Although nothing would make me happier, I'm afraid that Tim Cavanaugh of the Reason Foundation is too optimistic in this article, and is driven too much by wishful thinking. As Mark Twain famously said: "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
Let's unpack what Cavanaugh is saying. He refers to LAO official Eric Thronson's YouTube video, the URL for which I included in a prior blog entry. While many of us still believe that the rail authority is bound by FRA deadlines for compliance in order to obtain the award funding, that is no longer the case. And regardless, in government, deadlines are meant to be bent if not broken when both parties want the same thing. I suspect that's also true of the required completion date which is so far off, six years from now, as to be inconsequential. As we know, in the railroad business, on time and on budget never happens.
We are now somewhat familiar with the State LAO Report and it's mandates. The LAO has no decision authority; it only reports and recommends. Those recommendations have been, in the past and most likely will be in the future, ignored by the CHSRA. The LAO recommendations do not take the federal deadlines into account, or if they do, they are certainly circumspect about it suggesting awareness of this flexibility.
There are several pieces of legislation in the pipeline that would change the make-up of the CHSRA Board, or terminate it completely. While anything is possible, it seems most unlikely that the entire heavily Democratic Legislature will go along with this, and even if they do, it's difficult to predict whether Governor Brown will veto it or not. The rail authority right now reports directly to him. It's unlikely that he would relinquish any further control to the Legislature.
The most important recommendation the LAO makes is not the coup de grace as Tim Cavanaugh suggests. They ask that the HSR budget for the next year be cut from $185 million to $7 million. That stops the engineering design and CEQA work, but it is still enough to keep the office doors open.
If the Legislature did take this recommended budget action, the CHSRA would be in dire straits and certainly couldn't ignore that. However, based on the Senate's history, what are the chances? Lowenthal/Simitian, the two State Senators with the power to make this recommendation to the rest of the Legislature, have not been willing to take drastic steps necessary to bring the rail authority to heel. Will they do so now? Frankly, I doubt it very much.
But even $7 million is enough to make numerous trips to Washington to lobby for bailout funds from the Democratic Administration to not be terminated as the only surviving true high-speed rail project in America. With the death of the California HSR project dies the President's "winning the future" dream for High-Speed Rail for at least another generation. By that time, HSR will be as obsolete as Amtrak is today.
We have talked about the ruthlessness of the CHSRA and staff previously. They are not to be underestimated when it comes to political gamesmanship. Billions of dollars are involved. That really motivates people to abandon any ethical constraints. They will fight tooth and nail to retain their authority and will enlist massive support from their contractors and all those whose money has such power over politicians. It's not about the train; it's about the money. That will become ever more apparent.
"It ain't over until the 'generously endowed' lady sings." And right now, we are not even close. Nor will wishing make it so. Our job is far from finished.
============================
High Speed Rail Is Dead
Tim Cavanaugh |
May 10, 2011
A devastating report from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office recommends that the Golden State take its high speed rail project offline, dismantle its longstanding high speed rail authority, renegotiate the terms of funding coming from Washington D.C., and postpone planning in a way that could result in the state’s effectively rejecting federal high speed rail funds.
Here is the LAO report [pdf]. And here is a very good summary from analyst Eric Thronson on the cybervisual interwebs:
To unpack Thronson’s recommendations a bit:
• If the state must "obtain relief" from current federal restrictions on the project, that would, under ordinary circumstances, mean missing the September 2012 deadline to begin the project or lose federal funds. However, the state managed to get that deadline lifted by agreeing to the Federal Rail Authority’s widely ridiculed "train to nowhwere" plan that would have the project beginning in a remote pocket of the Central Valley. From page 9 of the report: "After HSRA approved the Central Valley section, the FRA dropped the September 2011 deadline for environmental clearance work."
However, there are related deadlines, including a completion deadline of 2017 for stimulus funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Moreover, the LAO also recommends reconsidering the route of the first leg, which would remove the condition on which the FRA waived its deadline in the first place.
• By recommending that the currently planned alignment for the first leg (which the report refers to, variously, as running from "near Fresno" to "north of Bakersfield”), the LAO concedes that the train to nowhere plan is unfeasible. The report notes that the projected cost of just this segment has increased more than 57 percent since planning began, and the LAO’s advice to base the project on need and projected rider revenue makes the Corcoran-to-Borden route a non-starter.
• The recommendation that the legislature “shift responsibility” from the California High Speed Rail Authority to Caltrans is another radical suggestion made in measured tones. The authority has a long history of costly non-performance, and dismantling it makes sense. But it’s new for a respected government authority to make the suggestion.
• So is the recommendation to "remove decision-making authority from the HSRA board." Again, leadership of the authority, even at the level of personnel and public relations, has been disastrous. But by making sure "state fiscal concerns are fully taken into account," the LAO is acknowledging that there is no justification for spending any more money on the project. The report suggests that Gov. Jerry Brown’s $185 million requested appropriation be whittled down to only $7 million. That’s close to nothing in government work. (As of last year the California High Speed Rail Authority had spent $250 million since 1996, without laying an inch of track.)
Prior to the LAO announcement, Cato’s Randal O’Toole suggested the multistate rejection of FRA funds means the Obama Administration’s high speed rail plan is over, and not just in California:
In essence, the administration has given up on high-speed rail. New York Times editorial writers haven’t figured that out yet, opining that Florida Governor Scott made a dreadful mistake when he rejected the rail money. In fact, as tax activist Doug Guetzloe told a Tampa newspaper, “Federally funded rail is like being given a brand new Maserati and then you have to pick up the gas and the insurance — forever. The car looks great, but the costs will kill you.”
The Times suggested that Florida taxpayers will resent Scott’s decision whenever they are stuck in traffic. But no one seriously believes that intercity rail will ever relieve traffic congestion, most of which is in cities, not between them. In its original application for high-speed rail funds, Florida’s DOT admitted that Orlando-to-Tampa traffic grows more every five years than all the cars the trains were expected to take off the road, so at best high-speed rail was a very expensive and temporary solution to congestion.
Outside of the Times editorial offices, most transportation experts agree that the President’s high-speed rail program is over and his draft transportation bill is dead on arrival. Taxpayers throughout the country should thank Scott (as well as Ohio Governor John Kasich and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker) for saving them the hundreds of billions of dollars that Obama’s program would have eventually cost.
Also before the LAO report, the Los Angeles Times’ Richard Simon and Michael Muskal gave an upbeat view that Florida’s rejection would help add 20 miles to the train to nowhere, possibly allowing it to reach Fresno itself. To do so will mean rejecting the nearly unanimous recommendations (including previous LAO reports) of experts, in government and out of it, who have examined the high speed rail plan.
