What’s on the table in the toll bill

May 21, 2007

Ben Wear, AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMEN

As House and Senate members of a conference committee get serious today about SB 792, the toll road legislation, there are really only three key matters to decide: El Paso, facilities agreements, and the involvement of financial consultants in “market valuations.”

The El Paso question, which grows from four amendments specific to that area added in the House by state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, is essentially an intramural fight. Pickett and state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, have been bumping up against each other for quite a while on transportation issues. Given that Shapleigh is on the Senate side of the conference committee (the House hasn’t announced its members yet), bet on Shapleigh to prevail on this one.

The most interesting issue, however, might be facilities agreements. In the House, state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, added an amendment saying that a “facility agreement under a comprehensive development agreement” would be subject to the moratorium on private toll road contracts. What she was addressing was this scenario: Would the Texas Department of Transportation, which has already signed a comprehensive development agreement with Spanish company Cintra (and some partners) for the twin tollway to Interstate 35, argue that later facilities agreements for specific segments are exempt from the moratorium?

Hard to believe the agency would do this, given that the legislative intent couldn’t be any more clear. Not to mention public sentiment. The moratorium, in fact, is basically driven by stopping the Trans-Texas Corridor in its tracks, and this twin road to I-35 would be the first portion of the corridor. If the Transportation Department finished environmental work on the road in, say, a year and a half and then awarded one of these facilities agreements during the two-year freeze, the public reaction likely would be deafening.

But, nonetheless, without Kolkhorst’s amendment, they could do that. Will conferees, acting on urging from Gov. Rick Perry’s office and/or the Transportation Department, try to remove the amendment? If they do, that would say a lot about the Transportation Department’s intentions. We’ll be watching.

We gave the Transportation Department, which has been up to its neck in this issue all session long, a chance to say if they would build a TTC-35 segment in the next two years if this Kolkhorst amendment is removed from the bill. This was the response from agency spokesman Mike Cox:

“TxDOT does not comment on pending legislation. We will of course comply with any legislation that becomes state law.”

As for the other point, legislative sources said Friday that Perry’s office has a problem with another Kolkhorst amendment. This one would prevent a company from serving as the market evaluator of a potential toll road, then coming back later and participating in the actual project. The idea is that the company might set an abnormally high value for the toll road, thus scaring off a local government toll road agency and leaving the way open for the private sector.

But opponents of the amendment argue that the only people with the expertise to make a market evaluation are the same folks out there playing the game in the private toll road market.