MYSTERY GROUP PROMOTING INFRASTRUCTURE PRIVATIZATION BOOSTED BY TOLL ROAD LOBBYISTS

The Intercept ^ | July 23, 2021 | Lee Fang

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

LET’S BUILD INFRASTRUCTURE is preparing to launch formally in Washington, D.C., next week with a six-figure advertising blitz focused on pressing lawmakers to use privatization, rather than taxation, to pay for the infrastructure proposals debated in Congress.

The organization touts public-private partnerships and a process known as “asset recycling,” in which the government finances new construction and repairs by selling or leasing roads, bridges, water utilities, parking lots, and other infrastructure assets to private contractors instead of paying for them with public funding. The private operators in turn recoup costs by adding tolls or increasing user fees, such as water bills or parking fees.

The new group, helmed by two former mayors, Republican Mick Cornett of Oklahoma City and Democrat Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, has published virtually no information about its supporters on its website or how it’s paying for the wave of television advertisements.

There is scant information about Let’s Build Infrastructure anywhere on the internet. The website was registered anonymously in June and leaves no trace about its funding sources. Cornett and Nutter have not responded to requests for comment.

But a trail of evidence, including social media posts as well as nonprofit business registration and lobbying documents, suggests that toll road operators are affiliated with the pro-privatization push.

In 2019, Hans Klinger, a registered lobbyist for toll road operator Cintra, the U.S. subsidiary of the Spanish infrastructure conglomerate Ferrovial, S.A., served as director of a nonprofit called Invest in Texas Roads Now. The group promoted a partnership to build six new tolled lanes on an expressway near Dallas on Interstate 635 and four on Interstate 35 in Texas.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I agree with you on fire and police. When it comes to these two great organizations that protect our lives and property, the usual capitalist model is cruel, and it fails to achieve the objective.

I pay for my water and sewer on the other hand. I’m fine with that; that can be easily metered and rationed by price. I think tolls can be useful for roads as well, but they should really only be imposed on major roads in conjunction with major improvements.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Agreed. When my late grandparents moved to Damascus, Maryland in the 1950s, their street was a commons cared for by the property owners. Since each owner had little interest in doing the whole of the street, the street was horribly deteriorated.

My grandfather, a good Christian man, had his own little paving company back then, so he generously used his own resources to ultimately bring the street to a usable condition. Eventually, the town took over the street and it has remained usable ever since.

[Irenic]

I think we Americans have become more and more lazy through the years.

That seems to open the door for our government nannies.

[Alberta's Child]

I’m not sure how many companies are “salivating” at the prospect of owning these highways. My experience suggests that’s not the case at all. As commercial ventures these toll roads aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Cintas, the company cited in this article, submitted the top bid back in the mid-2000s for a 75-year lease on the Indiana Turnpike. The venture was bankrupt within a decade due to revenue shortfalls, and the state got the road back to re-lease it after it had already collected a huge pile of money up front from the defunct investors.