Posted on 04/13/2006 7:35:49 AM PDT by cope85
Indiana signs 75-year lease turning toll road over to private operator; lawsuit filed
INDIANAPOLIS If the deal stands, drivers on the Indiana Toll Road will be paying a foreign consortium for the next 75 years for the privilege of driving on the highway.
Indiana officials today signed an agreement to turn the 157-mile toll road over to a Spanish-Australian consortium that will operate the roadway for a profit. It's the biggest highway privatization deal in U-S history.
The consortium is paying the state three-point-eight (b) billion dollars up front and will be responsible for operating and maintaining the highway. It will get to keep the toll revenue it collects.
The deal is taking its own toll. Opponents have gone to court, saying the Indiana Constitution requires that the proceeds from the sale of any public works be used to pay off state debt. Officials say the arrangement is not a sale, but a lease.
The state hopes to close the deal and transfer the highway to the consortium by June 30th.
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A U.S. lawmaker on Tuesday fumed that the Bush administration refused to divulge anything about a security review it is conducting of a Dubai-owned company that is planning to take over several plants in the U.S. that make equipment for defense contractors.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an inter-agency panel led by the Treasury Department, is reviewing the $1.24 billion takeover of Doncasters, a British engineering group with U.S. holdings, by state-owned Dubai International Capital.
Doncasters has plants in nine U.S. locations making parts for defense contractors. The Dubai takeover has sparked security concerns from Rep. John Barrow, a Georgia Democrat, who represents a district which has a plant that makes tank engines.
Barrow said the Treasury Department's reluctance to discuss the latest proposal with him suggested it had learned little from the congressional outcry over a now-abandoned deal that would have allowed another Dubai company to take over some U.S. port operations.
"If I can't find out from my own government what is going on, it ain't congressional oversight," Barrow said in a telephone interview with Reuters.
"We (lawmakers) can't find out things ... We have no reason to believe they (the administration) are doing anything other than sleepwalking through the review process," he said.
The Doncasters deal has strong parallels to the ports saga. Both deals involve state-owned Dubai companies purchasing British companies with U.S. assets. In the ports case, Dubai Ports World bought a British company that operated U.S. port terminals.
CFIUS, which vets foreign takeovers of U.S. companies for national security concerns, initially approved the ports deal. But DP World said it would shed the U.S. assets after an outcry from Congress amid concerns about national security risks.
Amid the furor over the DP World contract, in early March, the Bush administration said it was launching a 45-day in-depth security review of the Doncasters acquisition.
Barrow said he had read media reports from Dubai that said the Doncasters purchase was expected to be approved by CFIUS as early as Thursday.
But the lawmaker said when he asked the assistant Treasury secretary for legislative affairs, Kevin Fromer, about these reports on Tuesday, Fromer told him he did not know whether or when a determination would be made by CFIUS.
"We can't even find out what (security) concerns may have been raised," he said. He has doubts that plants making U.S. military hardware should be sold to a Dubai company.
Barrow named similar concerns raised over the ports purchase -- that two of the September 11 hijackers came from the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is part, and al Qaeda funding passed through UAE banks.
The Bush administration was heavily criticized for failing to better inform Congress about the DP World deal and Barrow said Treasury's continued silence was troubling.
A Treasury spokesman declined comment to Reuters on the Doncasters' review.
Bush and other U.S. officials argued in the ports case that the UAE should be treated as a valued ally in the war on terror.
Barrow has proposed legislation changing how the U.S. government reviews foreign takeovers, including reports to key lawmakers on reviews. The Senate Banking Committee has approved reforms to CFIUS that include some congressional notification provisions.
Coming soon to your neighborhood - 100% toll-roads run by foreigners who get to hamper your freedom of movement...
Gov. Rick Perry, TT Commission, Texas House, and Senate,
-- your additional comments --
I STRONGLY OPPOSE:
1. Your URBAN looting - your rush to Privatize and Toll Texas Freeways. It is unacceptable to make us pay daily tolls, for roads we've already paid for. That is Double Taxation pure and simple.
2. Your RURAL looting - your disregard of the public outcry against the Trans-Texas Corridor is unacceptable. Taking one-half million acres of Texan's land, to exclusively generate revenue at the expense of open government, private property rights, and thousands of Texas communities will not stand.
Your fiduciary duty to the people should have compelled you to keep the interests of us - above your own or your special interests friends. Your duty was one to act in a position of trust, good faith, candor and responsibility, and always on behalf of those of us whom you were elected to serve.
As our representative you have failed to adhere to this simple standard of trust. We the people have the duty to organize and de-elect all looters.
Over the coming months, we will work with TexasTollParty.com. We will organize our communities by telling everyone we know in Texas about this website, so together we can carry out a VOTER REVOLT. In all coming elections, in all corners of our great state.
WE WILL FIGHT FOR TEXAS IN THE VOTING BOOTH!
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I use the Indiana toll road on a regular basis.
Its not possible for anyone to hate Mitch Daniels more than I do.
And I voted for the bastard.
Oh, come off it. This is a very good move, probably the first thing Daniels has done in over a year that I approve of.
Isn't privatization generally a good thing?
I drove on Indiana roads near South Bend a lot during college. The interstates and even toll roads were some of the worst in the country to drive on!
I'd be interested to see how this works out for them...
Hey at least gas in Indiana was cheap ;-)
Stop moaning you leftie! These new free-market private enterprise roads are much better than the previous government socialised roads you are used to driving on! Hurrah for the free market! ;-)
You are spreading false information. The toll roads proposed will be new, not ones already paid for. In addition, those "already paid for" roads are still costing billions to maintain.
Let the free market reign. It works better every time.
Their option is to go to China for our military technology, courtesy of Slick Willie.
How will policing/ticketing work now?
Are the police now going to be reimbursed by the private firm?
Stop moaning you leftie! These new free-market private enterprise roads are much better than the previous government socialised roads you are used to driving on! Hurrah for the free market! ;-)""
SOOOOOO where is the money from every gallon of gasoline bought in Indiana that is supposed to pay for the repair/rebuilding of roads??????
I wish NYC would try this. I bet a private company could run the Verrazano bridge for less than an $8 toll.
Northern Virginia has had a private toll road from Dulles Airport to Leesburg for some years now.
It is much better maintained than the state-owned toll road and state-owned interstate highways. When the private toll road needed more lanes, they were put in.
It's a good deal -- the road is paid for by those who use it, and the politicians don't have a source of patronage jobs.
And, the Virginia State Police enforce traffic laws on it.
Jack
Why do you insist on benefit from a toll road? A toll road should at most pay for itself. In the case of an existing road, maintenance costs, which will now be picked up by the fur'ners.
If you just want a toll road to suck money from the citizenry, then yeah, you're a lefty.
The toll road will suck up more money from the citizens.
The toll fees are going to go way up.
Folks in Indiana will be happy until the toll is doubled so the company can earn a profit on top of the costs associated with running and maintenance of the road.
And since it's much easier for companies rather than government to hire illegals, guess who will be doing the work?
We should really have the government take over the power companies too. Imagine how much less energy would cost if the evil corporations were making billions of dollars off it! Banking, too. Why don't we just have a national bank? And we could just have one bank for the country, which would be much more efficient then all these different companies and branches and confusing mergers. We wouldn't be getting ripped off by these rich corporations wasting our money on profit.
wake up they are selling America look up The Global Compact in the United States of America http://www.unglobalcompact.org/NetworksAroundTheWorld/country_contact/usa.html
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