time for our company to move out. I was informed that since I had previously rejected discussing the sale of our property, they decided they might get my attention by putting this item on the agenda.
"I was informed that the process which starts today will end up removing us from our property. This was the first time I ever spoke to Mr. Blaydes."
Jim Schutze comments:
Stunning, what? But get this. Blaydes doesn't even deny it. With Pierce standing down there at the microphone, quaking in his boots like Charlie Chaplin in front of Big Brother, Blaydes gives this speech that is Gomer-Pyle-meets-Tony-Soprano:
...
I mean, are you still with me here? The guy's been on the property since the 1950s. His business is almost invisible from the road, emits no smoke or noise, generates very light traffic. But Commissar Blaydes comes along with his letter and pretty much tells him to get the hell off his own property.
And even worse in my book: While Pierce is standing there at the microphone looking up at the mighty councilpersons with his life and his family's business in his hand, Councilman Ed Oakley, one of two candidates for mayor in the June 16 runoff election, launches into this big, sleazy package of lies aimed at pushing him into giving up.
Talking in his trademark incomprehensible used-car-salesman-on-crank cadence, Oakley says to Pierce: "Let me just ask you hypothetically if you were to go through this process and the process and the staff would allow you to have your area that allowed the use that you have there today which is a manufacturing facility and in addition to that it was created into a p.d. or sub-district that allowed for the other uses such as mixed-use or whatever the neighborhood would determine but you were allowed to be legal and conforming but along with that some of the obnoxious uses that maybe the neighborhood would be fearful of such as a recycling plant or something would be left out of that and would allow you to continue the family business in perpetuity which would be legal which would be a given zoning which would allow you to use that specific use but then the additional uses would allow for residential or mixed-use development or office or retail which aren't allowed there today which actually gives you more land-use rights than what you would have today giving up some of the things that would be obnoxious would you be amenable to sitting down having that conversation?"
Pierce gave the perfect answer. He said, "Sir, I am out of my depth here today."
That would be, ah, no. Just like when the guys offered to buy his land. No. Two little letters.
Schutze said he wasn't at the meeting but listened to a tape the next day in the City Secretary's office which left him speechless. That in itself would probably be enough reason to bring this issue to the forefront. Schutze is rarely speechless. He was referring to Ed Oakley's speech. Schutze described it:
Not one word Oakley said to that man was even distantly related to the truth. Pierce would have been a pathetic fool to give up the zoning designation he already holds and jump into the political carjacking that Oakley was proposing.
I think even the Harvard Business School would have advised Pierce, given Oakley's proposal, to wave his shotgun over his head and scream, "GIT OFFA MAH LAND!"
According to Schutze, Pierce had not intended to attend the meeting. He's been advised by an "well-known high-dollar zoning lawyer" that it was futile to fight it; "they would not be able to prevaile against Blaydes."
Then Laura Miller enters the scene:
"Out of the blue, on my cell phone I get, 'Hi, this is Laura Miller.'
"And I said, 'WHO?' Because I tell you, I'm not political.
"And she gave me 30, 45 minutes. I explained my legal advice. She said, 'Well, Mr. Pierce, you must throw that attorney away.' She said, 'You come down.' She encouraged me to come down. She helped me with advice. 'Wear your working clothes. Just tell us what you just told me.'
"And it was really her encouragement that made me come down. She said, 'Don't worry, you come down.' And I had faith, so I did what she said."
Schutze wrote:
I could tell even on tape that the effect of his appearance was riveting on both the council and the audience, who were there for other issues and knew nothing about his case.
Council member Angela Hunt said, "I, for one, am extremely troubled that we are moving to authorize a hearing to rezone property out from under the property owner.
"This is remarkable to me. One piece of property. That to me seems extremely overreaching."
In his typically very decorous way, council member Mitchell Rasansky took out his razor-edged saber and whacked both Blaydes and Oakley into sushi.
"Let's don't play in fairy-land talk here," he said. "We know how this works." He told Pierce that if he gave up his zoning and threw himself into "the process" at City Hall, as Oakley suggested, he would be dead meat.
Schutze continued:
But the real hero of the day? Hey, no question. It was Miller. She was everything the city voted for her to be as mayor.
He said: "I ran into the mayor in the city secretary's office. Our relations have been strained of late. But you know, two veterans of the newspaper business can still talk about a good story."
It's worth posting this here because it is about a journalist turned politician following the hunch and making a positive difference.
Since I'm only recanting what Jim Schutze wrote in his column, I'll conclude with his summary of Laura Miller:
She saw that little item way down on the agenda, that odd blurry snippet of bureaucratic lingo. Her years as a reporter came back; her nose twitched; she smelled smoke. She picked up the phone and called that guy, way the hell out on Walnut Hill at White Rock Trail, way down in that hollow by Jackson Branch where nobody even noticed him. That guy who wasn't political. That guy who couldn't even get the slick City Hall lawyers to take his money. That guy who had been told not to even show up at City Hall.
She said, "Come on down." He had faith.
And he won. Ten to three.
Hollywood Door won. They should have won. They shouldn't have even been pursued by the overreaching arm of agressive city council people and their developer friends. But they were. It's important that they won because this story is a little bit about all of us. It's another verse of the same eminent domaine for public development/private gain saga with a familar twist. Greedy "visionary" covents neighbors property and entices elected officials to utilize the law against the rightful owner. Others in the community get wind of the shady dealings and urge the citizen to stand up and fight. Other officials react as they should .. and vote down the agressors.
Members Blaydes, Steve Salazar and Ron Natinsky voted to screw him. Oakley switched over when he saw how the wind was blowing and voted against Blaydes. Then Oakley left the dais, went down into the audience and spoke with Pierce. Pierce told me Oakley told him he really probably shouldn't give up his zoning after all.
On the tape when the votes were counted and Pierce won, the chamber erupted in applause. Sitting in his office amid jumbled files and door parts a day later, I asked him who had cheered.
He looked up from his desk and shook his head in amazement. "All those people," he said. "Everybody. All those people who came down there for other things. They knew nothing about my case. They all cheered."
In conclusion I'll end this with a cheer for Laura Miller. This one is to you for this and other times you smelled a rat and made a phone call. May you continue using your nose and staying on the right side of issues in the future. You've just ended your tenure as mayor. You haven't gone away. You'll continue finding things that are "off kilter" and finding ways to change them. You did before you were Mayor of Dallas so you'll probably find ways to nudge things the way you think they should go as "citizen, Laura Miller."
Laura Miller, this one is "to you!"
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
TXU Buyout - Questions raised over disclosure
By R.A. DYER - Star-Telegram Staff Writer - Tue, Jul. 17, 2007
AUSTIN -- TXU and the investors purchasing it have moved to block regulatory review of their much-touted commitments to cut rates and coal-plant construction, consumer advocates say.
TXU, together with the private-equity firm buyers Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and TPG, formerly Texas Pacific Group, promised to cut rates 15 percent and forgo building eight of 11 proposed coal-fired plants when the transaction closes.
But AARP policy analyst Tim Morstad said that many questions remain about those promises and that company lawyers are arguing against further disclosures during a proceeding at the Texas Public Utility Commission.
"KKR/TPG took the air out of strong legislation involving the buyout by promising to put all its commitments into writing [and] make them legally binding -- [but] they have failed to do what they promised," said Morstad, referring to company commitments during this year's legislative session.
TXU spokeswoman Lisa Singleton said that the companies will follow through with the commitments but that many of the questions raised by consumer groups fall outside the purview of an ongoing regulatory proceeding at the PUC.
The companies' commitments "are detailed out in the PUC filing; they're detailed out in the testimony that was given and the other commitments that have been made publicly several times," Singleton said.
Politics
TXU and KKR promised to cut rates and suspend plans to build the coal plants just as lawmakers were considering bills that could have further restricted the $47 billion transaction. The bills failed, in large part, because of those promises and heavy lobbying by the companies, Morstad and others said.
Company attorneys and those representing customer groups have been involved since April in a proceeding at the PUC in which the agency is reviewing the buyout. If the commission finds the buyout is not in the public interest, it can order changes and, in theory, block part of the transaction.
Jim Boyle, an attorney representing several municipalities before the PUC, says a provision of House Bill 624, which was adopted during the legislative session's final minutes, lets the PUC hold TXU and KKR to its promises.
"But we don't know what the commitments are without knowing the details," Boyle said. "We don't know the details of the commitment to the power plants, whether it's for one year or one month or two years and what the exceptions are."He also noted that Don Evans, future nonexecutive chairman of the new TXU, wrote in a recent op-ed piece that the PUC should hold the company to its commitments.
"Any argument ... against having the commission review the price cut commitment or the coal unit reduction commitment have been totally undermined by the admissions made by Mr. Donald Evans," Boyle wrote in a filing at the PUC on behalf of various municipalities.
Looking ahead
But TXU's Singleton said the promised rate cuts and the proposed coal-plant cancellations fall outside its regulated transmission business, which is the only part of the business for which the PUC has authority in the ongoing proceeding.
But she said the company will still keep its promises.
AUSTIN -- TXU and the investors purchasing it have moved to block regulatory review of their much-touted commitments to cut rates and coal-plant construction, consumer advocates say.
TXU, together with the private-equity firm buyers Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and TPG, formerly Texas Pacific Group, promised to cut rates 15 percent and forgo building eight of 11 proposed coal-fired plants when the transaction closes.
But AARP policy analyst Tim Morstad said that many questions remain about those promises and that company lawyers are arguing against further disclosures during a proceeding at the Texas Public Utility Commission.
"KKR/TPG took the air out of strong legislation involving the buyout by promising to put all its commitments into writing [and] make them legally binding -- [but] they have failed to do what they promised," said Morstad, referring to company commitments during this year's legislative session.
TXU spokeswoman Lisa Singleton said that the companies will follow through with the commitments but that many of the questions raised by consumer groups fall outside the purview of an ongoing regulatory proceeding at the PUC.
The companies' commitments "are detailed out in the PUC filing; they're detailed out in the testimony that was given and the other commitments that have been made publicly several times," Singleton said.
Politics
TXU and KKR promised to cut rates and suspend plans to build the coal plants just as lawmakers were considering bills that could have further restricted the $47 billion transaction. The bills failed, in large part, because of those promises and heavy lobbying by the companies, Morstad and others said.
Company attorneys and those representing customer groups have been involved since April in a proceeding at the PUC in which the agency is reviewing the buyout. If the commission finds the buyout is not in the public interest, it can order changes and, in theory, block part of the transaction.
Jim Boyle, an attorney representing several municipalities before the PUC, says a provision of House Bill 624, which was adopted during the legislative session's final minutes, lets the PUC hold TXU and KKR to its promises.
"But we don't know what the commitments are without knowing the details," Boyle said. "We don't know the details of the commitment to the power plants, whether it's for one year or one month or two years and what the exceptions are."He also noted that Don Evans, future nonexecutive chairman of the new TXU, wrote in a recent op-ed piece that the PUC should hold the company to its commitments.
"Any argument ... against having the commission review the price cut commitment or the coal unit reduction commitment have been totally undermined by the admissions made by Mr. Donald Evans," Boyle wrote in a filing at the PUC on behalf of various municipalities.
Looking ahead
But TXU's Singleton said the promised rate cuts and the proposed coal-plant cancellations fall outside its regulated transmission business, which is the only part of the business for which the PUC has authority in the ongoing proceeding.
But she said the company will still keep its promises.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Farmers upset over Perry veto of eminent domain bill
By BETSY BLANEY - Associated Press - Tuesday, July 3, 2007
LUBBOCK - One Central Texas farmer said he was "dumbfounded" by Gov. Rick Perry's veto of an eminent domain bill designed to protect landowners when the state wants to take their property.
Robert Fleming is not alone in an area worried about the massive Trans Texas Corridor proposal. The planned route cuts through Fleming's Bell County farms. He's bewildered by Perry's veto.
"We were so close to getting something done," Fleming said. "We've worked hard trying to get private property rights."
Perry vetoed the bill, and 48 others, June 15.
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kelo et al v. City of New London that cities can seize homes under eminent domain for use by private developers. Texas Farm Bureau spokesman Gene Hall said the ruling also said that states that want it otherwise can craft laws to do so. That's what the bill Perry vetoed would have done, he said.
Perry in 2005 named the eminent domain issue as an emergency item in a special session, Perry spokesman Robert Black said.
"The bill Governor Perry vetoed would have had little impact on rural Texas. It was targeted at high-growth urban areas," Black said.
The Trans Texas Corridor is the plan kick-started several years ago by Perry to build 4,000-plus miles of tollways and railways that would incorporate oil and gas pipelines, utility and water lines and broadband data lines.
One reason Perry gave for vetoing the bill was that it would have expanded damages a landowner could recover to include diminished access to roads from remaining property when a portion of the property is condemned, according to a release from Perry's office.
Also, landowners would have been able to collect damages for factors that include changes in traffic patterns and a property's visibility from the road, which Texas courts have knocked down because of the added costs to public projects that taxpayers would have to pay, the release states.
After the bill passed both houses - 125 of 150 votes in the House and unanimously in the Senate - Perry's office heard from most fast-growing cities and counties asking him to veto the bill; the cost of constructing state and local projects would have increased by more than $1 billion, the release stated.
"As someone who grew up in rural Texas, and farmed our family's piece of land, I am a strong proponent of protecting private property rights," Perry said in the statement. "But the issue is one of fairness to taxpayers, who will get fleeced in order to benefit condemnation attorneys."
Perry supported the bill early on but had objections to amendments added later, the release states.
The eminent domain issue for portions of the corridor proposal currently is on a back burner, Texas Farm Bureau officials said.
"The more time we have to spread our story and to make an issue out of [eminent domain] is certainly going to help the property owners," said Fleming, who grows corn and wheat and raises cattle.
Bureau officials said they believed Perry wanted to fix Texas' eminent domain law, having met with him early in the session.
"The taking of private property has become far too easy in this state," Kenneth Dierschke, president of the bureau, said in a statement. "Obviously, there are many powerful interests that prefer it stay that way."
Fleming took aim at Perry, saying he has turned his back on agriculture and his veto makes that clear.
"I feel like he's let us down a little bit," Fleming said. "He's got big ag background but since he's become a politician, he's kind of left ag out."
Bureau spokesman Gene Hall said the group will work to revisit the issue when legislators next gather in regular session in 2009. And they will talk with Perry.
"All we can do now is talk with him and work with him," Hall said. "We are serious about this."
Read more in Land and Livestock
LUBBOCK - One Central Texas farmer said he was "dumbfounded" by Gov. Rick Perry's veto of an eminent domain bill designed to protect landowners when the state wants to take their property.
Robert Fleming is not alone in an area worried about the massive Trans Texas Corridor proposal. The planned route cuts through Fleming's Bell County farms. He's bewildered by Perry's veto.
"We were so close to getting something done," Fleming said. "We've worked hard trying to get private property rights."
Perry vetoed the bill, and 48 others, June 15.
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kelo et al v. City of New London that cities can seize homes under eminent domain for use by private developers. Texas Farm Bureau spokesman Gene Hall said the ruling also said that states that want it otherwise can craft laws to do so. That's what the bill Perry vetoed would have done, he said.
Perry in 2005 named the eminent domain issue as an emergency item in a special session, Perry spokesman Robert Black said.
"The bill Governor Perry vetoed would have had little impact on rural Texas. It was targeted at high-growth urban areas," Black said.
The Trans Texas Corridor is the plan kick-started several years ago by Perry to build 4,000-plus miles of tollways and railways that would incorporate oil and gas pipelines, utility and water lines and broadband data lines.
One reason Perry gave for vetoing the bill was that it would have expanded damages a landowner could recover to include diminished access to roads from remaining property when a portion of the property is condemned, according to a release from Perry's office.
Also, landowners would have been able to collect damages for factors that include changes in traffic patterns and a property's visibility from the road, which Texas courts have knocked down because of the added costs to public projects that taxpayers would have to pay, the release states.
After the bill passed both houses - 125 of 150 votes in the House and unanimously in the Senate - Perry's office heard from most fast-growing cities and counties asking him to veto the bill; the cost of constructing state and local projects would have increased by more than $1 billion, the release stated.
"As someone who grew up in rural Texas, and farmed our family's piece of land, I am a strong proponent of protecting private property rights," Perry said in the statement. "But the issue is one of fairness to taxpayers, who will get fleeced in order to benefit condemnation attorneys."
Perry supported the bill early on but had objections to amendments added later, the release states.
The eminent domain issue for portions of the corridor proposal currently is on a back burner, Texas Farm Bureau officials said.
"The more time we have to spread our story and to make an issue out of [eminent domain] is certainly going to help the property owners," said Fleming, who grows corn and wheat and raises cattle.
Bureau officials said they believed Perry wanted to fix Texas' eminent domain law, having met with him early in the session.
"The taking of private property has become far too easy in this state," Kenneth Dierschke, president of the bureau, said in a statement. "Obviously, there are many powerful interests that prefer it stay that way."
Fleming took aim at Perry, saying he has turned his back on agriculture and his veto makes that clear.
"I feel like he's let us down a little bit," Fleming said. "He's got big ag background but since he's become a politician, he's kind of left ag out."
Bureau spokesman Gene Hall said the group will work to revisit the issue when legislators next gather in regular session in 2009. And they will talk with Perry.
"All we can do now is talk with him and work with him," Hall said. "We are serious about this."
Read more in Land and Livestock
Sunday, July 15, 2007
The White House Has a Manual for Silencing Protesters and Demonstrations
By Matthew Rothschild - The Progressive - July 14, 2007
After a myriad of stories about people being excluded from events where the President is speaking, now we know that the White House had a policy manual on just how to do so.
So the truth comes out.
After a myriad of stories about people being excluded from events where the President is speaking, now we know that the White House had a policy manual on just how to do so.
Called the "Presidential Advance Manual," this 103-page document from the Office of Presidential Advance lays out the parameters for how to handle protesters at events.
"Always be prepared for demonstrators," says the document, which is dated October 2002 and which the ACLU released as part of a new lawsuit.
In a section entitled "Preventing Demonstrators," the document says: "All Presidential events must be ticketed or accessed by a name list. This is the best method for preventing demonstrators. People who are obviously going to try to disrupt the event can be denied entrance at least to the VIP area between the stage and the main camera platform. ... It is important to have your volunteers at a checkpoint before the Magnetometers in order to stop a demonstrator from getting into the event. Look for signs they may be carrying, and if need be, have volunteers check for folded cloth signs that demonstrators may be bringing."
In another section, entitled "Preparing for Demonstrators," the document makes clear that the intention is to deprive protesters of the right to be seen or heard by the President: "As always, work with the Secret Service and have them ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route."
The document also recommends drowning out protesters or blocking their signs by using what it calls "rally squads." It states: "These squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators. The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (USA!, USA!, USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site."
The document offered advice on how to recruit members for such squads: "The rally squads can include, but are not limited to, college/young republican organizations, local athletic teams, and fraternities/sororities."
The document does contain a warning in bold, however: "Remember -- avoid physical contact with demonstrators." It also advises to make sure that whatever action is taken to drown out the demonstrators does not "cause more negative publicity than if the demonstrators were simply left alone."
See more
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive
After a myriad of stories about people being excluded from events where the President is speaking, now we know that the White House had a policy manual on just how to do so.
So the truth comes out.
After a myriad of stories about people being excluded from events where the President is speaking, now we know that the White House had a policy manual on just how to do so.
Called the "Presidential Advance Manual," this 103-page document from the Office of Presidential Advance lays out the parameters for how to handle protesters at events.
"Always be prepared for demonstrators," says the document, which is dated October 2002 and which the ACLU released as part of a new lawsuit.
In a section entitled "Preventing Demonstrators," the document says: "All Presidential events must be ticketed or accessed by a name list. This is the best method for preventing demonstrators. People who are obviously going to try to disrupt the event can be denied entrance at least to the VIP area between the stage and the main camera platform. ... It is important to have your volunteers at a checkpoint before the Magnetometers in order to stop a demonstrator from getting into the event. Look for signs they may be carrying, and if need be, have volunteers check for folded cloth signs that demonstrators may be bringing."
In another section, entitled "Preparing for Demonstrators," the document makes clear that the intention is to deprive protesters of the right to be seen or heard by the President: "As always, work with the Secret Service and have them ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route."
The document also recommends drowning out protesters or blocking their signs by using what it calls "rally squads." It states: "These squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators. The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (USA!, USA!, USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site."
The document offered advice on how to recruit members for such squads: "The rally squads can include, but are not limited to, college/young republican organizations, local athletic teams, and fraternities/sororities."
The document does contain a warning in bold, however: "Remember -- avoid physical contact with demonstrators." It also advises to make sure that whatever action is taken to drown out the demonstrators does not "cause more negative publicity than if the demonstrators were simply left alone."
See more
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Canadians challenge bulk water exports to US
Council of Canadiana - April 16, 2007
Council of Canadians challenges Environment Minister on bulk water exports
Environment Minister John Baird’s response to a leaked document that reveals bulk water exports will be discussed at a trinational meeting in Calgary is full of holes according to the Council of Canadians.
The citizens’ advocacy group obtained the document produced by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a prominent Washington-based think tank last week. It revealed that government officials and business leaders from Canada, Mexico and the United States plan to discuss bulk water exports in a closed-door meeting in Calgary on April 27, as part of a larger discussion on North American integration.
“Minister Baird’s claims that current legislation prohibits bulk water exports are inaccurate,” says Maude Barlow, National chairperson of the Council of Canadians. “The provincial accords he mentions are voluntary and can be broken at any time. The so-called prohibition on bulk water exports contained in the 1909 International Boundary Waters Treaty Act (IBWTA) only applies to waters that are shared with the U.S. and does not apply to what the U.S. is really after – water from Canada’s North.”
Last October the Global Water and Energy Strategy Team, another Washington-based group, put forward a proposal to export water from northern Manitoba to Texas through a pipeline. According to Barlow, nothing in Canada’s existing legislation would prevent this type of scheme from being implemented.
The Council of Canadians is also concerned that restrictions on shared waters outlined by the IBWTA are weak and have been ignored in the past, allowing for water diversions from the Great Lakes.
“Baird makes no mention of the April 27 meeting to which government officials from all three NAFTA countries have been invited,” says Barlow. “Is he prepared to state unequivocally that our government will not take part in these talks?”
The Council of Canadians will hold an "open-door" meeting in Calgary on April 25. The public meeting will give groups and concerned citizens a chance to discuss North American integration and the looming threats it poses to Canada’s water.
Read more
For more information, please contact:
Meera Karunananthan Media Officer: Tel.: (613) 233-4487, ext. 234; Cell: (613) 795-8685; meera@canadians.org
Resources:
Leaked document: North American Future 2025 Project (PDF format)
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Backgrounder: The North American Future 2025 Project (PDF format)
The Council of Canadians’ analysis
The Council of Canadians’ water campaign
Read more about Deep Integration
Council of Canadians challenges Environment Minister on bulk water exports
Environment Minister John Baird’s response to a leaked document that reveals bulk water exports will be discussed at a trinational meeting in Calgary is full of holes according to the Council of Canadians.
The citizens’ advocacy group obtained the document produced by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a prominent Washington-based think tank last week. It revealed that government officials and business leaders from Canada, Mexico and the United States plan to discuss bulk water exports in a closed-door meeting in Calgary on April 27, as part of a larger discussion on North American integration.
“Minister Baird’s claims that current legislation prohibits bulk water exports are inaccurate,” says Maude Barlow, National chairperson of the Council of Canadians. “The provincial accords he mentions are voluntary and can be broken at any time. The so-called prohibition on bulk water exports contained in the 1909 International Boundary Waters Treaty Act (IBWTA) only applies to waters that are shared with the U.S. and does not apply to what the U.S. is really after – water from Canada’s North.”
Last October the Global Water and Energy Strategy Team, another Washington-based group, put forward a proposal to export water from northern Manitoba to Texas through a pipeline. According to Barlow, nothing in Canada’s existing legislation would prevent this type of scheme from being implemented.
The Council of Canadians is also concerned that restrictions on shared waters outlined by the IBWTA are weak and have been ignored in the past, allowing for water diversions from the Great Lakes.
“Baird makes no mention of the April 27 meeting to which government officials from all three NAFTA countries have been invited,” says Barlow. “Is he prepared to state unequivocally that our government will not take part in these talks?”
The Council of Canadians will hold an "open-door" meeting in Calgary on April 25. The public meeting will give groups and concerned citizens a chance to discuss North American integration and the looming threats it poses to Canada’s water.
Read more
For more information, please contact:
Meera Karunananthan Media Officer: Tel.: (613) 233-4487, ext. 234; Cell: (613) 795-8685; meera@canadians.org
Resources:
Leaked document: North American Future 2025 Project (PDF format)
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Backgrounder: The North American Future 2025 Project (PDF format)
The Council of Canadians’ analysis
The Council of Canadians’ water campaign
Read more about Deep Integration
Integration time line published by Council of the Canadians
DEEP INTEGRATION: A TIMELINE
Canadians.org
September 11, 2001
The Canada-U.S. border closes temporarily after terrorists attack the World Trade Center buildings in New York City.
September 25, 2001
Citing 9/11, Thomas d’Aquino, president of the Business Council on National Issues (now the Canadian Council of Chief Executives), says that Canada “should engage in more fundamental harmonization and integration” with the U.S. if we are going to keep the border open to trade.
November 26, 2001
Thomas d’Aquino and other unnamed “leaders” send a letter to Jean Chrétien and George W. Bush calling for a “smart border” between Canada and the U.S. that would “use technology to enhance both security and the flow of goods and people across the border.”
December 12, 2001
Without legislative or public debate, Deputy Prime Minister John Manley and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge sign the Smart Border Declaration, a 30-point plan to harmonize security and anti-terrorism regulations in the two countries, including the creation of a common no-fly list and passenger surveillance system.
April 2002
The C.D. Howe Institute releases a report by University of Toronto professor Wendy Dobson calling for “deeper integration” with the United States, including a North American customs union, a common market, a resource sharing pact and full
participation in the U.S. “war on terror.”
June 28, 2002
John Manley and Tom Ridge announce progress on the Smart Border Declaration, including “stepped up intelligence cooperation” and “a common approach to screen international air passengers before they arrive in either country and
identify those who warrant additional security scrutiny.”
September 26, 2002
Canadian citizen Maher Arar is detained at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and held for 12 days, then deported to Syria where he is imprisoned and tortured for a year. In 2006, a Canadian government commission into the affair blames the hasty sharing of faulty information between Canadian and U.S. security agencies.
January 2003
The CCCE launches the “North American Security and Prosperity Initiative,” calling on the governments of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. to further integrate their three economies through a “new deal.” The deal would include a “comprehensive resource security pact” covering agriculture, metal, minerals and energy; “sharing the burden of defence and security”; and “creating a new institutional framework” for North American integration.
April 3, 2003
The CCCE establishes a 30-member “CEO Action Group on North American Security and Prosperity.” Its members include leaders from Canada’s largest corporations, including EnCana, Dofasco, CAE, General Motors, TransCanada Pipeline, BMO, Alcan and SNC Lavalin. "North American economic integration is well advanced and irreversible and now, in the face of global terrorism, the economic and physical security of the continent are indivisible," said Tom d'Aquino. "Canada and the United States should take the lead, in consultation with Mexico, in developing a new paradigm for North American co-operation.”
October 15, 2004
The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations launches a tri-national “Independent Task Force on the Future of North America,” which is vice-chaired by CCCE President Thomas d’Aquino and co-chaired by John Manley. Task Force members include prominent integrationists like Wendy Dobson, Pedro Aspe, Luis de la Calle Pardo and Carla Hills, all of whom will later participate in a secret North American Forum meeting to discuss continental integration in Calgary, Alberta from September 12 to 14, 2006.
February 14, 2005
The Council of Canadians releases leaked minutes from an October 2004 Task Force on the Future of North America meeting that describe bulk water exports as a politically “hot” long term goal of integration that should be broached at
a later date. Also being discussed by the task force are: eliminating current NAFTA exemptions for culture; “crafting a North American ‘resource pact’ that would allow for greater intra-regional trade and investment in certain non-renewable natural resources, such as oil, gas, and fresh water”; and a "North American brand name" to portray North America as a sort of "club of privileged members." There are also plans to encourage a North American identity among students in all three countries.
March 14, 2005
The Independent Task Force on the Future of North America releases its final report, calling for the creation of a North American economic and security community by 2010. Although absent of much of the more controversial “hot” suggestions,
including a water-sharing agreement, among the report’s key recommendations are the establishment of a continental security perimeter, a common external tariff, a common border pass for all North Americans, a North American energy and natural resources strategy, and an annual meeting where North American leaders can discuss steps toward economic and security integration.
March 23, 2005
At a meeting in Waco, Texas, George W. Bush, Paul Martin and Vicente Fox issue a joint statement announcing the creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. The tri-national agreement contains almost all of the recommendations on continental economic and security integration proposed by the Independent Task Force and the CCCE’s Security and Prosperity Initiative before it.
October 2005
The first North American Forum brings together U.S., Canadian and Mexican government and business representatives to discuss issues related to continental economic and social integration; it is held at a secret location in Sonoma, California. Invitees include John Manley, Mexican ambassador to the U.S. Carlos de Icaza, Chevron CEO David O’Reilly, former head of the CIA James Woolsey, and a host of U.S. policy advisors to George W. Bush. There is one article about the forum in the North American media.
January 10-11, 2006
The Council of the Americas, United Postal Service and the North American Business Committee host a “Public-Private Sector Dialogue on the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” in Louisville, Kentucky. The meeting is attended by 50 government officials and business leaders from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, including members of the Canadian Privy Council Office, the Mexican Presidency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and corporate reps from ExxonMobil, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Tyco, and FedEx. Attendees discussed “marrying policy issues with business priorities,” musing that, “leadership from governments that recognizes the importance of business issues to the overall social welfare empowers the private sector to engage substantively and pragmatically on trade and security issues
without undue deference to political sensibilities.” A “North American Competitiveness Council” to drive the SPP process is proposed.
January 23, 2006
The Conservatives take office in Ottawa with a minority government as Prime Minister Stephen Harper promises to make Canada-U.S. relations a top priority despite polling data showing that the issue falls well below health care and the environment for the Canadian public.
March 31, 2006
At the second SPP summit in Cancun, Mexico, President Bush, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and then Mexican President Vicente Fox announce the creation of the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC). This corporate working group is charged with directing the SPP process and includes at least 10 CEOs from each country, including representatives from Lockheed Martin, Wal-Mart, General Motors, Home Depot Canada, Canfor and Suncor.
June 15, 2006
The NACC is officially launched at a joint press conference held by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, Mexican Economy Minister Sergio Garcia de Alba and Canadian Industry Minister Maxime Bernier. According to a report from the Council of the Americas, the purpose of institutionalizing the North American business community's involvement in the SPP process was “so that the work will continue through changes in administrations.” Furthermore, the NACC is to make sure that, “governments look to the private sector to tell them what needs to be done.” According to a Canadian government press release, the NACC “has a mandate to provide governments with recommendations on broad issues such as border facilitation and regulation, as well as the competitiveness of key sectors including automotive,
transportation, manufacturing and services.”
August 15, 2006
The NACC meets in Washington, D.C. to hash out priority issues for the SPP. The business leaders decide that the U.S. members will deal with “regulatory convergence,” the Canadians will handle “border facilitation,” and the Mexican
members will devise a plan for “energy integration.”
September 12-14, 2006
The North American Forum meets for the second time, in Banff, Alberta, this time to discuss “demographic and social dimensions of North American integration,” security cooperation, and a “North American energy strategy.” Once again, the meeting is kept secret, despite the involvement of high-ranking military officials, politicians and top bureaucrats – including Stockwell Day, who refuses to disclose the content of his speech to the media.
November 23, 2006
The Harper government releases a financial outlook document called Advantage Canada: Building a Strong Economy for Canadians. Advantage Canada praises the SPP effort to seek regulatory convergence on border security. It also indicates that the federal government is working with the provinces to speed up and streamline the environmental assessment process, particularly as it affects cross-border infrastructure projects. Furthermore, Advantage Canada emphasizes the importance of huge trade corridors to the economic wellbeing of the country, and looks to the private sector to help with all new infrastructure projects. “For its part, Canada’s New Government intends to establish a federal P3 office that will facilitate a broader use of P3s in Canadian infrastructure projects,” says the document. “The Government will also encourage the development and use of P3 best practices by requiring that P3s be given consideration in larger infrastructure investments that receive federal program funding.” Under the SPP’s transportation agenda is an initiative to “examine the benefits of an intermodal transportation concept for north America,” the goal being to move foreign goods, mostly from Asia, quickly through North America to key markets in the United States.
February 23, 2007
SPP ministers, including Maxime Bernier, David Emerson, Stockwell Day, and their U.S. counterparts Michael Chertoff and Carlos Gutierrez, meet with the NACC to discuss the progress of the integration agenda. The NACC releases a report containing 51 recommendations, including: “Complete negotiations, sign a new North American Regulatory Cooperation Framework in 2007, and ensure consistent application of standards and regulatory requirements within each country.” The corporate body suggests that, “upon signature of the framework, a North American Regulatory
Cooperation and Standards Committee, which includes the private sector, should be formed to survey on a regular basis the variety of standards and regulatory differences by industry that impede trade and seek to reduce the identified
differences or develop other mechanisms to lessen their impact on the competitiveness of North American industry.”
March 19, 2007
The Conservative government releases its 2007 budget – Aspire to a Stronger, Safer, Better Canada – in which it promises to “improve Canada’s regulatory framework” by “moving to finalize a new modern approach to smart regulation,” and by “working with the United States and Mexico through the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America to improve regulatory coordination and cooperation.” At the heart of the government’s strategy is the adoption of a new Cabinet Directive on Streamlining Regulation that will come into effect on April 1, 2007. Budget 2007 provides $9 million over two years to implement this initiative.
March 30-April 1, 2007
Over 1,500 people converge on Ottawa for Integrate This! Challenging the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, a public teach-in on deep integration organized by the Council of Canadians, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Canadian Labour Congress, Common Frontiers and a host of other groups.
April 1, 2007
The Government of Canada’s new Cabinet Directive on Streamlining Regulation comes into effect, requiring that all government departments take into consideration the “cost or savings to government, business, or Canadians and the potential impact on the Canadian economy and its international competitiveness,” as well as the “potential impact on other federal departments or agencies, other governments in Canada, or on Canada's foreign affairs” before moving ahead with new rules on everything from food and drugs to pesticides to the environment and public health. The directive moves regulation in Canada further away from the precautionary principle and more in line with the U.S. focus on risk assessment and voluntary compliance.
April 13, 2007
Leaked documents acquired by the Council of Canadians reveal that bulk water exports from Canada to the United States are in fact being discussed in relation to the SPP. The North American Future 2025 Project, which is led by the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Conference Board of Canada and the Mexican Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, involves a series of “closed-door meetings” on North American integration dealing with a number of highly contentious issues including bulk water exports, a joint security perimeter and a continental resource pact.
April 24, 2007
The Council of Canadians holds an “open-door” meeting in Calgary to discuss the threat of bulk water exports posed by North American integration and the SPP in light of closed-door meetings of government officials and business reps to discuss continental water management happening that same week.
April 27, 2007
North American transport ministers, including Conservative MP Lawrence Cannon, meet in Arizona for an SPP meeting, "in order to confirm and advance our commitment to developing coordinated, compatible and interconnected national transportation systems." Developing an "intermodal transportation concept for North America" is an SPP initiative. A key milestones under that initiative commits transport ministers to, "work toward establishing an intermodal corridor work plan and a Memorandum of Cooperation pilot project." The Arizona meeting, which the ministers describe as the
first in a series, appears to be the beginning of this pilot project.
May 1, 2007
Council of Canadians National Chairperson Maude Barlow addresses the Commons Standing Committee on International Trade regarding the SPP, energy and bulk water exports.
May 7, 2007
CanWest News Service reports that Canada is set to raise its limits on pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables as “part of an effort to harmonize Canadian pesticide rules with those of the United States, which allows higher residue
levels for 40 per cent of the pesticides it regulates.” According to the article, which appeared in papers across the country, “the effort is being fast-tracked as an initiative under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a wideranging
plan to streamline regulatory and security protocols across North America.” The article proves that regulatory harmonization as spelled out in NAFTA and the SPP puts downward pressure on regulations and that higher standards are rarely if ever mutually adopted between harmonizing parties.
May 10, 2007
Conservative MPs storm out of parliamentary hearings into the SPP after the Tory chair of the Commons Standing Committee on International Trade interrupts a presentation from Council of Canadians board member Gordon Laxer linking the SPP to tar sands production. Committee chair Leon Benoit can’t see the link between the SPP and energy security for Canada, despite “energy integration” being a key priority of the SPP and of the NACC. The meeting continues after all but one Conservative MP leaves the room.
June 18, 2007
Transport Canada’s “no-fly” list, called Passenger Protect, comes into effect. Airlines begin checking passenger names against a list of people deemed so dangerous to the flight that they should not be allowed to board. Passengers who appear on the list may appeal mistakes to an “office of reconsideration.” Security experts agree that Canada’s list will inevitably merge with the much larger U.S. “no-fly” list – a key priority of the SPP’s security agenda. Canada’s airlines have already been using the U.S. list, which contains almost 500,000 names, and news reports from late May 2007 indicate they will continue to rely on it rather than Passenger Protect.
August 20-21, 2007
Stephen Harper, George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón to meet in Montebello, Quebec for the planned third summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The Council of Canadians and other groups to plan major mobilization against the SPP to coincide with the event.
September 2007
Possible third meeting of the highly secretive North American Forum. Leaked ocuments outlining the forum’s 2006 media strategy show a concerted effort to avoid media and public scrutiny, despite the fact that these discussions on North American integration involve high ranking public servants accountable to the citizens of Canada, Mexico and the United States.
For more information visit Canadians.org or call 1-800-387-7177.
The Council of Canadiana - Le Conseil Des Canadiens
Canadians.org
September 11, 2001
The Canada-U.S. border closes temporarily after terrorists attack the World Trade Center buildings in New York City.
September 25, 2001
Citing 9/11, Thomas d’Aquino, president of the Business Council on National Issues (now the Canadian Council of Chief Executives), says that Canada “should engage in more fundamental harmonization and integration” with the U.S. if we are going to keep the border open to trade.
November 26, 2001
Thomas d’Aquino and other unnamed “leaders” send a letter to Jean Chrétien and George W. Bush calling for a “smart border” between Canada and the U.S. that would “use technology to enhance both security and the flow of goods and people across the border.”
December 12, 2001
Without legislative or public debate, Deputy Prime Minister John Manley and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge sign the Smart Border Declaration, a 30-point plan to harmonize security and anti-terrorism regulations in the two countries, including the creation of a common no-fly list and passenger surveillance system.
April 2002
The C.D. Howe Institute releases a report by University of Toronto professor Wendy Dobson calling for “deeper integration” with the United States, including a North American customs union, a common market, a resource sharing pact and full
participation in the U.S. “war on terror.”
June 28, 2002
John Manley and Tom Ridge announce progress on the Smart Border Declaration, including “stepped up intelligence cooperation” and “a common approach to screen international air passengers before they arrive in either country and
identify those who warrant additional security scrutiny.”
September 26, 2002
Canadian citizen Maher Arar is detained at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and held for 12 days, then deported to Syria where he is imprisoned and tortured for a year. In 2006, a Canadian government commission into the affair blames the hasty sharing of faulty information between Canadian and U.S. security agencies.
January 2003
The CCCE launches the “North American Security and Prosperity Initiative,” calling on the governments of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. to further integrate their three economies through a “new deal.” The deal would include a “comprehensive resource security pact” covering agriculture, metal, minerals and energy; “sharing the burden of defence and security”; and “creating a new institutional framework” for North American integration.
April 3, 2003
The CCCE establishes a 30-member “CEO Action Group on North American Security and Prosperity.” Its members include leaders from Canada’s largest corporations, including EnCana, Dofasco, CAE, General Motors, TransCanada Pipeline, BMO, Alcan and SNC Lavalin. "North American economic integration is well advanced and irreversible and now, in the face of global terrorism, the economic and physical security of the continent are indivisible," said Tom d'Aquino. "Canada and the United States should take the lead, in consultation with Mexico, in developing a new paradigm for North American co-operation.”
October 15, 2004
The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations launches a tri-national “Independent Task Force on the Future of North America,” which is vice-chaired by CCCE President Thomas d’Aquino and co-chaired by John Manley. Task Force members include prominent integrationists like Wendy Dobson, Pedro Aspe, Luis de la Calle Pardo and Carla Hills, all of whom will later participate in a secret North American Forum meeting to discuss continental integration in Calgary, Alberta from September 12 to 14, 2006.
February 14, 2005
The Council of Canadians releases leaked minutes from an October 2004 Task Force on the Future of North America meeting that describe bulk water exports as a politically “hot” long term goal of integration that should be broached at
a later date. Also being discussed by the task force are: eliminating current NAFTA exemptions for culture; “crafting a North American ‘resource pact’ that would allow for greater intra-regional trade and investment in certain non-renewable natural resources, such as oil, gas, and fresh water”; and a "North American brand name" to portray North America as a sort of "club of privileged members." There are also plans to encourage a North American identity among students in all three countries.
March 14, 2005
The Independent Task Force on the Future of North America releases its final report, calling for the creation of a North American economic and security community by 2010. Although absent of much of the more controversial “hot” suggestions,
including a water-sharing agreement, among the report’s key recommendations are the establishment of a continental security perimeter, a common external tariff, a common border pass for all North Americans, a North American energy and natural resources strategy, and an annual meeting where North American leaders can discuss steps toward economic and security integration.
March 23, 2005
At a meeting in Waco, Texas, George W. Bush, Paul Martin and Vicente Fox issue a joint statement announcing the creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. The tri-national agreement contains almost all of the recommendations on continental economic and security integration proposed by the Independent Task Force and the CCCE’s Security and Prosperity Initiative before it.
October 2005
The first North American Forum brings together U.S., Canadian and Mexican government and business representatives to discuss issues related to continental economic and social integration; it is held at a secret location in Sonoma, California. Invitees include John Manley, Mexican ambassador to the U.S. Carlos de Icaza, Chevron CEO David O’Reilly, former head of the CIA James Woolsey, and a host of U.S. policy advisors to George W. Bush. There is one article about the forum in the North American media.
January 10-11, 2006
The Council of the Americas, United Postal Service and the North American Business Committee host a “Public-Private Sector Dialogue on the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” in Louisville, Kentucky. The meeting is attended by 50 government officials and business leaders from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, including members of the Canadian Privy Council Office, the Mexican Presidency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and corporate reps from ExxonMobil, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Tyco, and FedEx. Attendees discussed “marrying policy issues with business priorities,” musing that, “leadership from governments that recognizes the importance of business issues to the overall social welfare empowers the private sector to engage substantively and pragmatically on trade and security issues
without undue deference to political sensibilities.” A “North American Competitiveness Council” to drive the SPP process is proposed.
January 23, 2006
The Conservatives take office in Ottawa with a minority government as Prime Minister Stephen Harper promises to make Canada-U.S. relations a top priority despite polling data showing that the issue falls well below health care and the environment for the Canadian public.
March 31, 2006
At the second SPP summit in Cancun, Mexico, President Bush, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and then Mexican President Vicente Fox announce the creation of the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC). This corporate working group is charged with directing the SPP process and includes at least 10 CEOs from each country, including representatives from Lockheed Martin, Wal-Mart, General Motors, Home Depot Canada, Canfor and Suncor.
June 15, 2006
The NACC is officially launched at a joint press conference held by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, Mexican Economy Minister Sergio Garcia de Alba and Canadian Industry Minister Maxime Bernier. According to a report from the Council of the Americas, the purpose of institutionalizing the North American business community's involvement in the SPP process was “so that the work will continue through changes in administrations.” Furthermore, the NACC is to make sure that, “governments look to the private sector to tell them what needs to be done.” According to a Canadian government press release, the NACC “has a mandate to provide governments with recommendations on broad issues such as border facilitation and regulation, as well as the competitiveness of key sectors including automotive,
transportation, manufacturing and services.”
August 15, 2006
The NACC meets in Washington, D.C. to hash out priority issues for the SPP. The business leaders decide that the U.S. members will deal with “regulatory convergence,” the Canadians will handle “border facilitation,” and the Mexican
members will devise a plan for “energy integration.”
September 12-14, 2006
The North American Forum meets for the second time, in Banff, Alberta, this time to discuss “demographic and social dimensions of North American integration,” security cooperation, and a “North American energy strategy.” Once again, the meeting is kept secret, despite the involvement of high-ranking military officials, politicians and top bureaucrats – including Stockwell Day, who refuses to disclose the content of his speech to the media.
November 23, 2006
The Harper government releases a financial outlook document called Advantage Canada: Building a Strong Economy for Canadians. Advantage Canada praises the SPP effort to seek regulatory convergence on border security. It also indicates that the federal government is working with the provinces to speed up and streamline the environmental assessment process, particularly as it affects cross-border infrastructure projects. Furthermore, Advantage Canada emphasizes the importance of huge trade corridors to the economic wellbeing of the country, and looks to the private sector to help with all new infrastructure projects. “For its part, Canada’s New Government intends to establish a federal P3 office that will facilitate a broader use of P3s in Canadian infrastructure projects,” says the document. “The Government will also encourage the development and use of P3 best practices by requiring that P3s be given consideration in larger infrastructure investments that receive federal program funding.” Under the SPP’s transportation agenda is an initiative to “examine the benefits of an intermodal transportation concept for north America,” the goal being to move foreign goods, mostly from Asia, quickly through North America to key markets in the United States.
February 23, 2007
SPP ministers, including Maxime Bernier, David Emerson, Stockwell Day, and their U.S. counterparts Michael Chertoff and Carlos Gutierrez, meet with the NACC to discuss the progress of the integration agenda. The NACC releases a report containing 51 recommendations, including: “Complete negotiations, sign a new North American Regulatory Cooperation Framework in 2007, and ensure consistent application of standards and regulatory requirements within each country.” The corporate body suggests that, “upon signature of the framework, a North American Regulatory
Cooperation and Standards Committee, which includes the private sector, should be formed to survey on a regular basis the variety of standards and regulatory differences by industry that impede trade and seek to reduce the identified
differences or develop other mechanisms to lessen their impact on the competitiveness of North American industry.”
March 19, 2007
The Conservative government releases its 2007 budget – Aspire to a Stronger, Safer, Better Canada – in which it promises to “improve Canada’s regulatory framework” by “moving to finalize a new modern approach to smart regulation,” and by “working with the United States and Mexico through the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America to improve regulatory coordination and cooperation.” At the heart of the government’s strategy is the adoption of a new Cabinet Directive on Streamlining Regulation that will come into effect on April 1, 2007. Budget 2007 provides $9 million over two years to implement this initiative.
March 30-April 1, 2007
Over 1,500 people converge on Ottawa for Integrate This! Challenging the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, a public teach-in on deep integration organized by the Council of Canadians, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Canadian Labour Congress, Common Frontiers and a host of other groups.
April 1, 2007
The Government of Canada’s new Cabinet Directive on Streamlining Regulation comes into effect, requiring that all government departments take into consideration the “cost or savings to government, business, or Canadians and the potential impact on the Canadian economy and its international competitiveness,” as well as the “potential impact on other federal departments or agencies, other governments in Canada, or on Canada's foreign affairs” before moving ahead with new rules on everything from food and drugs to pesticides to the environment and public health. The directive moves regulation in Canada further away from the precautionary principle and more in line with the U.S. focus on risk assessment and voluntary compliance.
April 13, 2007
Leaked documents acquired by the Council of Canadians reveal that bulk water exports from Canada to the United States are in fact being discussed in relation to the SPP. The North American Future 2025 Project, which is led by the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Conference Board of Canada and the Mexican Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, involves a series of “closed-door meetings” on North American integration dealing with a number of highly contentious issues including bulk water exports, a joint security perimeter and a continental resource pact.
April 24, 2007
The Council of Canadians holds an “open-door” meeting in Calgary to discuss the threat of bulk water exports posed by North American integration and the SPP in light of closed-door meetings of government officials and business reps to discuss continental water management happening that same week.
April 27, 2007
North American transport ministers, including Conservative MP Lawrence Cannon, meet in Arizona for an SPP meeting, "in order to confirm and advance our commitment to developing coordinated, compatible and interconnected national transportation systems." Developing an "intermodal transportation concept for North America" is an SPP initiative. A key milestones under that initiative commits transport ministers to, "work toward establishing an intermodal corridor work plan and a Memorandum of Cooperation pilot project." The Arizona meeting, which the ministers describe as the
first in a series, appears to be the beginning of this pilot project.
May 1, 2007
Council of Canadians National Chairperson Maude Barlow addresses the Commons Standing Committee on International Trade regarding the SPP, energy and bulk water exports.
May 7, 2007
CanWest News Service reports that Canada is set to raise its limits on pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables as “part of an effort to harmonize Canadian pesticide rules with those of the United States, which allows higher residue
levels for 40 per cent of the pesticides it regulates.” According to the article, which appeared in papers across the country, “the effort is being fast-tracked as an initiative under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a wideranging
plan to streamline regulatory and security protocols across North America.” The article proves that regulatory harmonization as spelled out in NAFTA and the SPP puts downward pressure on regulations and that higher standards are rarely if ever mutually adopted between harmonizing parties.
May 10, 2007
Conservative MPs storm out of parliamentary hearings into the SPP after the Tory chair of the Commons Standing Committee on International Trade interrupts a presentation from Council of Canadians board member Gordon Laxer linking the SPP to tar sands production. Committee chair Leon Benoit can’t see the link between the SPP and energy security for Canada, despite “energy integration” being a key priority of the SPP and of the NACC. The meeting continues after all but one Conservative MP leaves the room.
June 18, 2007
Transport Canada’s “no-fly” list, called Passenger Protect, comes into effect. Airlines begin checking passenger names against a list of people deemed so dangerous to the flight that they should not be allowed to board. Passengers who appear on the list may appeal mistakes to an “office of reconsideration.” Security experts agree that Canada’s list will inevitably merge with the much larger U.S. “no-fly” list – a key priority of the SPP’s security agenda. Canada’s airlines have already been using the U.S. list, which contains almost 500,000 names, and news reports from late May 2007 indicate they will continue to rely on it rather than Passenger Protect.
August 20-21, 2007
Stephen Harper, George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón to meet in Montebello, Quebec for the planned third summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The Council of Canadians and other groups to plan major mobilization against the SPP to coincide with the event.
September 2007
Possible third meeting of the highly secretive North American Forum. Leaked ocuments outlining the forum’s 2006 media strategy show a concerted effort to avoid media and public scrutiny, despite the fact that these discussions on North American integration involve high ranking public servants accountable to the citizens of Canada, Mexico and the United States.
For more information visit Canadians.org or call 1-800-387-7177.
The Council of Canadiana - Le Conseil Des Canadiens
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
