Private road moratorium heads to Perry's desk

As the former transportation commissioner, Robert Nichols (RJacksonville) testified to lawmakers in 2005 that toll roads were the best way to solve congested highways in Texas.

As State Senator for District 3, Nichols now has completely changed his mind. In fact, Nichols was one of the key supporters for a House Bill 1892, which would provide a two-year moratorium on private toll roads.

Last week, the bill passed the House and Senate and now will head to Texas Governor Rick Perry's desk for final approval.

"This is landmark legislation for putting the needs of Texas drivers above the pockets of private shareholders," Nichols said. "It required the effort of many members of the House and Senate, but the Legislature sent a clear message, we will not sell our transportation system at bargain basement prices."

Perry now has 10 days to sign the bill into law or veto it.

HB 1892 will also establish a committee to recommend citizen protections for toll road contracts.

Perry had urged the Legislature to reject the bill.

He said the state's overburdened highway system needs public-private toll road partnerships to keep pace with the state's growing population and to attract business and jobs.

Perry had said he might veto the bill when it comes to his desk but the House may have the votes available to override his veto during this session.

The House vote to concur HB 1892 was 139- 1. The final Senate vote was 27- 4.

"The legislature claims Texas needs a moratorium on private financing of toll roads, yet seeks to exempt every privately planned toll road on the drawing board from their moratorium," Perry said through a statement released by his office.

"The legislature states that we need to pause and reconsider public private partnerships to build roads, yet expand this concept by granting this exact same authority to local toll road authorities all over the state.

"This bill appears to do little to address the serious concerns raised by the Federal Highway Administration," Perry said. "Instead, it jeopardizes billions of dollars in federal funding for Texas and clean air compliance in Houston. Both consequences would be devastating for the Texas economy.

"I will review this bill carefully because we cannot have public policy in this state that shuts down road construction, kills jobs, harms air quality, prevents access to federal highway dollars, and creates an environment within local government that is ripe for political corruption."

The Legislature can override a veto with a twothirds vote of both chambers, but they must be in session to take that vote. The session ends May 28.

"This is a major victory in our efforts to protect Texans from private toll road deals that would hamstring our transportation system for the next half century," Nichols said "A two-year moratorium will give an appropriate cooling-down time to evaluate the terms of these contracts before they cost Texans billions in penalties."

Nichols believes proposed toll road contracts would hurt Texas in the long run.

"We must ask ourselves is if these roads should be built for the benefit of taxpayers or private shareholders," Nichols said.

Nichols is the author of SB 1267 which first proposed a two-year moratorium on private equity toll projects. Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham), who filed a companion bill for Nichols' moratorium, added the moratorium language as an amendment to HB 1892 by Rep. Wayne Smith (R-Baytown). With the moratorium language, HB 1892 passed out the House 137 to 2. SB 1267 passed the Senate unanimously.

"Given the broad support we have for a moratorium, I am very optimistic the policy will be official by the end of the legislative session," Nichols said.