Free Republic

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...

Start all over with the Trans Texas Corridor. And let the legislature oversee future highway planning. That was the gist of the testimony delivered by TFB State Director Albert Thompson on behalf of the Texas Farm Bureau during a recent Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security hearing on the massive transportation project. "...it appears to us that the legislature has given the Texas Department of Transportation what amounts to a blank check worth approximately $180 billion," Thompson said on Feb. 9. "We would feel more comfortable if citizens had the opportunity to voice opinions with elected officials who should...

Making tacks By Kathy Williams Herald Democrat Editor's note: This is the first in an occasional series on the Trans-Texas Corridor and how it will affect Texoma drivers. State officials held public hearings in Sherman and Gainesville this week on proposed paths of the Trans-Texas Corridor. The Corridor is a futuristic infrastructure promoters of the concept say will move people, freight and utilities as efficiently, safely and quickly as possible. Texas Gov. Rick Perry introduced the concept in January 2002, estimating its total cost at $145.2 billion to $183.5 billion. The Texas Department of Transportation took the concept and developed...

The Texas Department of Transportation held one of its 27 public meetings at NT's Gateway Center Wednesday, concerning the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, a highway that will run from Oklahoma to Mexico. The highway is estimated to cover an area approximately 800 miles long and will include 77 counties. The Trans-Texas Corridor is a long-term project. Its estimated completion date will not be for another 30 to 60 years. The corridor will come with a price tag of somewhere between $145.2 billion and $183.2 billion. Paying for the highway was one of the major concerns addressed at the meeting. Obtaining funds...

AUSTIN -- Everything's big in the Lone Star State, but the term "superhighway" barely begins to describe Texas's transportation plan for the 21st century. Called the Trans-Texas Corridor, it is the most ambitious highway project since the Eisenhower administration introduced the interstate system in the 1950s. The $184 billion, 50-year plan calls for building 4,000 miles of roadways up to a quarter-mile wide. Each corridor would contain six high-speed toll lanes for cars and trucks; six rail lines and easements for petroleum, natural gas and water pipelines, as well as electric, broadband and other telecommunications lines. With Texas's population expected...

Getting There: Ben Wear Time to pay attention to Perry's toll roads AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Monday, February 7, 2005 Back when the Trans-Texas Corridor seemed to be only a 4,000-mile, $180 billion gleam in Gov. Rick Perry's eye -- that is, a year ago -- it was easy not to take it seriously. The Texas Department of Transportation held informational meetings in all 254 Texas counties, and almost nobody came. At the one in Bastrop, there were three real human beings, plus me and about a half-dozen Transportation Department employees who looked like they'd much rather have been at home with...

The time to speak out and ask questions about the Trans Texas Corridor is near. Residents in Caldwell and Guadalupe counties will get a better understanding of potential impacts to their land usage and future tax revenues next month during Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) public meetings concerning the proposed corridor. The corridor, as envisioned, would consist of a network of brand-new "transportation routes" that would carry passenger vehicles and large trucks in separate lanes and also provide for railway freight, high-speed commuter rail and "infrastructure" for utilities including water, oil, gas, electricity, broadband and "other telecommunications services," TxDOT says....

   BEIJING, Feb. 1 -- A Charitable body set up by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and his wife has bought into Shanghai-listed water utility Nanhai Development Co., the latest foreign investor seeking to tap into the potential of China’s water industry.     Foshan, Guangdong-based Nanhai Development said in its 2004 financial statement the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation purchased 523,501 shares during November and December last year to become its ninth-largest shareholder.     Nanhai Development did not disclose how much the Gates charity paid for the shares, but domestic media reported the foundation had bought Nanhai Development shares at about eight...

SBC Communications, the second-largest regional phone company in the nation, is in talks to buy AT&T for more than $16 billion, according to executives close to the negotiations. A deal, if reached, would be the final chapter in the 120-year history of AT&T, the first technological giant of the modern age and the original model for telecommunications companies worldwide. A deal would be a reunion of sorts, putting back together some of the largest pieces of the Ma Bell telephone monopoly, which was broken up in 1984. The talks, which the executives described as "fluid" and "very, very sensitive"...

One analyst says he thinks electricity is among the few things not open to free-market competition. With just 11 months left before a five-year move to electric deregulation in Ohio is complete, competition hasn't materialized and it seems unlikely that state regulators can ever make it happen. Deregulation was instituted in 2000 under a mandate by the Legislature. The initial promise was to lure outside suppliers to Ohio that would offer competing rates on electricity - and savings to northwest Ohio consumers who historically have paid some of the highest rates in the state. But so far, the only benefits...

Have you ever excavated in your yard, or maybe on the street? Even if you haven't you may be aware of a catch-all number to call. The reason this number is around is because there are thousands of underground utilities in any city, gas, water, power, ect. When you call this number you initiate what's called an UNDERGROUND SERVICE ALERT, or USA. The utitlities will then come out to the area of the dig and mark with spray paint where their lines are and mark them USA/GAS, and so on. I work for a major utility and today I recieved...

FCC commissioners yesterday unanimously approved rules for broadband over power line (BPL) technology, which policymakers hope will provide the elusive third broadband access line into most U.S. homes and reduce—or eliminate—the need to regulate the broadband industry. Certainly the most outspoken opposition to BPL has come from the amateur radio community, which has claimed that BPL will create interference with its operations. FCC Chairman Michael Powell called amateur radio operators “an important resource” and expressed hope that the rules the FCC has created will protect them, but he said obstructing the deployment of BPL is not an option. “The potential...

The Journal News in New York has an excellent story on Mirant and the Rockland school district tax dispute. It is well worth reading. The writer admits Mirant is probably due a refund. Go to the following link (insert "tt" where necessary) and read: h**p://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/091204/b087ep01jn0912.html

... [S]tates' attorneys general garnered a huge windfall for their treasuries (and for the bank accounts of selected private lawyers) in tort suits against tobacco companies. The suits were invalid as a matter of law, but never mind -- they pressured Big Tobacco to agree, in exchange for shelter from competition, to split future profits with the states. (When private parties do this, it's racketeering.) ... [T]hey filed a new pseudo-tort intimidation suit against five large electric utilities. What civil wrong have these defendants committed? They dared to operate 174 power plants, in full compliance with state and federal regulations....

Democrats meeting in Boston this week are promising to support coal as a key domestic fuel for power generation and say the party would “move beyond OPEC” by diversifying sources of oil used in the United States. The party also calls for investing billions of dollars in technologies to generate electricity with less pollution. “We believe coal must continue its important role in a new energy economy, while achieving high environmental standards,” the 2004 Democratic National Platform Committee report says. In addition, the platform would invest in hydrogen technologies. It supports “mandatory, enforceable reliability standards” and creation of public-private partnerships...

The Power Is Blowin' In The WindLAMAR, Colo., July 2, 2004 Mixed in with the sound of meadowlarks, tractors and the hum of the wind on Colorado's southeastern plains is a low, steady beat: "whoop, whoop, whoop." Wind turbines at the Oklahoma Wind Energy Center, north of Woodward, Oklahoma (Photo: AP) It comes from a line of towering turbines that are producing electricity used across Colorado. The sound coming from a ridge south of this farming town has become a beckoning call for people struggling through a fifth year of crop-killing drought. "I get calls pretty much on a weekly...

Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania this week sent out shutoff notices to 29,000 residential and commercial customers -- 7.2 percent of its customer base -- judged to be seriously delinquent, and that owe the utility some $11 million. And delinquent customers of other area gas utility companies will be hearing from their suppliers too, as both Dominion Peoples Gas and Equitable Gas Co. have sent, or are expected to send their termination announcements within the next few weeks. April is the time of year for such notices as local natural gas distribution companies are prohibited during the winter by the state...

President Bush doesn't talk about new-source review very often. In fact, he has mentioned it in a speech to the public only once, in remarks he delivered on Sept. 15, 2003, to a cheering crowd of power-plant workers and executives in Monroe, Mich., about 35 miles south of Detroit. It was an ideal audience for his chosen subject. New-source review, or N.S.R., involves an obscure and complex set of environmental rules and regulations that most Americans have never heard of, but to people who work in the power industry, few subjects are more crucial. Advertisement The Monroe plant, which is...

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) member Joseph Kelliher is urging Congress to pass comprehensive energy legislation that would give his agency better enforcement tools to punish companies that break commission rules and establish mandatory reliability standards to help ensure grid reliability. Kelliher said he is optimistic the Senate will be able to user the language into law. Calling Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM) a “superb legislator,” Kelliher said he thinks the bill can pass in the near future. He noted that the 1992 Energy Policy Act passed after going through similar trials, and said the bill contains essentials...

<p>The Sacramento County District Attorney's Office and 10 local water utilities are suing the nation's major gasoline producers to pay for the cleanup of MTBE-polluted groundwater.</p> <p>The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Sacramento Superior Court, is believed to be the first of its kind to claim damages for threatening drinking water wells, rather than actually contaminating them.</p>