THE BOONDOGGLE THAT JUST WON'T DIE

By Bob Walsh

 

 

 

The Sacramento PRAVDA (sometimes known as the BEE) had a good size article in it today about whether or not the California High-Speed Rail Authority will survive the next round of attacks on it.  Gavin Newsom LOVES it and therefore the CA legislature loves it.  CA construction unions LOVE it.  Donald Trump, however, does NOT love it as he recognizes it is a bottomless money pit.  Since it gets a lot of it's funding (or maybe GOT a lot of it's funding) from the feds that will likely be significant.

A federal oversight report two months back described it as a "Sisyphean endeavor."  That is not a good thing.  As I type this about 119 miles of track are under construction, between Shafter and Madera, or between North Buttcrack and South Buttcrack depending on how you look at it.

The project has made some dubious decisions.  For instance I didn't know that they spent $1 billion just to move the tracks so they wouldn't be "too close" to the Cesar Chavez National Monument.  

Right now CA is about $14 billion in the hole to finish the central valley section of the line.  The project has been largely funding by the CA cap-and-trade program, which basically sells pollution permits at auction.  They don't call it that, but that is what it is.  Theoretically this will guarantee the project $1 billion per year thru 2045, assuming Gavin Newsom gets his way.  That might not happen.

SB445 will, if passed into law, IN THEORY streamline construction and establish timelines and coordination.  Of course the original, voter approved proposition to build the thing in the first place did these things. In theory. In practice NOT ONE of the benchmarks has ever been met.  Not one.  I fail to see why they should be successful now.