Bush Administration Quitely Plans NAFTA Super Highway

Human Events ^ | 6/16/06 | Jerome R. Corsi

[o_zarkman44]

Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway By Jerome R. Corsi Human Events 6-14-6

Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.

Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman's Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation's most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new "SENTRI" system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.

As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming "North American Union" that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.

Just examine the following websites to get a feel for the magnitude of NAFTA Super Highway planning that has been going on without any new congressional legislation directly authorizing the construction of the planned international corridor through the center of the country.

* NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., is a "non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world's first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America." Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.

* Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an "investor based organization supported by the public and private sector" to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: "For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality."

* The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an "SPP office" that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that "(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented." The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.

* The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road.

The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.

A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.

[SusaninOhio]

I like that plan.

I guess I don't feel like I am over-reacting, as some are saying here. When I read that SPAIN will OWN some of this thing - what is that all about? Didn't we buy some of the US from Spain and France, so they would never have a foothold in our country and it would be all belong to WE THE PEOPLE?

There are a lot of questions that need to be asked and anwered. If this idea is in fact something that will benefit the US and all of its citizens, we need to know how and why.

The NASCO website does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling about the future of our security.

[o_zarkman44]

Soon coming to KC Customs........IMPORTS

[MineralMan]

"Perhaps this has been 'common' knowledge for a long time, (just not to me?) but why is the dropdown selection on the NASCO website for MEMBERS, password protected? I guess since this asinine plan is being paid for from the planning on up with our tax dollars, we have no business knowing who its MEMBERS are?
"

I accessed the NASCO site you're talking about, and visited most of the drop down menu pages.

I see that this group does have a Members Only section. That's true of most web sites for organizations. There's a nice membership application on the site. You could join, and see the rest.

[hosepipe]

[ Unfortunately for the nutjobs, things exist called FACTS. ]

Like 20 "plus" million amnestied facts voting democrat..
FOR HILLARY.. screw the road.. Theres bigger fish to fry.. other than serious graft in a future highway bill for some wazoo road.. Globalism has larger issues than highway construction.. On the other hand this projected highway is a clue.. An Open Border is a multi issue FACT..

[MizSterious]

Lots of sites have functions that are for members only. FR only allows registered members to post, for instance. Hardly sinister.

[Reagan Man]

Instead of engaging in personal attacks, look at the facts. Globalism has taken root in America and is now expanding its one-world perspective. This is just another example that many folks see as the selling out of America. Free trade doesn't neccessarily equate to fair trade.

Jerome Corsi has been talking about the so-called "unification" of North America for some time now. If you believe a North American equivalent to the EU is good, you're the "wackjob". Bush`s support for globalism plays right into the hands of those who support the idea of uniting Mexico, Canada and the USA into one giant hemispheric consortium. WalMart America! This mindset undermines US sovereignty and tosses the Constitution out the window. Sorry you don't see it that way.

Btw, Jerome Corsi did a pretty good job on working with John O'Neill and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in further exposing John Kerry for being a total lowlife. While I don't agree with all of Corsi's opinions, Unfit for Command was a big reason why Dubya won the 2004 election.

[SusaninOhio]

http://www.nascocorridor.com/pages/about/about.htm

Under ABOUT NASCO, the MEMBER ONLY link.

Just saying, tax money has been expended already for the planning and design phase, and shouldn't this be an open book for anyone to see?

It isn't as thought the site contains cockpit details of the JSF. It's a ROAD, as I keep hearing from other folks on this site. Only a ROAD.

[plangent]

Agree. The moonbats are barking.

For the 'Other Side of the Story' try this link

http://www.nascocorridor.com/

[mylife]

"bypassing the Longshoreman's Union in the process."

Its horsepucky.
It opens one port in mexico that wont be controled by longshoremen.
Are longshoremen supposed to be in control of foriegn ports?

L0L

The longshoremen still will work in all the American ports that they are presently working in.
All this does is improves the trade ifrastructure, lowers trade prices and gets a bunch of trucks off of the freeways we have to commute on

[Dog Gone]

Not to mention semi-loads of illegals being transported to Kansas City before there is any kind of "border inspection"?

That's simply a false understanding. It's not so. Border inspections will continue, and if anything, they will get more intense.

[Dog Gone]

Because Corsi helped with the Swiftboat stuff doesn't give him carte blanche to become a nutjob about everything else.

Facts are still facts.

There was trade between countries even before our nation was founded.

Roads were invented before Christ.

All of that preceded the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Jerome Corsi's birth.

[Dog Gone]

That's a good link. Thanks.

[mylife]

The North American Inland Port Network (NAIPN), a sub-committee of NASCO, has been tasked with developing an active inland port network along our corridor to specifically alleviate congestion at maritime ports and our nation’s borders. The NAIPN envisions an integrated, efficient and secure network of inland ports specializing in the transportation of containerized cargo in North America. The main guiding principal of the NAIPN is to develop logistics systems that enhance global security, but at the same time do not impede the cost-effective and efficient flow of goods.

[MineralMan]

"Under ABOUT NASCO, the MEMBER ONLY link.

Just saying, tax money has been expended already for the planning and design phase, and shouldn't this be an open book for anyone to see?
"

Not necessarily. This is a private organization. Yes, it has received federal funds for this planning, etc. Lots of private organizations receive federal funds in that way. The Members Only area is probably a discussion group or something like that. I'll betcha Boeing won't let you see everyting on their site, either, and they get WAY more than $2.5 Million.

Not everything is a conspiracy

[o_zarkman44]

We can't stop the van loads of illegals invading America. Trucks will only open up more transportation of the invaders.

[texastoo]

This bears repeating. LOL

It isn't as thought the site contains cockpit details of the JSF. It's a ROAD, as I keep hearing from other folks on this site. Only a ROAD

[Dog Gone]

Border inspection is the solution.

ROADS are not the problem.

This should not be a difficult concept.

[tertiary01]

For this to be a big deal about nothin, it's sure got the OBlers out in force.Don't they realize their behaviors belie their words?

[canuck_conservative]

[o_zarkman44]

The High-Tech Highway
Interstate 35 was added to the list of high priority corridors as part of the NHS legislation, but it was not included in ISTEA. The North America Superhighway Coalition, formed by leaders from 21 Texas counties, coordinates efforts to secure funding for highway. In addition, the coalition wants to see Interstate 35 reborn as a high-tech superhighway. According to Texas' Fiscal Notes:

"Supporters in Texas propose that a fiber optic spine be installed along Interstate 35 to track cargo from origin to destination and to recommend the quickest and most cost-efficient routes to be drivers. The superhighway would include international signs and would allow cargos to be pre-cleared at U.S. Customs at inland ports. All tolls, taxes, and fees could be prepaid and transferred to appropriate states. Border inspections could be cut to a minimum. In May 1995, then-U.S. Transportation Secretary Federico Pena announced the two pilot projects designed to automate the clearance of commercial border crossings and to improve safety. The projects ... are expected to electronically identify the vehicle and check the pertinent safety, customs, and immigration data before the shipment's arrival. Tests on the project began in the spring of 1995 and are expected to end in early 1997."

These tests may be ongoing both in Texas and in Arizona.

Interstate 35 and Interstate 69 (Corridors 18 and 20)
The North America Superhighway Coalition was founded to advocate Interstate 35 as a route from Canada to Mexico. The Interstate 35 Corridor Coalition was partially developed because of a perceived threat from the proposed Interstate 69 being considered in Eastern Texas. I have read several articles that attest to this rivalry, including the map above. Despite all the debate between proponents of both corridors, in my opinion it all comes down to this: Interstate 35 is built and Interstate 69 is not.
http://www.aaroads.com/high-priority/corr23.html


My comment below.
These highways have been studied since the mid 1990's. Much of the plan involved in the study has already been accomplished. I would also like to point out increased illegal immigration and non enforcement of immigration laws have steadily declined during the same period of time. I believe the business aspect of illegal immigration could not be more clearly defined.