NAFTA superhighway heads north

First there was the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc. website to keep an eye on with their plan for the great transportation corridor from Mexico to Canada’s North, to speed up North American Union.  That plan is  moving forward full speed in the USA.  And now there’s another website to watch, the Ports-To-Plains Trade Corridor.

NAFTA superhighway heads north

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Posted: June 21, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

The Texas Department of Transportation, or TxDOT, is now moving to apply its four-football-fields-wide NAFTA superhighway plan of building new train-truck-car-pipeline corridors to the states of Oklahoma and Colorado in a design that stretches from the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas, to Denver, Colo.

The concept is for the states of Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado to apply the TTC toll road concept first developed by TxDOT for the more urban routes parallel to Interstate 35 (TTC-35) and along the route of Interstate 69 (TTC-69) into the largely rural areas along the Ports-to-Plains Corridor, creating what TxDOT calls “Rural Trans-Texas Corridors.”

To advance this plan, the Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor Coalition, a trade association sponsored by the consulates of Mexico and Canada, along with the TxDOT and the Colorado Department of Transportation, is co-sponsoring a “Great Plains 2007” international conference scheduled to be held at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in Denver Sept. 19-21, 2007.

US official lies re: NAFTA corridor?

I wonder if the U.S. government has trained their officials in telling lies. Either that, or they keep their Undersecretaries locked in dungeons.

World Net News reports that a US Department of Transportation official, Jeff Shane, told a US House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that the North American SuperCorridor, aka the NAFTA Highway, is an “Internet conspiracy” and “an urban legend.”

I suppose, then, that the NASCO Corridor website must be part of the conspiracy and that of the Trans-Texas Corridor must also be part of it. And, those I’ve referenced in numerous posts here at P’n’P, the boards of directors as well as numerous government and business officials from Canada, the USA, and Mexico, must be the conspirators.

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
Plan for superhighway
ripped as ‘urban legend’
Congressman, DOT undersecretary disagree over threat to sovereignty

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Posted: January 26, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Jeffrey N. Shane, undersecretary for DOT

Congressmen and a policy official of the Department of Transportation engaged in a spirited exchange over whether NAFTA Super Highways were a threat to U.S. sovereignty or an imaginary “Internet conspiracy,” such as the “black helicopter myths,” advanced by fringe lunatics. At a meeting Wednesday of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Jeffrey N. Shane, undersecretary of transportation for policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation, testified.

During the questioning by committee members, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, asked Shane about the existence of plans for a “NAFTA superhighway.”

Shane responded he was “not familiar with any plan at all, related to NAFTA or cross-border traffic.”

After further questioning by Poe, Shane stated reports of NAFTA superhighways or corridors were “an urban legend.”

At this, the chairman, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., questioned aloud whether Shane was just “gaming semantics” when responding to Poe’s question.

“Mr. Shane was either blissfully ignorant or he may have been less than candid with the committee,” Poe told WND in a telephone interview.

Lockheed Martin, China, & the NAFTA Highway

I’ve been following this North American SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc thing for a few months now and it continues to become more and more interesting.  It seems that now the Chinese are getting into it, too!  They have ownership in U.S. cargo monitors through a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.

What I learned from the article below is that Hutchinson Whampoa (about whom I’ve written before and with whom our Premier and Minister of Industry & Resources have met) and Savi Technologies, a Lockheed Martin Company have hooked up.  Hutchinson Whampoa, Ltd. is the holding company of billionaire Li Ka-shing. Lockheed Martin is the biggest player in the military industrial complex, and was a key player onboard the Superhighway organization.  William N. (Nick) Steele, the President of Lockheed Martin Sygenex, Inc. was once  a Board Member of NASCO (but has since disappeared from the NASCO web pages.  I’m certain some capable blog reader will find that old page hiding somewhere.)

So, it makes one wonder if this project is simply another that will line the already overstuffed pockets of those running the corporate world…

Chinese have ownership in U.S. cargo monitors
Firm tied to communist regime involved in deal to set up high-tech sensors

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Posted: December 7, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

A Chinese company with close ties to the communist government owns 49 percent of the Lockheed Martin subsidiary that is negotiating a contract with the North American SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc. – the Dallas-based trade association – to place cargo monitoring sensors along as superhighway stretching from Mexico to Canada.

China’s Hutchinson Port Holdings entered into a $50 million joint venture in 2005 with Savi Technology, a Lockheed Martin wholly-owned subsidiary, to form a new company called Savi Networks LLC. Savi Technology owns 51 percent and Hutchinson Port Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chinese holding company Hutchinson Whampoa Limited, holds the rest.

Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Leslie Holoweiko confirmed to WND that Savi Networks LLC is the company named in the contract currently being negotiated with NASCO to provide cargo sensors all along the NASCO I-35 super-corridor. If successfully negotiated, the contract would appear to give Hutchinson Holdings operational involvement all along the emerging I-35 NAFTA superhighway. Hutchinson Holdings also operates the port at Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico.

It’s just all so interesting, isn’t it?  Read the full article.

& still more on NAFTA Hiway

I’ve noticed a recent upsurge in visitors to my NAFTA Highway posts so it must be time to add some new information to the growing body. The following piece seems to have taken a while to get out. It’s a very interesting piece. I’ll leave it to Canadian lawyers to let me know if anything like eminent domain exists in Canada.

Firm Will Use Eminent Domain To Grab Land For NAFTA Super Highway

Posted: Aug 26, 2006

CIOB International Construction Review–But a corridor of this overall width – maybe as much as 360 m – has alarmed people who stand forced to surrender property in land and buildings to the project. This concern has been sharpened by the disclosure that, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the developers intend to exercise the principle of ‘eminent domain‘ in land acquisition proceedings on the grounds that they are acting as agents of a public authority.

The developers apparently believe that such rights, once established in Texas, could then be applied across the entire 6,500 km length of the NAFTA highway. Whether that proves to be so depends on the outcome of any challenge that might be launched against such a claim.

The Cintra-Zachry partnership is however in a strong position because they have already secured an agreement granting them the right to develop the new highway in Texas. They have also put money down for the privilege.

The first concession within the Trans-Texas Corridor has already been awarded to Cintra. According to a statement by parent company Ferrovial, construction is expected to start early in 2007 once environmental and other permits have been obtained. …

Cintra’s partner for the five-year road building programme is the San Antonio-based contractor Zachry Construction Corp, but Ferrovial’s construction company Agroman is getting a share in the business.

Zachry joined with Cintra in a scheme to provide private investment worth $6 billion. The assignment is to design, build and operate a four-lane toll road covering the 500 km distance between Dallas and San Antonio, bypassing the State capital at Austin.

For this concession Cintra is paying the State of Texas $1.2 billion. It gives them the right to build and operate this initial segment of the intended Trans-Texas Corridor.

This would be part of the ‘super-highway’ spanning the United States from the Mexican border at Laredo, making its way through Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma and connecting with the Canadian highway system north of Duluth, Minnesota.

Because it would provide a connection all the way between Canada and Mexico, the project is also described as the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) super highway.

Cintra has also recently taken over management of the Indiana Toll Road (ITR) after paying $3.8 billion to the State’s finance authority for the transfer of the asset. In a 50:50 consortium with the Australian bank Macquarie, Cintra now has charge of this 250 km highway which links Chicago with the eastern seaboard of the United States.

The concession will run over 75 years.

The company commented: “The project reinforces Cintra’s presence in the U.S., a strategic market for the company: it has a 99-year concession to operate the Chicago Skyway ($1.83 billion) which links with the Indiana Toll Road, and it is a strategic partner of the State of Texas for 50 years to develop the Trans-Texas Corridor, one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever undertaken in the United States.”