Chris Hammel, president of the Blackland Coalition, a grassroots group opposed to the corridor, said Monday that opponents still hope the project can be diminished or stopped despite setbacks in the Legislature. Gov. Rick Perry’s veto of bills that addressed concerns about the corridor are balanced by a Legislature that he said honestly tried to address those concerns.
“There has been an incredible outcry on the part of the public to their legislators against the corridor,” Hammel said Monday.
He said some of the bills passed by the Legislature, including the ones vetoed by Perry, indicate that legislators are listening.
Two bills that caught a lot of attention - one modified in committee and one vetoed by the governor - related directly to the Trans-Texas Corridor.
The first, Senate Bill 792, calls for a two-year moratorium on most new privately financed toll roads. That bill was signed by Perry but without Amendment 13, which would have closed loopholes that made exceptions for certain projects, including TTC-35, the first phase of the corridor project.
Legislators have made it clear that even though the bill does not ban private contracts for TTC-35 that no contracts on that stretch of proposed road should be signed.
“The governor and (Transportation Commissioner) Ric Williamson are treating this like a victory, and that bothers me,” Hammel said.
The Texas Transportation Coalition, a group that favors the Trans-Texas Corridor, applauded the passage of the bill, minus Amendment 13.
“Senate Bill 792 allows critical infrastructure projects to move forward while allowing further review of the value of public-private partnerships to Texans,” spokesman William Noble said in a release.
“Texas needs billions of dollars to build the roads required to meet our growing needs and we believe cash-strapped gas-taxpayers will find public-private partnerships to be a far more agreeable solution to massive gas tax increases.”
The second bill, HB 2006, pertained to eminent domain proceedings in the state. The bill, authored by Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston, and sponsored in the Senate by Kyle Janek, R-Houston, sought to clarify what public land uses were acceptable in order to take private land and provided landowners with more recourses.
The sticking point for the governor was a provision that would have allowed landowners to be compensated for loss of access to their property because of road construction or changes in traffic patterns.
The bill passed the Texas House with 125 of 150 votes and passed unanimously in the Senate. Perry vetoed the bill, saying it would have cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
“This bill will slow down and shut down needed construction projects through the creation of a new category of damages that are beyond the pale of reason,” Perry said in a written statement.
Rep. Dianne White Delisi (R-Temple) voted for both bills.
Reaction to the veto from property rights advocates and agriculture organizations was swift and overwhelmingly negative.
Kenneth Dierschke, president of the Texas Farm Bureau, called it the most important property rights legislation in more than a decade. He said that the bureau’s board of directors met with Perry earlier in the session and he agreed that eminent domain needs to be fixed.
“The taking of private property has become far too easy in this state,” Dierschke said. “Obviously, there are many powerful interests that prefer it stay that way.”
Jon Means, president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, said the amendment that Perry targeted as unacceptable applied only to state highway projects and would not have affected county or city road projects.
“Gov. Perry has sent the message loud and clear that he does not support private property rights,” Means said. “HB 2006 would have restored fairness to the condemnation process and ensured that property owners are justly compensated for their loss.”
Perry announced the concept of the Trans-Texas Corridor in 2002 as a series of six-lane highways with separate lanes for cars and commercial trucks, high-speed rail lines and utility corridors. The corridors could be as wide as 1,200 feet.
TTC-35 would run about 600 miles from Gainesville to Laredo, roughly parallel to Interstate 35. Construction would be phased in gradually over 50 years with the most congested areas getting the first segments.
An international consortium, Cintra-Zachry, would build the road, set the toll rates and operate concessions along the corridors.
The proposal has drawn widespread criticism along its proposed route. More than 1,500 people, most of them opposed to the corridor, showed at a public meeting in Temple to speak against the corridor. Opposition has centered on the massive scale, loss of property, division of property and the fact that a foreign company, Cintra, will reap most of the profits from the highway.
ccoppedge@temple-telegram.com
