Liberty
Matters News Service
October 12, 2006
Location of Trans Texas Corridor Revealed
Within one week of filing over 200 Open Records Requests with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDoT), 253 secret pages of the contract to build the Trans Texas Corridor were released revealing maps locating the main roads, all access points, highway intersections, and rail lines. The Attorney General and TxDoT also settled their case and had it dismissed fearing a third party might intervene and depose state employees. Members of the Texas Legislature, who voted several times for this concept and the governor's office, are all denying that the TTC will ever be built, but evidence proves otherwise. "The maps are too detailed and engineered to be mere concepts," stated Dan Byfield, president of the American Land Foundation. "Investors have sunk billions of dollars into this project to build deep-water ports in Mexico and an inland port in Kansas City. Cintra-Zachry, the construction company that 'won' the contract from TxDoT, paid over $1.2 billion for the privilege of building a road. Then, Zachry Construction Company, in 2006, purchased W.W. Webber, LLC, the construction company that had multiple contracts to build major highways in the state of Texas, for another billion dollars. That is an incredible amount of investment for something that is not going to be built," Byfield continued. The contract can be viewed online at www.keeptexasmoving.com.
CA Coastal Commission Gets Come-uppance
A California appeals court has ruled the California Coastal Commission has no authority to dictate how and where Dennis Schneider can build his house. The San Luis Obispo County Planning Committee gave Schneider a permit to build his home on land overlooking the Pacific Ocean, subject to certain restrictions, back in February 2000. In April 2000, two Coastal Commission members protested the permit as inconsistent with policies and ordinances of the County's Local Coastal Plan. A Coastal Commission hearing found that Schneider's home would be visible from the ocean and, in April, 2004, granted him permission to build, but only in an inconspicuous and hazardous location on his property. Schneider sued the Commission, but the San Luis Obispo County trial court ruled against him. Schneider then appealed to the California Court of Appeals, Second Appellate District, which ruled unanimously for Schneider, saying that "the Coastal Commission has subordinated a landowner's real property rights to the occasional boater's 'right to a view' of the coastline." J. David Breemer, attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation said, "The Commission was attempting an outrageous power grab that would have put projects up and down the coast in jeopardy based on nothing more than the arbitrary aesthetic whims of the Commission..." The Commission may appeal the decision.
Coastal Commission Fails Attempt
To Control Views From The Ocean
From Russia With Love
The United States has timber to burn, 8.5 million acres this year, but none for lumber. U. S. homebuilders are looking to Russia to fill the needs for U. S. housing construction in anticipation that a trade agreement between Canada and the United States will lead to shortages and higher costs, as did a similar agreement in 1996 that caused lumber prices to soar to over $450 per 1,000 board feet resulting in increased housing costs. The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) hopes to land a secure source of softwood lumber into the future and reduce the reliance on expensive Canadian lumber. "We believe that lumber trade barriers impose an unreasonable burden on U. S. home buyers and on the industries that depend on adequate, affordable supplies of lumber…," said David Wilson, past president of (NAHB). Because of the federal government's insane environmental and regulatory policies that block timber harvest on public lands, America cannot meet its domestic lumber needs. Last year, the U. S. imported 38% of its lumber, primarily from Canada. "In the next ten years, we conservatively estimate that we will need to construct 18 million new homes," Wilson said. Russia has 2.5 billion acres of forests and prefers to cut the timber rather than burn it to the ground. Russian lumber exports account for five percent of the country's export earnings and provide two million jobs. Perhaps communism morphed into environmentalism to steel our lumber industry.
U.S. Home Builders Seek New Lumber
Sources In Russia
Home Builders Seek
to Construct a Deal for Russian Lumber
ELF Suspected in California Vandalism
Authorities aren't ready to commit, but the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) is suspected of destroying Hilltop Logging Company's entire rolling stock inventory last weekend. Workers for the Medford, Oregon Company arrived at the logging site 20 miles north of Yreka, California to discover all their equipment, including bulldozers, graders, and front-end loaders had been put out of commission. Dirt and debris had been poured into fuel tanks and oil lines, fuel lines were cut, computer systems destroyed and gear linkages sawed in half, according to Susan Gravenkamp, spokeswoman for the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Department. "They'll be out of business for the rest of this year, certainly," said Gravenkamp. Company owner Steve Avgeris said the criminals must have obtained master keys indicating that those responsible were familiar with heavy equipment and that the deed was deliberate and premeditated, a premise also held by the Sheriff's Department, according to Gravenkamp. The initials ELF were scrawled in dust on the equipment, a departure from the group's usual modus operandi of using spray paint. "We really don't have any reason to be looking in that direction (ELF) right now," said Detective Dave Amaral. "It's not real consistent with what we've seen in the past."