July 27, 2010 | TollRoadsnews

Michigan DOT and supporters of a third Windsor Detroit international crossing known as the DRIC bridge continue to be stymied in their efforts to get approval from the state legislature. There are a number of reasons for this but one might be legal and constitutional problems. Robert A. Sedler, a veteran law professor at Wayne State University Law School made something of a splash recently with testimony against the DRIC before the Michigan senate transportation committee.

Sedler has been hired by the Ambassador Bridge company, so he is not impartial, but he says he's expressing his own his views, not the bridge company's. His testimony deserves review, critical review.

His presentation to the state senators argued:

1. the US Congress in a special act of March 1921 gave the company a "exclusive perpetual franchise over the construction, operation and maintenance of a bridge over the Detroit River between Detroit and Windsor."  The state of Michigan he says has no constitutional power to enact any arrangement as envisaged by HB4961 abrogating the exclusive franchise of the Ambassador Bridge company.

2. The 1972 International Bridge Act allowing the US Secretary of State to approve some state-Canadian bridge agreements doesn't allow encroachment on the the Ambassador Bridge company's franchise.

3. Under the US  federal system it should be the US Government, not the state of Michigan, that is negotiating with and making agreements with Canada over a major new crossing serving multi-state trade: "the interests of the United States and concerns of national sovereignty are predominant and far outweigh the localized interests and concerns of the State of Michigan."

The 1972 International Bridge Act is the basis on which Michigan's Granholm administration has been proceeding to negotiate arrangements with Canada's Transport department. This act provides for a state to enter into agreements with Canada or a province of Canada (or Mexico) for new bridges subject to a notice of approval by the US secretary of state. The president must concur in the "necessity" of the new bridge.

On these new bridges tolls can be collected for a period determined by the US secretary of transportation as reasonable to amortize the cost of construction and its financing plus "as reasonable return on invested capital." But at the end of that period the bridge built under the 1972 act must be gifted to the state.

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