Trans Texas Corridor Moratorium Bill Passes Texas Legislature in a Landslide!

May 9, 2007 Volume 10, Issue 3

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The juggernaut behind construction of the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) suffered a major blow on May 2, as the Texas House joined the Senate in overwhelmingly voting to impose a moratorium on construction. God Bless Texas!
The TTC is only the first of many NAFTA Superhighways planned to expedite the movement of goods and labor throughout the gestating bastard child of three sovereign nations, Mexamericanada, better known as the North American Union.
The TTC is the brainchild of Texas' Governor, Rick Perry. He announced his Corridor "vision" in 2002. Within months TxDOT completed an action plan, presented it to the Transportation Commission. The Commission approved the plan almost immediately, without any substantive debate or public comment. Transportation Commissioner Ric Williamson admitted the Governor's stealth maneuverings, stating "Once the Governor decided that this is where we needed to head, he wanted to remove it from the political flow of the state, he wanted it to become policy as opposed to politics, and that was one of the reasons he asked us to move so fast, and we've done an admirable job...."
If completed, the TTC will completely transform the state's highways over the next 50 years, constructing an 8,000 mile spider-bungee of multimodal toll roads. It will throw a government net over some 9,000 square miles of private land just for the 4,000 miles of priority routes. The projected cost (at least $183 billion) is more than the original price tag for the entire U.S. interstate system. You can access a map of the planned routes by county here: http://www.corridorwatch.org/ttc_2007/CW00010000.htm.
Recent state laws, rammed through the legislature, gave the Commission unprecedented authority and power. HB 3588, for instance, says the Commission may acquire, in the name of the state, public or private real property as they determine to be necessary or convenient for the construction, enlargement or operation of the Trans Texas Corridor. Also, the Commission can lease or sell part of the property, for any purpose, including placing on the adjoining right-of-way a gas station, garage, store, hotel, restaurant, parking facility, railroad track, or billboard under terms they set. They can even lease it back to the original owner or any other public or private entity for unrelated commercial or industrial purposes."
Perry claimed the TTC is an innovative solution to Texas' traffic congestion. Nothing could be further from the truth. These NAFTA highways will divert road and rail traffic from congested urban centers, bypass rural communities and bisect private land, with on-and-off ramps many miles apart. With the TTC's non-compete clause, the state will be contractually obligated to allow nearby roads to fall into disrepair, slowly cutting off all access to rural communities and small businesses.
This highway project will be the first time anywhere in the country that freeways, already paid for with public tax dollars, convert into toll roads. The existing alternative highways will be abandoned by the state. As they fall into disrepair and become impassable, highway users will be forced to pay tolls on roadbeds they already bought and paid for.
The toll monies receive won't go to local or state governments with a responsibility to fold that money back into road maintenance. For at least the next 50 years, those monies will go to foreign companies. This is an outrageous and dangerous precedent that must be stopped in Texas before it can spread throughout the nation.
The legislation imposing the moratorium now sits on Governor Perry's desk. He has two weeks to sign or veto. He has promised a veto.
ACTION TO TAKE

This moratorium has been a long time coming, and took a tremendous amount of work to accomplish. Everyone involved with its passage deserves a huge Thank You! from the entire nation. But we dare not rest and applaud from a distance. Too much is at stake!
Pound Governor Perry! Write, call or fax him as below.

• Tell him to sign HB 1892, the moratorium bill.
• Let him know you're watching House Transportation Committee Chairman Mike Krusee, who just moved his Trojan Horse bill, SB1267, out of committee.
• Tell him you want HB 1892 because it does far more to limit and restrict Comprehensive Development Agreements contracts than SB 1267, to increase public disclosure, to add more opportunities for public input, and it can overcome a veto!

Shifting focus now to SB 1267 would distract and confuse the Texas Legislature, giving TTC supporters time to delay and ultimately kill the moratorium. Act now to keep that from happening!
Write Governor Perry here:
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428
Call him here:
Opinion Hotline (out-of-state callers) (512) 463-1782
Main Switchboard (512) 463-2000
Or fax the Governor here: (512) 463-1849
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Update on State Opposition to NAU – Press the Fight!
17 state legislatures are working on resolutions to oppose formation of the North American Union. Despite official denials from President Bush, members of Congress, and many administration officials, more and more individual state legislatures are taking no chances, and taking action.
Most of the resolutions are worded to cover all potential bases by opposing the North American Union, the Security & Prosperity Partnership, construction of NAFTA Superhighways, and the idea of a new, continental currency known as the Amero.
Why, you might well ask, aren't all 50 states working on such resolutions? Well, most contemporary legislators are politicians, rather than statesmen; they blow in the wind. Unfortunately, a great many Americans have not yet awakened to this threat, so they have not contacted their legislators. But you can have a very real and very positive impact by educating them all.
If you are fortunate enough to live in one of the 17 states already in gear - Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington – you should immediately send your legislator AND your governor a letter fervently thanking and strongly supporting their efforts to protect you and your family from this insanity.
If you live in the other states YOU must take immediate, and unrelenting, action to push your legislature into opposition to the madness of the globalists. We cannot afford denial; any delay may well mean the destruction of what has been the finest nation in the history of the world.
We must ramp up our efforts. No matter what you've already done, PLEASE do it again, or find further action you can take. We must support those states already acting, and pressure those which have not. We must take advantage of the building momentum, or it will subside, and we will have lost the most important political battle not only in our personal lives, but in our nation's history.
ACTION TO TAKE

1. If you live in one of the 17 proactive states, write your legislators AND your governor. Thank them for taking action to protect your civil liberties and our national sovereignty. You can find info for your state legislature here http://www.statelocalgov.net/.
2. If you live in one of the done-nothing (yet) states, pressure them to take action. Contact you're your legislators AND your governor. Phone calls and letters are the most effective way to contact your elected representatives; in this case, do both, as it will multiply your personal impact. And don't stop until you get the response you want.
   If you need a Model Repeal NAFTA Resolution, look here http://www.jbs.org/files/campaigns/nafta/naftamodelstateresolution.doc.
3. Whatever state you live in, write Letters to the Editor to your local and statewide newspapers. Call into radio talk show programs. Bring the subject up to those you interact with every day. These are the surest ways to create awareness of the general populace, AND an excellent way to impact your legislature, as they monitor the media.
4. Join the effort to Repeal NAFTA! Since NAFTA is the foundation on which the SPP/NAU is being built, U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA would cripple efforts to establish the North American Union. Help us drive a stake through this monster's heart!

A. Contact your Congressman and ask they pressure House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rangel and House Energy, Commerce and Trade Committee Chairman Rush to release H. CON. RES. 22 to the full House for a vote. H. CON. RES. 22 expresses "the sense of Congress that the President should provide notice of withdrawal of the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)."
Phone calls and letters are the most effective way to contact your elected representatives.
E-mails and faxes are many times ignored. Members of Congress have been changing their e-mail addresses and fax numbers when we send out alerts. If you prefer, though, you can send an e-mail by going to each member's website at http://thomas.gov.
Alternatively, you may phone the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate or House office you request.
If you choose to write, and do not know your Congressman's mailing addresses, you may simply address your letters as follows:
Office of Congressman (Name)
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

B. Contact the House Minority Leader, Rep. John Boehner. The Minority Leader office number is (202) 225-4000; Rep. Boehner's regular office number is (202) 225-6205.Tell Rep. Boehner you oppose NAFTA requiring America to conform all of its domestic laws with those of Mexico and Canada – regardless of whether voters and their duly-elected representatives had previously rejected those policies.
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Update on JTHG National Heritage Area
The House Committee on Resources has passed H.R. 319, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area Act, out of committee. They've recommended the House approve the legislation and send it to the Senate, where it would likely be a done deal.
The Committee added language to the bill (Background and Need for Legislation) asserting "National Heritage Areas are locally-driven projects." This makes it sound like the local folks "spanning parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia" got together and petitioned Congress to "save" their local heritage, before………what?
In the doublespeak of the opponents of freedom, "locally-driven" translates to Gang Green driving a campaign to convince local residents of the desirability of government "preservation" of parts of four states. These residents do not understand the National Park Service's and the enviros "vision" for managing other peoples' lands.
A recent Heritage Foundation report (http://www.heritage.org/Research/SmartGrowth/bg2025.cfm) states this bill will "give a handful of Virginia environmentalists and wealthy landowners extraordinary powers over how private property can be used in a broad swath of land stretching from southern Pennsylvania through western Maryland (looping through West Virginia) south to Charlottesville in central Virginia."
Further, "this group has organized itself as the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership. H.R. 319 would provide the partnership $1 million of federal (YOUR) money per year to operate this multistate (sic) land use …exercise." This "exercise," managed in partnership with an unelected and unaccountable entity, would control eight homes of former U.S. Presidents, the largest concentration of Civil War battlefields in the country, 13 National Historic Landmarks and 2 World Heritage Sites, among other resources (read other private property, water, roads, etc.).
Such control would indeed be a "vision" for power-hungry megalomaniacs. And YOU would pay them for the privilege; such a deal!
The original bill contained some cosmetic "property rights" assurances. These property rights protections were included in the last twelve NHA designations, but the Committee removed most of them in H.R. 319, as you read in our earlier alert.
Additionally in previous sessions of Congress, this Committee had ensured that private property owners within a heritage area could remove their land from the boundary of the designation and prohibited the management entity from preserving, conserving, or promoting one's property without the written consent of the owner. Those safeguards are also gone, deleted by the Grijalva Substitute purportedly because they could create problems for the management entity. Wouldn't THAT be unfortunate, to have private landowners' constitutionally-protected civil liberties get in the way of someone else's "vision!"
Many problems with the NPS must be considered by Congress. NPS has failed its basic stewardship responsibilities for the land already under its jurisdiction. Expanding the agency's responsibilities under H.R. 319 would add fuel to the fire – literally. Also, NPS's hostility toward private property rights, improved mobility and access, and economic development make it a very poor choice.
In central Virginia, the NPS has recently objected to urban bypasses to relieve serious interstate traffic congestion, a communications tower on private land, and infrastructure improvements at a power plant in Maryland that could be seen from NPS sites on both sides of the Potomac River. NPS Park Superintendent Vidal Martinez was especially troubled by the fact that a "steam cloud will be a visual adverse effect from both parks. If NPS leaders are troubled by vapor clouds created by federal mandates for pollution control, one can only imagine the aesthetic restrictions that they might impose on the hapless people living in the proposed JTHG.
This bill is badly flawed. It would significantly threaten the rights of private property owners within the NHA boundary while providing a financial windfall to a select group who have already developed their properties. Members of this group have already acted to prevent all but the most expensive of homes and worked to prohibit the development of moderate-income and middle-income housing that might take away from the "rustic charm" of the area. They have even aggressively opposed new home construction in the vicinity of the NHA.
Further, according to the Heritage report, "the private organizers of the partnership have also acknowledged that they are contemplating additional wealth-enhancing opportunities through the creation of a privately owned, for-profit real estate investment trust (REIT) to acquire properties in the heritage area and presumably develop them for the benefit of the REIT's shareholders in a way that shelters their profits from the state and federal corporate income tax." So OUR tax dollars will be used to not only wrestle control of privately owned land in four states, but also to set up the perpetrators of this travesty in what could be a very profitable business!
Now for the Good News
We're told the other side is going nuts in frustration because they haven't been able to get this bill passed through the House. Sounds like it's time to hit them again, just to let them know we are still here and not going away. We have a great chance to kill this thing and stop future efforts; let's jump on it!
ACTION TO TAKE
Squeaky wheels, Unite! Let Congress know you're still watching, you're not going away, and you're not going to put up with their mischief!
Property rights should never be dismissed merely because they could be an inconvenience. At a minimum, affected landowners should receive notification of what restrictions the federal government will place over them.

1. Contact your Congressmen. Tell them you oppose H.R. 319, and the companion Senate bill S. 278.

• These bills represent more federal grabs of private property and will only serve to fill the pockets of special interest groups with federal (YOUR) tax dollars.
• Then tell them a better bill is Roscoe Bartlett's H.R. 1270 because it better protects private property while honoring the historic events that occurred there.

Phone calls and letters are the most effective way to contact Congress.

E-mails and faxes are many times ignored. Members of Congress have been changing their e-mail addresses and fax numbers when we send out alerts. If you prefer, though, you can send an e-mail by going to each member's website at http://thomas.gov.

1. Contact Rep. John Boehner, House Minority Leader. His office number is (202) 225-4000; Rep. Boehner's regular office number is (202) 225-6205. Sen. Mitch McConnell is the Senate Minority Leader. His office number is (202) 224-2541.
   • Tell him H.R. 319 is badly flawed and has little purpose beyond wielding federal resources assisting a small number of wealthy people in their efforts to exclude middle- and moderate-income families and certain commercial enterprises in an area spanning four states.
   • The NPS' longstanding management problems make it a completely unsatisfactory choice for additional responsibilities.
   • The federal government's budget is so far out of hand, adding oversight of such a huge project would be a huge mistake.
   • No person or entity involved in the management and/or policymaking associated with any regional compact should be permitted to conduct for-profit activities that relate in any way to activities within the designated area of focus.

   Alternatively, you may phone the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate or House office you request.
   If you choose to write, and do not know your Congressman's and Senators' mailing addresses, you may simply address your letters as follows:
   Office of Congressman (Name)
   United States House of Representatives
   Washington, DC 20515

   Office of Senator (Name)United States SenateWashington, D.C. 20510
   SEND THIS MESSAGE TO AT LEAST TEN MORE PEOPLE! APC is now offering you a quick and easy way to multiply your efforts and help win more battles! Simply click http://www.referralblast.com/rblast.asp?sid=5906 to send this APC Action Alert to up to TEN of your friends! It's fast, it's easy and most of all, it's extremely effective in KILLING OPPRESSIVE POLICIES!