Now that the Legislature is back in session and the governor’s budget proposal has been unveiled, it’s a good time to ask why the state of California is still proceeding with the doomed boondoggle known as high-speed rail.
The latest development is a fiery squabble between major project contractor Tutor Perini and the rail authority over the cause of delays that the company says may cause the project to miss a 2022 federal deadline.
In a 36-page letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times, vice president of operations Ghassan Ariqat told the official in charge of contracting that it is “beyond comprehension” that the authority has still not obtained all the land and permissions needed to complete the 31-mile segment of high-speed rail in the Fresno area. Construction workers have been unable to work on more than 500 parcels of land that were supposed to be secured by now for the project.
But rail authority CEO Brian Kelly rejected the criticism, saying the company is merely trying to “set out why project challenges are everybody else’s fault.”
Kelly cited, as proof of the project’s success, the achievement of a benchmark for hiring — an average of 344 workers on job sites as of the end of October.
Maybe it should be called the California High-Speed Payroll.
The rail authority’s website is filled with puffery to attempt to prove the success of the project. For example, officials are making great progress with their “I Will Ride” program, which seeks to persuade high-school and college students to commit to riding the bullet train.
No doubt by then, their kids will be pressing them to give up their driver’s licenses.
Another “success” cited by the rail authority is an award for sustainability. “We are proud to have achieved Envision Platinum for the high-speed rail program,” the rail authority announced. The “key sustainability achievements” included reducing greenhouse gas emissions by “more than 100 million metric tons” by “transitioning away from automobiles and planes.”
Maybe the awards show was taped ahead for later broadcast.
The bullet train project is providing generous salaries to bureaucrats, big contracts to consultants and construction companies, and jobs for some construction workers. The one thing it’s in no danger of providing is transportation.
Meanwhile, the money is running out. Federal grants are in jeopardy because of the project’s continuing delays. It’s possible that the incoming Biden administration will be more patient with California than the outgoing Trump administration has been. Trump terminated a $929-million grant and threatened to claw back funds already spent. The federal funds are the subject of a legal dispute.
Ongoing state funding comes from the cap-and-trade program, which requires companies such as electric utilities and refineries to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases. About $3 billion has been sent to the rail authority from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund since 2015. More recently, as a result of the impact of the pandemic, demand for the permits has fallen and so have their prices at auction, reducing revenue to the rail authority.
Voters agreed to the project on the promise that it would be a high-speed train between Los Angeles and San Francisco, built without a tax increase and run without a public subsidy. What they got instead was a high-cost jobs program that specializes in self-congratulation.
It’s time to end this spectacle of wasteful government spending. Cancel the bullet train.
