[mazza]

And we don’t even own it! Rumor has it that SPAIN is leasing this highway from each individual state. For 100 years!

[nicmarlo]

Rumor has it that SPAIN is leasing this highway from each individual state. For 100 years!

It's no rumor, and it's more than just Spain which has leases.

From Eagle Forum:

• "On March 23, 2005, the United States, Canada and Mexico entered into an unprecedented trilateral Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) to establish a common security strategy and promote economic growth, competitiveness and quality of life. . . . All three countries have agreed to create a single, integrated program for North American trusted travelers by 2008." Press release from U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 6-27-05.

• The Texas segment (known as the Trans-Texas Corridor) will begin construction next year. . . . In April 2006, TxDOT released a 4000-page Environmental Impact Statement that describes a corridor that will be 1200 feet wide (the size of four football fields). It will parallel Interstate 35, and be five lanes north and five lanes south (3 cars, 2 trucks). In the middle will be pipelines and rail lines. It will also have a 200-foot wide utility corridor. The corridor will start in Laredo, Texas, run past Austin to the Texas-Oklahoma border. However, the plans ultimately call for building some 4,000 miles of highway-railway-utility super-corridors throughout Texas over the next 50 years, using some 584,000 acres of what is now Texas farm and ranchland, at an estimated cost of $184 billion. . . . This NAFTA superhighway will connect with ports in Mexico (specifically Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas) for NAFTA trade. The plan is to ship containers of cheap goods produced by under-market labor in China and the Far East into North America via Mexican ports. From the Mexican ports, Mexican truck drivers and railroad workers will transport the goods across the Mexican border with Texas. Once in the U.S., the routes will proceed north to Kansas City along the NAFTA Super-Highway, ready to be expanded by the Trans-Texas Corridor and NAFTA railroad routes being put in place by Kansas City Southern." Point of View, Commentary by Kerby Anderson, 10-20-06.

• "What is NASCO? It is a non-profit 501(c)(6) organization that functions as a trade association and sometimes lobbying group for the public and private entities that are members. NASCO is an acronym for North America's SuperCorridor Coalition. . . . According to the groups' website, NASCO is 'dedicated to developing the world's first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor.' . . . The city of Kansas City, Mo, and the Kansas City SmartPort are both listed on the NASCO website as NASCO members. The Kansas City Area Development Council has directly confirmed that the Kansas City SmartPort intends to build a Mexican customs facility to facilitate out-going traffic headed to Mexico. . . . The Kansas City SmartPort brochure could not be more explicit: 'Kansas City offers the opportunity for sealed cargo containers to travel to Mexican port cities with virtually no border delays. It will streamline shipments from Asia.'" Posted by Jerome Corsi, Human Events, 6-26-06.

• "This spring, city officials signed off on a 50-year lease for the Mexican facility, with an option for 50 more years. . . . The council earlier this year earmarked $2.5 million in loans and $600,000 in direct aid to SmartPort, which would build and own the inland customs facility and sublet it to the Mexican government through agreements with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. . . . The Mexican government would have no significant investment and would occupy the customs facility operation rent-free. . . . SmartPort set up the deal to avoid imposing any expenses on Mexico above its ordinary border costs. . . . SmartPort meanwhile is seeking a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to purchase high-tech gamma-ray screening devices for drive-through inspections of truck cargo. . . . Confusion and secrecy have been hallmarks of the ambitious project. At the outset, Gutierrez and others have said the customs facility would be sovereign Mexican soil similar to a foreign embassy. This has changed." Posted by the Kansas City Star, 7-18-06

• "Kansas City, Missouri is planning to allow the Mexican government to open a Mexican customs office in conjunction with the Kansas City SmartPort. This will be the first foreign customs facility allowed to operate on U.S. soil. . . . Supercargo ships, carrying goods made by cheap labor in the Far East and China, will unload in the Mexican port at Lazaro Cardenas, eliminating the need to use costly union longshoremen workers in Los Angeles or Long Beach. Rather than transporting the containers by trucks from the West Coast, using Teamster drivers, or on rail, with the assistance of railroad labor in the United Transportation Union, the containers will be loaded onto Mexican non-union railroads at Lazaro Cardenas. At Monterrey, Mexico, the containers will then be loaded onto Mexican non-union semi-trailer trucks that will cross the border at Laredo, Texas, to begin their journey north along the Trans-Texas Corridor, the first leg of the planned continental NAFTA Super Corridor." Posted by Jerome Corsi on WorldNetDaily, 6-5-06.

• "On a single day in June, an Australian-Spanish partnership paid $3.6 billion to lease the Indiana Toll Road. An Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, and Texas officials decided to let a Spanish-American partnership build and run a toll road from Austin to Seguin for 50 years. . . . Last year, the city [Chicago] sold a 99-year lease on the eight-mile Chicago Skyway for $1.83 billion. The buyer was the same consortium that leased the Indiana Toll Road: Macquarie Infrastructure Group of Sydney, Australia, and Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte of Madrid, Spain." Associated Press, 7-15-06.

• "Homeland Security officials, who initially said there are about 850 terminals nationwide, now say there are 3,200 terminals, up to about 80 percent of which are operated by foreign companies and countries." Posted by the Washington Times, 3-8-06.