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Spanish Company Purchases U.S. Highway System in Indiana

 

By: David Deschesne, Editor

Fort Fairfield Journal  September 13, 2006

Cintra SA, a Spanish company with ties to the Mexican government, recently acquired the rights to over 150 miles of Indiana’s Interstate 90 toll highway along with their partner, Macquarie Infrastructure Group from Australia.

The two foreign companies jointly bid $3.85 billion where the state of Indiana has handed over the rights to that stretch of road and all revenues derived from it for a period of 75 years.

The transaction marks the largest amount ever paid to a U.S. state or municipality for an asset, and is now being looked at by local and state governments as a way to raise money to pay their debts.

The Indiana highway, nicknamed “the Main Street of the Midwest,” spans from Ohio to Chicago and is part of the east-west Interstate 90 that runs between Boston and Seattle.

Cintra SA is partnered with the Mexican Government in the operation of the country’s two State airlines - AeroMexico and Mexicana and recently changed its name there to Consorcio Aeromexico in what appears to be an effort to break the perception of being partnered with Mexico since they are also partnered with the State of Texas in designing and planning the new Trans-Texas Corridor.

The Trans-Texas Corridor is part of the new NAFTA superhighway, also known as the Canamex Trade Corridor. The Canamex will allow cheap Mexican truck labor into the United States to compete with American truckers who have to comply with higher standards and vehicle specifications than their Mexican counterparts. The new trade corridor, being built now, will be free and open to all illegal immigration, with a quasi multi-national jurisdiction extending out at least five miles on either side of the highway - jurisdiction shared between the U.S., Canada and Mexico under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)- a de facto treaty agreed to by President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox last year that would merge the bueuracracies of all three countries in an effort to eliminate the border between them and function as a regional government similar to the EU.

The Senate was not required to authorize the SPP deal because it was disguised as a “dialogue” or “agreement” rather than a treaty, even though it functions essentially the same way.

In addition to owning Interstate 80 and being partnered with the Mexican government in the airline industry, Cintra SA was awarded a 99-year lease on the Niagara Falls International Airport in New York in 2001.

“This isn’t a lease, it’s a sale, and Cintra isn’t bound to any real set of performance standards,” said former New York Congressman John LaFalce (D-Niagara Falls). The Niagara Falls International Airport is home to the Air Force’s 914th Tactical Airlift Wing and the Air National Guard’s 107th Air Refueling Wing.

“They’ve already talked about buying property adjacent to the airport and I think it’s important to know in advance whether that property will be taken off of the tax rolls or if they’re going to make payments in lieu of taxes.”

Last year, Chicago sold a 99-year lease to Cintra SA and Macquarie on the eight-mile Chicago Skyway for $1.83 billion.

Macquarie also owns a bridge in Alabama and Cintra SA operates and maintains Highway 407 in Toronto, Canada.

According to their website, www.cintra.es  Cintra SA has been awarded the management of 21 toll highways (more than 2,000 km) in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Chile, Canada and the U.S.A.

Under our current debt-based monetary system, where debt must be taken on in order to have a circulating currency, state and local governments are considering throwing the baby out with the bathwater by selling all their assets - transportation infrastructure included - to foreign companies just to pay their bills.