once upon a time the map could be enlarged. This is how it appeared until a couple of weeks ago. Suggest Save & Zoom for detail.
Posted on 02/10/2008 7:20:08 PM PST by BGHater
While facets of a proposed NAFTA Superhighway may indeed fall within the myth category, the idea is not really a laughing matter.
Certainly, anything that prompts 43 congressmen, including three presidential candidates, to co-sponsor a resolution decrying it must have a grain of truth to it.
History is replete with examples of far-fetched notions -- like putting a man on the moon -- turning into reality.
And the idea of seamless travel encompassing the United States, Mexico and Canada is anything but fanciful.
Inquiries about the NAFTA Superhighway have taken on a life of their own. Congressmen are hearing about it and so are newspapers like The Oakland Press. Some readers wonder why we haven't had stories on it.
NAFTA, of course, is the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has governed commerce on this continent since its bipartisan adoption by Congress and then-President Clinton in 1994.
In their most extreme form, reports of the NAFTA Superhighway portray it as a secret plan for a 10-lane highway, four football-fields wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas, to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.
Supposedly, it would be built without congressional approval, consume scores of homes, trees and farms along its path through eminent domain, and compromise U.S. sovereignty.
"And this ... is just the beginning, the first stage of a long, silent coup aimed at supplanting the sovereign United States with a multinational North American Union," wrote Christopher Hayes in The Nation.
Though there is no such proposal, "the myth upon which it rests was not fabricated out of whole cloth. Rather, it has been sewn together from scraps of fact," Hayes wrote.
There are no plans to build a new NAFTA Superhighway. It exists today as I-35, according to North America's Supercorridor Coalition.
"NASCO and the cities, counties, states and provinces along our existing Interstate Highways 35/29/94 (the NASCO Corridor) have been referring to I-35 as the 'NAFTA Superhighway' for many years, as I-35 long has carried a substantial amount of international trade with Mexico, the United States and Canada," states NASCO's Web site.
There was once a map showing an enhanced rendering of the corridor on NASCO's Web site, but it has been taken down.
NASCO leaders say the map, "greatly enlarged for viewing purposes and presentations ... was used by conspiracy theorists to show the blueprint for the (nonexistent) 'new NAFTA Superhighway.' Some people unfamiliar with our organization were confused and believed these falsehoods. The map was a marketing tool, and has since been updated to show the corridor a bit more drawn to scale."
As The Nation's Hayes points out, however, unlike the NAFTA Superhighway, something called the "Trans-Texas Corridor is very, very real."
"In 2003, amid a dramatic drawn-out battle over a legally questionable GOP redistricting plan, the Texas state Legislature passed House Bill 3588. At 311 pages, it's unlikely that many of those who voted for the bill had actually read it (and many have come to regret their vote), but it received not a single opposing vote. The bill granted the Texas Transportation Commission wide latitude to pursue a long-term plan to build a series of corridors throughout the state that would carry passenger and commercial traffic and contain extra right-of-way for rail, pipelines and electric wires," Hayes wrote.
So it is easy to see how the alarm has built up. The NAFTA Superhighway -- real or imagined -- has attracted the attention of CNN's Lou Dobbs, and 43 congressmen refer to it as real in their proposed resolution.
The resolution correctly notes that the U.S. "participated in the formation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) on March 23, 2005, representing a trilateral agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico designed, among other things, to facilitate common regulatory schemes between these countries."
The resolution alleges that SPP favors a "NAFTA Superhighway System" and says such a system "would likely include funds from foreign consortiums and be controlled by foreign management, which threatens the sovereignty of the United States." The resolution seeks to express "the sense of Congress that the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement Superhighway System or enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada."
Reps. Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo are among the sponsors. Paul is running for president and Hunter and Tancredo were candidates before withdrawing from the race.
One of Oakland County's congressmen, Thaddeus McCotter, has signed the resolution.
"It's a theory that a lot of people are concerned about," McCotter said. He said Canada and Mexico should be viewed differently and that our trade relations with Mexico "have been detrimental to the manufacturing base of this country." He said he signed on as a co-sponsor of the resolution to persuade his colleagues that NAFTA has created problems in Michigan because it treats the two partners equally when, in fact, their stages of development bear no resemblance.
McCotter also noted that border security issues are different with the two countries, as well.
Two of Oakland County's other congressmen, Mike Rogers and Joe Knollenberg, are aware of the issue.
"There is no secret plan to link all these various projects together as a superhighway that only allows Mexican or Canadian trucks to use it," said Sylvia Warner, Rogers' press secretary. "The congressman has been and will continue to be a strong advocate of securing our borders, and he would never support anything that weakens our sovereignty or limits our ability to conduct legitimate safety inspections of trucks and goods in the U.S."
Warner acknowledged that "we are getting lots of calls and e-mails on it, and our folks have researched it well enough to know that it is pretty much the standard rumor taking on a life of its own situation."
Craig Albright, Knollenberg's chief of staff, notes that any funding for such a project would have to come before an appropriations panel of the House Transportation Committee that Knollenberg heads. There are no such plans, he said.
But ideas are powerful, and among think tanks and study groups, the notion of closer ties among the three countries and ease of crossing borders has support. Though acknowledging the post-9/11 security issues, the Council on Foreign Relations issued a report titled "Building a North American Community," in which it said, "The three governments should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically diminishing the need for the current intensity of the governments' physical control of cross-border traffic, travel and trade within North America."
It is not such a far stretch to say that such thinking, which produced NAFTA in the first place, could encourage an eventual European Union type of relationship. Who knows? Just as there is a euro currency, someday there might be an Amero.
All of which is to say that anyone concerned about our relations with our neighbors to the north and south shouldn't be dismissed as a kook just because he or she starts talking about a NAFTA Superhighway. The idea is real.
Glenn Gilbert is executive editor of The Oakland Press. Contact him at (248) 745-4587 or glenn.gilbert@oakpress.com.
I know a way to see if it’s real.
” NASCO is particularly focused on coordinating the efforts of local, state and federal agencies and the private sector to integrate and secure a multimodal transportation system along the existing “NASCO Corridor.” “
http://www.nascocorridor.com/pages/about/about.htm
The Trans-Texas Corridor is the anchor piece.
looky...
What way is that? :)
ping!
thanks, CM, for the ping.
LOL;0)
Why are you laughing???
Because this isn’t real?? : )
What was that old nursery rhyme about a bridge?
Shop smart, shop S mart?
once upon a time the map could be enlarged. This is how it appeared until a couple of weeks ago. Suggest Save & Zoom for detail.
IBTP...;0)
Dr Paul earmarked 13 million for 1-69 the NAFTA highway.
It’s real.
Don’t believe your lying eyes!
I have a question for anyone.
Has John McCain ever stated unequivocally that he will support the building of a fence on the U.S. Mexican border?When he says he will "secure the border," has anyone ever asked him which border?
(i.e. U.S./Mexico vs. the 3-country perimeter)
From what I can see, Paul got a $13 million earmark for the Transportation Enhancement Program in Edna Texas, specifically dealing with “cultural and historic assets” and to rehabilitate a trolley in Galveston. I can’t see anything having to do with massive highway expansion or with NAFTA.
By the way, $13 million won’t buy squat!
And NO, I don’t like earmarks, but that isn’t the subject of this discussion.
http://images.chron.com/content/news/photos/07/07/01/paul_earmarks/Transportation3.pdf
Good question.
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