The new administration in Washington, D.C., has added another hurdle to California’s already difficult road to high-speed rail.

Drawing fire from Democrats and cheers from Republicans, the Department of Transportation “has deferred a decision on a $647-million grant that would help Caltrain electrify a section of track between San Jose and San Francisco, a project crucial to California’s struggling high-speed rail project,” as the Los Angeles Times noted. “The decision not to approve the grant by a key Friday deadline may be an early sign of the Trump administration’s view of the bullet train project. The line is already under construction and will need significant federal funding moving forward.” 

That funding has been coveted because of the additional grants it triggers if approved. “The federal grant, if it is ultimately awarded, would be matched by another $1.3 billion in local, state and regional investment, including funds from the high-speed rail agency,” the Fresno Bee reported. 

An ongoing struggle

Although the rail effort has been hamstrung by ballooning costs and time projections and repeated downward revisions of its original ambitions, Gov. Jerry Brown and his allies have labored to portray opposition as anti-innovation. With Democrats and Republicans at the federal level both making overtures to infrastructure reform, the governor swiftly sought to criticize the Transportation Department move accordingly. “If you’re not for that, you’re really not for infrastructure,” Brown told Dan Morain of the Sacramento Bee. “The only thing you can say for that is it’s scoring political points by politicians that know better.” 

“The move follows directly on the heels of a letter from 14 California Republicans, who pleaded with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to block the federal grants and argued that the money would be wasted,” the site added. “The letter was spearheaded by Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee that oversees railroads.”

Staunch opposition

State and Congressional GOP have held a firm line against the bullet train, one of a relative few of big-ticket policies pushed by ruling Democrats that hasn’t tapped a very deep reservoir of public support. “Killing the project entirely before larger amounts of money are poured into it is probably the best taxpayers could hope for,” wrote Baruch Feigenbaum of the Reason Foundation, summing up the standpoint of Golden State conservatives and libertarians.

“But that’s not likely to happen on Gov. Jerry Brown’s watch. Brown has been committed to creatively diverting money to the rail system and will continue to do so. So California should take a cue from President Trump, who has called for increased private-sector investment in infrastructure projects, and explore whether or not there are standalone sections of a high-speed rail system that make financial sense for private companies.”

Although the Department of Transportation did not put a timeline on how long its deferral of a decision on the train would last, it may also have to first decide whether to grant Republicans’ wish for tighter oversight over the project altogether. “Members of California’s GOP delegation had asked the Transportation Department to block approval of the grant to electrify a Caltrain line between San Jose and San Francisco until an audit of the bullet train’s finances is completed,” as the Bee reported. “They said that providing additional funding to help the $64 billion high-speed rail project would be an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars.”

Dams aren’t the only part of California infrastructure on the hot seat. Following a big-ticket Sacramento request for federal building funds, a new report has concluded that the number of state bridges in dangerously inadequate condition reaches into the thousands. 

“Of the 55,000 bridges across the U.S. that were deemed structurally deficient in a report published by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, more than 1,300 California bridges fall under that category,” KCRA and the Associated Press reported. “That means that of the 25,431 bridges in the state, 5 percent have one or more key bridge elements – deck, superstructure or substructure – that are considered to be in ‘poor’ or worse condition, the analysis found.”

Although the bridges haven’t been labeled near collapse, the numbers threw the sheer scale of California’s infrastructure woes – amid heavy costs on marquee projects like high-speed rail – into stark relief. “The state has already identified 4,075 bridges that need repair, which comes with a price tag of $12 billion,” the channel continued. “Across the country, ARBTA noted that deficient bridges are crossed about 185 million times a day. The top 14 most-traveled deficient bridges are in California.”

Hat in hand

A near-catastrophe surrounding the potential failure of the state’s Oroville Dam has thrown additional light onto what California gets for its spending and doesn’t. “Shock over the emergency evacuation downriver from the Oroville Dam has given way to serious questions about how California is coping with its aging infrastructure – which the American Society of Civil Engineers says would cost the state a staggering $65 billion per year to fix and maintain after years of neglect,” the San Jose Mercury News observed.

Residents and officials are divided over where that kind of money should come from. “Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed investing $43 billion in infrastructure over the next five years, with the vast majority of the money going to transportation,” the paper added. “California voters approved a $7.5 billion water bond in 2014 for a range of needs from flood control to water storage, but that falls far short of needs for flood control and increasing the water supply.”

Wishes and hopes

In fact, the state has drafted up a bid for $100 billion of federal infrastructure funding on over 50 projects, itemized in a letter from Gov. Brown to the National Governors Association. “Brown’s administration has pledged $4.3 billion of the state’s budget to go toward the repairs on the list, and has given legislative leaders a deadline of April 6 to submit candidates for any transportation funding,” the San Francisco Business Times reported. “Other projects on the state’s list for federal funds include levees, reservoirs, bridges, ports, recycling centers, public transit upgrades and more veterans services operations.”

Oroville Dam wasn’t mentioned on the list; California’s stop-and-start high speed rail project, projected to run well over the budget authorized by voters, was. “The state said Saturday that repairs to the primary spillway at Oroville Dam — the nation’s tallest earthen dam — could run as much as $200 million but that was before critical damage to the emergency spillway,” CNBC noted. “Repairs to both spillways are likely to run much higher than the rough estimate provided by the California Department of Water Resources.”

Although California’s once-cozy relationship with the White House, forged between leading state Democrats and Barack Obama’s administration, may be history, officials have made reassurances that their focus on infrastructure — a priority shared with president Trump — will not be in vain. “State Transportation Agency Secretary Brian Kelly told reporters he plans to meet soon with new federal Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to discuss the wish list,” the Los Angeles Times reported. Chao, wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, won confirmation to the position as one of the most experienced and established members of Trump’s cabinet.