Grain Valley, MO - The Owner-Operator Independent Driver's Association is urging its Indiana members to contact their state lawmakers and Governor Mitch Daniels to oppose legislation that would permit the state to lease the Indiana Toll Road.

The governor has reviewed bids received to operate the Indiana Toll Road for the next 75 years. A Spanish-Australian consortium has emerged as the frontrunner with a $3.8 billion bid from Cintra of Madrid, Spain, and Macquarie Infrastructure Group of Sydney, Australia.

"The toll road is an integral part of the National Interstate Defense Highway System - and the governor wants to sell it to a foreign country," says Todd Spencer, OOIDA Executive Vice President. "This isn't thinking outside the box. It's thinking outside the planet. Truckers have even more at stake than anyone else. If the heavily traveled Indiana road can be auctioned off so can every other route in the nation. "

The governor says the money would be used for various transportation projects in the state including extending Interstate 69 from Indianapolis to Evansville with this section, too, being a privately owned toll road.

With more than 4,600 members across the state, OOIDA believes the lure for supporters is having a hand in or sharing in the billions that will be raised up front with little or no thought to where the state will be just a few years down the road.

"We think this is more than a lousy idea. It's an outrageous one for the state, for truckers and for the nation," Spencer says. "The toll road isn't the governor's to sell. It belongs to the people of Indiana and to the highway users who have paid for it and continue to pay for it with their tolls and taxes. "

Documents produced by the governor's office show that the toll road is a moneymaker for the state right now. Even at the toll road's existing toll rates, the road netted nearly $12 million in income in 2005. Increasing the tolls as planned by the governor - 120 percent for big trucks - could likely net $100 million a year over expenses.

In addition to highways, this legislation also gives the governor the authority to lease other transportation infrastructure including river ports and airports.

The House Ways and Means Committee is expected to consider the bill today. Lawmakers have until Feb. 2 to vote the legislation out of the House and send it to the Senate.

You can email your lawmaker by going to the following Web site:

http://www.in.gov/legislative/legislators/listing.html

You can also call the OOIDA Membership Department at 1-800-444-5791 and they can pull up the information for you.  Gov. Daniels' telephone number is (317) 232-1198.

Contact: John Liebnitz, Public Relations Coordination (816) 229-5791

Founded in 1973, the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) is composed of more than 133,000 owner-operators, professional drivers, and small business truckers from all 50 states, and Canada. OOIDA represents the interests of this nation's more than 350,000 small-business trucking professionals in the legislative and regulatory processes at both federal and state levels.