WASHINGTON -- If the government really has a secret plan to build a 12-lane road-and-rail NAFTA Superhighway that will split the heartland from Mexico to Canada, it's playing with a great poker face.

"There is absolutely no U.S. government plan for a NAFTA Superhighway of any sort," said David Bohigian, an assistant secretary of commerce. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., a powerful member of committees that would authorize and pay for a NAFTA Superhighway, if one were being planned, dismissed the notion as "unfounded theories" with "no credence."

And yet: A pending congressional resolution condemns it. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, speaks darkly of "secret funding" for it. Nativist commentators fulminate against the four-football-field-wide behemoth as a threat to private property, national security and "a major lifeline of the plan to merge the United States into a North American Community," as conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly wrote.

Responding to denials, Rep Virgil Goode, R-Va., the chief sponsor of the House of Representatives resolution opposing the NAFTA Superhighway, scoffed: "I've heard that line before. They're just calling it something else. ... It's a decrease in our security and an erasing of our borders."

Goode is hardly alone: His resolution has attracted 21 co-sponsors, from both parties.

Urban myth?

The authorities say that the whole idea, inspired by the free-trade agreement signed by the U.S., Mexico and Canada, is an Internet-based urban myth fueled by fear and suspicion. Those accused of selling out U.S. sovereignty by shilling for a superhighway say that legitimate efforts to increase trade efficiencies through international cooperation, technological enhancements and infrastructure improvements have been turned into something sinister.

For example, conspiracy theorists see Kansas City, Mo., as a pivotal point for the superhighway because of Kansas City SmartPort, an effort to turn the region into a transportation and logistics center. Officials are working with Mexico to establish an inland customs facility -- for exports of U.S.-made goods only, not, as some fear, as a security-reducing inland port for imports from Mexico and Asia, said Chris Gutierrez, president of SmartPort.

But that explanation doesn't satisfy the suspicious.

"We get hit with it all the time," said Danny Rotert, a spokesman for Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. "It's on some weird set of talking points. They say we'll actually cede sovereign U.S. land to Mexico. People call and complain about it all the time. We try to explain that's not the case."

Suspicions build

Here's what Paul, a GOP presidential candidate, told a New Hampshire audience: "They already have a plan for a highway running from Mexico up to Canada, a 12-lane highway with trains running in the middle. It's going to be an in-ternational highway. And there's been some secret funding already into our budgets to start this program moving. There's going to be eminent domain powers used to confiscate tens of thousands of acres to build this."

Variations on the theme abound.

Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan says it will be a 10-lane highway, not 12, but adds that it will include oil and gas pipelines.

Running for Congress last year in Kansas, Democrat Nancy Boyda, who campaigned against the superhighway, warned that 30,000 acres of private land in Kansas would be taken to build it. (Boyda defeated a five-term incumbent who called the superhighway a myth.)

Others see it as a first step in an effort to erase national borders and sovereignty and unite all of North America into a single union, with one currency.

"It's a drift toward a European Union," Goode said. "I don't want to have one currency for all North America. I support our country being our country."

Even the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has listed opposition to a NAFTA Superhighway as among its legislative priorities, although a spokeswoman said the union doesn't necessarily buy some of the more conspiratorial notions of how it will look.

"There's not much question that corporate America is looking for a low-wage, low-cost haven in Mexico," said Leslie Miller, a Teamsters spokeswoman. "A NAFTA Superhighway would enable that."

Cited evidence

Those convinced that the full-bore NAFTA Superhighway is coming point to several disparate efforts that they say prove that the government isn't telling the whole truth:

u The controversial effort to build the "Trans-Texas Corridor," which would largely parallel existing highways, primarily moving freight. The suspicious see it as the NAFTA Superhighway's first leg.

u A Bush administration proposal to allow some Mexican trucks to drive deeper into the U.S. heartland than previously allowed. Boyda's bill to limit the program passed the House this week, 411-3.

u North America's Supercorridor Project, or NASCO. The Texas-based nonprofit coalition advocates for improvements along major trade corridors, such as Interstates 35, 29 and 94.

u The Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP. It's a collaborative effort on several fronts, including trade and security, by the United States, Canada and Mexico. Critics call it ground zero for the push for a North American Union.

Bohigian, the trade official whose portfolio includes the SPP, said the effort is intended only to "reduce the cost of trade and improve the quality of life" through efforts such as decreasing the wait time for trucks idling at international borders. Reducing the average wait time from 35 minutes to six minutes has saved more than $1 billion, Bohigian said.

Even so, the SPP had to put a "myth vs. fact" section on its Web site that insists, among other things: "Myth: The U.S. Government, working though the SPP, has a secret plan to build a 'NAFTA Super Highway.'"

NASCO's Web site also has a disclaimer: "NASCO is not building or encouraging the creation of a 'NAFTA superhighway.'" It emphasizes that NASCO only wants to ensure that the existing transportation system is efficient and seamless.

U.S. trade with Mexico has increased from $79 billion in 1993, when NAFTA was approved, to $332 billion in 2006, so it only makes sense to ensure that the existing system can handle the load, said Frank Conde, a NASCO spokesman.

The frustration of having to deal with "this mishmash of accusations" was clear in Conde's voice.

"They're not an authority," Conde said of critics, both online and in Congress. "They're not listened to on any level as a serious source of information. It discredits them to advance these sorts of things."

But Boyda, the Kansas congresswoman who campaigned against the NAFTA Superhighway, said, "These are legitimate questions.

"This is an issue about trade, jobs and security," Boyda said. "When they want to build something like this in Texas, why do people say, 'It's just a myth'? I'd suggest they take a closer look. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then maybe it's a duck."

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