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A San Antonio lawmaker filed a bill that would repeal the establishment and operation of the Trans-Texas Corridor. It’s not the first time he’s done so. In the 2007 legislative session, Rep. David Leibowitz filed an identical bill, but it languished in the House Transportation Committee without a hearing. Leibowitz spokesman Rob Borja said the legislation may have a better fate the second time around. At least four of the nine committee members will change this session, including the chairman. “Probably most important is there will be a new chairman, because the old chairman Mike Krusee wouldn’t let any bills...

(KCPW News) Utah lawmakers took tips on highway funding from a Texas legislator this morning. Texas Republican Representative Mike Krusee joined them on Capitol Hill. He told the Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee that with federal money drying up, the only way to pay for new highways is to make them toll roads. "Guess how many roads pay for themselves in taxes? Zero. Not a one. Most of them are less than 50 percent," said Krusee. "Imagine if you're a grocery a store owner, and you decide, I'm gonna sell sirloin at a buck a pound, and I'm gonna sell...

The Texas Department of Public Safety is withholding trooper dashboard camera video taken during the arrest of Texas representative Mike Krusee. Using the Texas Public Information Act, KXAN requested the video after the state lawmaker from Williamson County was arrested for DWI earlier this month. A state trooper pulled him over after he noticed him driving erratically in northwest Austin. The license plate on his vehicle also had expired last December. Elected state officials all have personalized license plates. Therefore, the trooper would have known he was pulling over a state official before asking for identification. A spokeswoman for the...

GEORGETOWN, Texas (AP/KXAN) -- A state lawmaker who helped pave the way for major toll road projects and stiffer drunken driving penalties now faces a DWI charge. Rep. Mike Krusee of Williamson County is the Republican chairman of the House Transportation Committee. He was charged with first-offense driving while intoxicated after a state trooper noticed his car moving erratically in northwest Austin Wednesday night. The license plate on the vehicle also had expired last December. Elected state officials all have personalized license plates. Therefore, the trooper would have known he was pulling over a state official before asking for identification....

WASHINGTON – Only exports stand between the economy and recession, setting up another national argument about how to handle the rising flow of goods in and out of the country. Transportation fights are usually about who pays to build the roads and transit systems, with little said about trade. The Bush administration and Gov. Rick Perry have supported tolls and steadfastly opposed higher gasoline taxes. A new national study urges paying for desperately needed improvements any way we can, but one thing it specifically recommends is an increase in the federal gas tax of 40 cents a gallon over the...

Williamson County Republican reshaped Austin area's transportation system State Rep. Mike Krusee, a Williamson County Republican who reshaped the Austin area's transportation system and, with Gov. Rick Perry, turned Texas toward a toll-centric approach to highway building, will not seek re-election next year. Krusee, 48, is not leaving the public stage right away. He will serve out his term, which runs through January 2009; will continue serving on national panels on transportation and urban planning; and could return to a statewide post after he retires from the Legislature. Talk around the Capitol is that Krusee, who has served in the...

AUSTIN — The Texas Department of Transportation, which complains about chronic underfunding, has launched a multimillion-dollar campaign that promotes the divisive Trans-Texas Corridor plan and toll roads. The campaign is anticipated to cost $7 million to $9 million, according to a memo titled "Keep Texas Moving: Tolling and Trans-Texas Corridor Outreach" sent to transportation officials by Coby Chase, director of the agency's government and public affairs division. Such use of state highway-fund dollars is drawing questions, but the department says it's an important effort to educate and engage Texans. "It's a waste of money," said Rep. Warren Chisum, chairman of...

Ric Williamson and his fellow transportation commissioners will find themselves in a tight corner today as they meet in Austin to decide who will build the State Highway 121 toll road. On one level, the commission is simply fulfilling its duty as the Texas Department of Transportation's governing board by deciding whether to award a multibillion-dollar contract to Spanish construction firm Cintra or give it to the North Texas Tollway Authority. But a whole lot more is going on at another level. The Highway 121 decision also pits Mr. Williamson's desire to support Gov. Rick Perry's ambitious highway-building agenda against...

AUSTIN – State Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson is proud that he can still work a bulldozer, a skill he learned early on the ranch and in the gas fields. Others would say he still drives it at meetings, committee hearings and town hall gatherings. Mr. Williamson, 55, is one of the most influential men in Texas. He has the ear of the governor, with whom he speaks almost daily. He is the architect behind the state's road plan for the next 25 years. He is smart, studious, self-made. And critics, who seem as endless as a West Texas highway,...

Those persuasion skills were key to Ms. Kolkhorst marshaling support for a partial two-year moratorium on private toll roads. The bill could get lawmakers' final blessing today. The Brenham Republican has emerged as a central figure in the Legislature's efforts to slow down the privatization of Texas roads. She has persuaded nearly all of her 149 House colleagues to back the moratorium, which excludes most North Texas toll projects. Ms. Kolkhorst, 42, has parlayed a blend of persistence, fearlessness, smarts and country charm into a more visible role in Austin. In addition to leading the toll road freeze, she has...

AUSTIN — Intense negotiations on compromise transportation legislation continued Thursday, a day after Gov. Rick Perry threatened to call a special session on the issue. Senate Transportation Committee chairman Sen. John Carona said the sides were close to an agreement, though his House counterpart wasn't as optimistic. "We are very close, however we've been close before," said state Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock. Asked if thought the deal could be completed before the session ends on May 28, he said: "It's 50-50." The dustup involves a sweeping bill the Legislature sent Perry earlier this week that would put a two-year...

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry doesn't like a transportation bill Texas lawmakers sent him and threatened Wednesday to call them back to address the issue if no solution is reached before the legislative session ends May 28. "The good news is, there's still time to fix it .... if not, I have no other option as the leader of this state than to bring the Legislature back until we address these issues and we get Texas back to where it can have a vibrant transportation infrastructure," Perry said. Though a two-year moratorium on private toll road contracts is a major...

The Texas House voted 139-1 Wednesday, May 2, to give final approval to a bill that is intended to buy the state more time to review the effects of handing over roadways to private groups. The vote cleared the way for the bill to move to Gov. Rick Perry’s desk. The bill – HB1892 – would place a two-year moratorium on toll road leases with private groups. It also would require a study of the long-term effects of public-private partnerships. Perry, who has touted the benefits of his proposed Trans-Texas Corridor project, had urged lawmakers to reject the freeze but...

AUSTIN — The House gave final approval Wednesday to placing a two-year moratorium on private toll road contracts, sending the bill to Gov. Rick Perry and setting up a showdown over the future of the state's transportation policy. Perry had urged the Legislature to reject the freeze but has stopped short of promising a veto. The House approved the measure 139-1, showing it has broad enough support that lawmakers could vote to override the governor if he tries to kill it. The Senate approved the bill 27-4 last week. The Legislature can override a veto with a two-thirds vote of...

AUSTIN -- The Texas Senate passed its second bill this session creating a two-year moratorium on privately funded toll roads Friday, a sharp rebuke of Gov. Rick Perry's plan to solve the state's transportation problems. Senators voted 27-4 to approve the bill, which would prevent the creation of toll roads made by public entities contracting with private companies. The Senate passed a similar bill earlier, but that version appears dead in the House. The version approved Friday easily passed the House this month by a vote of 137-2. The bill's Senate sponsor, Republican Tommy Williams of The Woodlands, said he...

The Federal Highway Administration has threatened Texas with the loss of federal highway funds if the state continues with its legislative plan for a two-year funding moratorium on construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor. In the 4-page letter, FHWA Chief Counsel James D. Ray advises Michael Behrens, executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation, some of the pending legislative proposals, if signed into law, "could affect the State’s eligibility for receiving Federal-aid highway funds." Ray praises Texas for being "the nation's leader in developing new transportation facilities through public private partnerships." But the letter expresses concern that the Texas Legislature...

AUSTIN — The Texas Senate on Thursday approved a bill placing a two-year moratorium on private toll road contracts and creating a panel to review the terms of those agreements. Gov. Rick Perry had urged the Legislature to reject the freeze. He said the state's current transportation system, which involves public-private partnerships to build toll roads, needs to continue if Texas is to keep attracting big companies and jobs. But growing opposition to Perry's proposed Trans-Texas Corridor — a combined toll road and rail system that would whisk traffic from the Oklahoma line to Mexico — have made some lawmakers...

AUSTIN - A two-year moratorium on private toll roads that won preliminary approval in the House last week would put the brakes on the Trans-Texas Corridor, a superhighway that a private firm received a contract for earlier this year. The moratorium also would halt seven near-term projects in the state, said Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, the Brenham Republican who added the proposal to a House bill. "This is us tapping the brakes, looking before we leap ... into contracts that last 50-plus years," Kolkhorst said. Her proposal would require the state to create a commission to study the effects of private...

AUSTIN — A two-year moratorium on private toll roads that won preliminary approval in the House on Tuesday would put the brakes on the Trans-Texas Corridor, a superhighway that a private firm received a contract for earlier this year. The moratorium also would halt seven near-term projects in the state, said Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, the Brenham Republican who added the proposal to a House bill. "This is us tapping the brakes, looking before we leap ... into contracts that last 50-plus years," Kolkhorst said. Her proposal would require the state to create a commission to study the effects of private...

The growing traffic congestion in Texas is a multipronged problem that cannot be solved by one policy. At a time when toll roads appear to be state leadership's primary answer to the dilemma, a bill proposed by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, has merit. The legislation would index the gas tax to the Highway Cost Index, or the cost of highway construction over time. According to Carona's office, the bill by 2030 would generate about $16 billion in gas tax revenue — or 31/2 times more than the current gas tax would. Not only would more money be available for transportation...

A two-year ban on long-term toll road leases with private companies, pockmarked with exceptions and thus largely symbolic, cleared a Texas Senate committee Wednesday on a unanimous vote. However, the more meaningful action on toll roads should begin in the next two weeks, when a large bill addressing a wide range of concerns over tollways will be introduced in the Senate. The much-publicized moratorium bill by Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, Senate Bill 1267, has an excellent chance of passing the Senate, given that 29 of 31 senators have either signed on as co-sponsors or voted for it in committee. But despite...

Mike Krusee looked tired. The Republican state representative from Williamson County, interviewed at his Capitol office last week, for 10 days or so had been fighting what some people call the creeping crud, a debilitating mixture of cold, flu and allergy symptoms hitting many Central Texans this spring. But Krusee, for much longer than 10 days, has also been fighting the creeping realization among legislators that over the past two sessions, they might have granted Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Department of Transportation too much power to create toll roads. For the first time in his three sessions as...

AUSTIN – Four years of simmering frustration boiled over at a recent Texas Senate committee hearing with just one thing on the agenda: toll roads. An overflow crowd bashed and booed the Texas Transportation Commission in front of mostly like-minded senators. For eight hours, lawmakers and audience members alike questioned the state's increasing reliance on tolls. "We can't simply build roads at any cost," Sen. John Carona said to cheers. "We've got to build them smarter." Some argue that toll roads are the only smart play in a state where the Legislature has refused to raise the tax on gasoline,...

The Trans-Texas Corridor, the Goliath of Texas road projects, is taking a real bruising from the slingshot crowd these days, with so many Davids piling up stones that critics and supporters alike are beginning to believe it may be stoppable. In the last few weeks, more than a dozen bills have been introduced in the both the Texas State and House to either stop the project cold or put enough restrictions on it to chill the interest of private investors. In late February, a state audit report revealed that millions of public dollars have secretly been spent on the project...

Hundreds of people angry with the state's toll road contracts sounded off before state senators Thursday. Public hearings on toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor began early Thursday morning. Senators invited public input because state lawmakers will make some important decisions this session about how to pay for highways. So many people showed up that crowds were forced into overflow rooms. The Texas Department of Transportation and toll roads have found many critics, largely because of the private companies hired to build and run them. There are also questions about how much taxpayers pay for the roads. Speakers sounded...

A new study throws cold water on a long-cherished claim of toll road advocates, surprising some of them, and could redefine a debate over if and how Texas should toll its highways. For more than a year now, state officials have scared the dickens out of motorists by saying the gas tax would have to go up $1.20 a gallon to build all the roads needed statewide over the next quarter-century. That would almost triple the 38.4 cents drivers now pay in federal and state fuel taxes. Since that's politically impossible to do, the argument goes, toll roads should be...

The continuing political parlor game of "What price tolls?" took an interesting turn Nov. 7. The Big Toller himself — Gov. Rick Perry — seemed to suffer little damage from what was a sustained battering on the issue, losing only three of the dozens of counties in the paths of the two proposed Trans-Texas Corridor routes. But voters in Texas House District 52 alongside the new Texas 45 North tollway put something of a scare into state Rep. Mike Krusee. The Williamson County Republican is the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, stage-managed the birth of the controversial Phase 2...

Dear Milam County Citizens, Do you recall a few months ago reading an article in which State Representative, Mike Krusee, Chairman of the House Transportation Committee (and according to the Star Telegram, one of six Texas representatives issued a subpoena investigating accusations of illegal fundraising), made statements telling Milam county not to worry because the Trans Texas Corridor was not going to run through Milam County? I read it in a local newspaper, and I wondered at the time how he knew this when the proposed route had not been decided on or approved by Washington yet. But, have you...

After working its way through an obstacle course, Trans-Texas Corridor-69 — using the proposed Interstate 69 corridor — just might become a reality after all. Hit by a lack of federal funds because of 9/11, the war in Iraq and then hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the move toward funding construction for the corridor is moving again, said Lufkin Mayor Louis Bronaugh. "The war and the hurricanes took the federal funds," Bronaugh said. This time officials will be looking for a private partnership to fund the corridor, he said. A study conducted in February by the Government and Business Enterprises Division,...

Public hearings could begin as early as May around the state on plans for the controversial Trans Texas Corridor project.Work is underway on a 4,000-page draft environmental impact statement that will identify a 10-mile-wide route for the superhighway.Once the draft is completed, hearings will be scheduled.“We want to do this right. It takes time to conduct a thorough analysis,” said Michael Behrens, executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation.“It’s hard to predict the timing of things but we hope to have the draft statement available for public review within the next 3 to 6 weeks.”The principal study area is...

State Rep. Mike Krusee sought me out last week to say he didn't particularly care for my Jan. 23 column. Krusee, a Williamson County Republican who chairs the House Transportation Committee, hated the headline: "Hey, buddy, wanna buy a toll road?" He said, with some justification, that it implied something crooked was going on. But Krusee especially didn't like the last sentence. In a quick discussion of who might get to set toll rates on a privately run toll road, I pointed out that Texans don't vote on who serves on the board of directors for Cintra. Cintra is the...

Freight rail lines running in the middle of major roads will be a thing of the past, if voters approve Proposition 1. Proposition 1 would amend the Texas Constitution to create a Rail Relocation Fund to be used by the Texas Department of Transportation and regional mobility authorities. Early voting began Monday for the Tuesday, Nov. 8 election. Essentially, Proposition 1 is asking voters if they want to spend taxpayer money and taxpayer credit to move rail lines like the one in the middle of MoPac. Round Rock Rep. Mike Krusee supports the idea. "For a long time, a goal...

The state Legislature's passage of a property rights bill last week could result in specific protections for landowners who find themselves in the path of the Trans-Texas Corridor and other state tollway projects, observers said. The Legislature gave final approval on Tuesday to the bill, which restricts governments from using the power of eminent domain to acquire property for the benefit a private party or to create economic development. The bill also includes an amendment that prohibits the Texas Department of Transportation from using eminent domain to acquire land for “ancillary facilities,” such as gas stations and convenience stores, on...

The Texas Department of Transportation is in the process of identifying preliminary routes for its proposed Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, some of which could be located in Montgomery County. According to Gaby Garcia, spokeswoman for TxDOT's Turnpike Authority Division, TxDOT will conduct approximately 38 public meetings this summer, at which time the proposed routes would be unveiled. A public meeting is tentatively scheduled in Montgomery County in August, she said, although the date and time have not yet been determined. The initial study areas of the I-69/TTC corridor, which is to extend from Mexico to northeast Texas, range from 20 to...

AUSTIN — Rural landowners carrying protest signs and shouting angry slogans gathered at the Capitol to speak their minds. Their goal: Stopping Gov. Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor. Farmers and ranchers say the huge highway project will gobble thousands of acres of their property only to make money for private toll road companies. “The government is out of control. They’re trying to take our property rights away from us,” said Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, one of the legislators who spoke at the May 3 rally. Republican Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn —one of Perry’s potential GOP primary opponents in 2006 — joined...

WASHINGTON — A political spat erupted Tuesday between Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison when the senator filed an amendment to the $284 billion transportation bill that would ban tolls on existing federal highways. The amendment would repeal existing language in the highway bill that would allow states to erect toll booths on federal highways to pay for transportation projects. "Tolling existing roads to pay for new ones is double taxation," said Hutchison, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Commerce and Transportation Committee. But the amendment was seen as a shot at Perry's proposed $175 billion Trans...

Activists taking shots at the planned Trans Texas Corridor have found some legislators willing to take a stab at trimming the colossal super-highway and ensuring that state authorities control the toll rates. Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, who sits on the appropriations committee and is vice chairman of the House Rural Caucus, said she filed House Bill 1273 in an attempt to balance the huge scope of the corridor with grass-root concerns. "My goal is to better the concept," she said. "I will be very saddened for Texas if we don't have some assurances in place." Kolkhorst was joined by co-authors...