Kenny objected to the idea the state could treat prospective federal funding and private-sector investment as dependable and likely sources of money. What does the 2014 business plan point to for future funding? More money from the federal government and private-sector investment.

As the kids say, epic fail. In the sequester era of declining discretionary domestic spending, the chance that Congress will play for one state’s hugely expensive infrastructure project is distant at best. The chances for private investment are even worse. As the LAO pointed out in 2010, such investments are very unlikely without a revenue or ridership guarantee. But such guarantees are illegal under Prop 1A, the 2008 state ballot measure that gave $9.95 billion in seed money to the bullet-train project.

Incredibly, the Fresno Bee wrote a 1,000-word story that never mentioned the financing angle. The Los Angeles Times at least mentioned the angle, though it never specifically noted that the state still has a business plan that Judge Kenny will find deficient.

Want to let state know your view of bullet train? Here’s how

I look forward to leaving a pungent voicemail. Your means of commenting:

— Online comment form through the Draft 2014 Business Plan website at:
www.hsr.ca.gov/About/Business_Plans/Draft_2014_Business_Plan.html

— By email at 2014businessplancomments@hsr.ca.gov

— Voice mail comment at 916-384-9516

Back to the MSM coverage of the biz plan. Maybe the LAT reporter just assumes that it’s impossible for the state to meet Kenny’s hard-financing requirement, so he doesn’t dwell on the angle. But how can the Fresno Bee not even mention this? Bizarro.

By Chris Reed

The Sacramento Bee’s editorial Friday lambasting House Republicans for opposing using borrowed federal money to build California’s bullet train was noteworthy for its tone. The Bee editorial board seems to be under the deluded impression that project advocates have the moral high ground.

“The Government Accountability Office injected a sense of realism into the high-speed rail debate, detailing in its March 28 report just how large infrastructure projects of this kind work. But the naysayers led by House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, and Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, don’t seem to be listening. …

“A major issue, it turns out, is post-2010 congressional opposition. As the GAO notes, the Obama administration, as well as the governor, Legislature and voters of California, has committed funding to the project. But sustained congressional support for additional funds is ‘one of the biggest challenges to completing this project.’

“McCarthy was quick to prove the point. As soon as the report came out, he issued a statement that he was ‘developing legislation to stop more hard-earned taxpayer dollars from being wasted on California high-speed rail.’ Ditto for Denham.

“You have to wonder if they would have supported the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that authorized $25 billion over 10 years to construct the interstate highway system. You have to wonder, too, if they would have supported the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 authorizing bonds and grants of land to railroad companies to construct a transcontinental railroad.”

The Bee’s stunningly selective memory

You have to wonder if the Bee remembers that the bullet train was sold to state voters in 2008 with lies about cost, ridership, jobs created, environmental benefits — and that’s only for starters.

You have to wonder if the Bee remembers that the California High-Speed Rail Authority has never been able to comply with the state law ratified by voters in 2008 that requires a business plan that isn’t dependent on taxpayer subsidies to attract private investment. This has led the rail authority to stop even trying to get private investors — another lie to voters.

You have to wonder if the Bee remembers all the evidence that the bullet train will never meet another requirement of the 2008 state law: that the bullet train make it from downtown L.A. to downtown San Francisco in two hours and 40 minutes — another lie to voters.

If the Bee editorial board actually thinks the bullet train holds the moral high ground, that is shocking. In its own way, Friday’s editorial is as childish as the L.A. Times’ 2011 editorial that invoked “The Little Engine That Could” to describe the LAT editorial board’s optimism the project could be built.

By Chris Reed

There’s been quite a bit of good reporting done on the bullet-train fiasco. Mike Rosenberg of the San Jose Mercury-News and Lance Williams of California Watch jump to mind. But Ralph Vartabedian of the Los Angeles Times probably deserves top honors.

Vartabedian’s smart, nuanced beat reporting points discerning readers toward the truth — namely, that California’s project makes Boston’s Big Dig look like a work of efficient genius. The latest example was his piece this week on why and how some of the bullet train’s most ardent and longtime defenders have turned on the project. It’s full of interesting specifics that set up his future reporting on court fights over the project’s legality.

But it’s more than just this sort of sharp professionalism. Bullet train followers know all about Quentin Kopp’s misgivings and the lies and deceptions that have marked the project since well before it won $9.95 billion in bond seed money from state voters in 2008. Here’s what Vartabedian has done that is exceptional: His reporting has shown the bullet train fiasco is even worse than we imagined!

This is from his Jan. 27, 2013, piece, headlined “State has yet to buy any land for train”:

“Construction of California’s high-speed rail network is supposed to start in just six months, but the state hasn’t acquired a single acre along the route and faces what officials are calling a challenging schedule to assemble hundreds of parcels needed in the Central Valley.

“The complexity of getting federal, state and local regulatory approvals for the massive $68-billion project has already pushed back the start of construction to July from late last year. Even with that additional time, however, the state is facing a risk of not having the property to start major construction work near Fresno as now planned. …

“It hopes to begin making purchase offers for land in the next several weeks. But that’s only the first step in a convoluted legal process that will give farmers, businesses and homeowners leverage to delay the project by weeks, if not months, and drive up sales prices, legal experts say.

“One major stumbling block could be valuing agricultural land in a region where prices have been soaring, raising property owners’ expectations far above what the state expects to pay. …

“Delays in starting construction could set in motion a chain reaction of problems that would jeopardize the politically and financially sensitive timetable for building the $6-billion first leg of the system. …

“If the construction schedule slips, costs could grow and leave the state without enough money to complete the entire first segment. ..

“In addition to property, the rail authority still needs permits from the Army Corps of Engineers and approval by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, two more potential choke points that Morales says can be navigated.

Here’s an excerpt from “Rail line’s big dig,” the Nov. 13, 2012, piece by Vartabedian that outlines the project’s insane complexity:

“The sheer scale and scope of the bullet train’s push into Southern California, including traversing complex seismic hazards, would rival construction of the state’s massive freeway system, water transport networks and its port complexes. It is likely to be viewed in future decades as an engineering marvel — or a costly folly. ..

“The plan calls for bullet trains to shoot east from Bakersfield at 220 mph, climbing one of the steepest sustained high-speed rail inclines in the world. It would soar over canyons on viaducts as high as a 33-story skyscraper. The line would duck in and out of tunnels up to 500 feet below the rugged surface. It would cross more than half a dozen earthquake faults heading toward L.A.

“Tunneling machines as long as a football field will have to be jockeyed into mountain canyons to do the heavy, back-breaking work once left to Chinese laborers. New access roads and a corridor for high-voltage power lines will have to be carved through the Tehachapis to feed power-hungry trains. When completed and fully operational, the bullet train will need an estimated 2.7 million kilowatt hours of electricity each day — about a quarter of Hoover Dam’s average daily output. …

“One measure of the topographic challenge: Over that 141 miles from Bakersfield to Los Angeles, up to 59% of the track would run in tunnels or on viaducts, according to preliminary planning documents. …

“At this point, the rail authority estimates it will cost about $7.7 billion to build the 83 miles of rail from Bakersfield to Palmdale and about $12.5 billion to build the 58 miles of rail from Palmdale to Union Station. …

“Depending on the slope of the track, the tallest viaduct could be 200 to 330 feet off the ground.

“The same holds true for the segment through the San Gabriel Mountains, roughly following California 14.  …

“California’s bullet train will have to operate over some of the nation’s most seismically active terrain … . There are half a dozen faults between Bakersfield and Los Angeles, including the White Wolf and San Andreas, both capable of producing a 7.5 magnitude quake. Where high viaducts are near faults, engineers are considering reinforced concrete structures that would resist ground motion and have containment features to prevent a derailed bullet train from plunging to the ground … . At full speed, however, a bullet train would need four to five miles to make an emergency stop on level ground, and longer going downhill.”

I don’t know how anyone could read this without thinking about every other sentence, “The state of California is competent to pull this off?” Nor do I think anyone could read this and think the bullet train will only cost $68 billion. Triple that — at least.

Which brings us to the Los Angeles Times editorial page. According to Nexis, the last time it weighed in on the bullet train, in November 2011, here was the literally juvenile result:

 “It’s a gamble, and not one to be taken lightly. But gasoline isn’t going to get any cheaper in the future and the freeways aren’t going to get less clogged. We think California can find a way to get the train built. We think it can. We think it can….”

Yes, the L.A. Times editorial page editor actually invoked “The Little Engine That Could” in sickeningly cutesy fashion to stick up for this folly.

I bet, to invoke a Trent Dilferism, Ralph Vartabedian threw up in his mouth a little when he read that painfully childish and uninformed editorial.

In an interview with CalWatchdog contributor Chris Reed, KFI 640 AM’s John and Ken discussed the fiasco that is the California bullet-train project, which they call the “Browndoggle.”

The interview begins at the 5:35 p.m. point of their Friday show — about halfway through this podcast.

It focused on topics familiar to Cal Watchdog readers.

— The implications of federal belt-tightening for future funding from Congress.

— The indifference of state and federal regulators and legislators to the ways the California High-Speed Rail Authority is breaking not just promises but laws.

— The unrealistic hopes that the Obama administration has raised for state bullet-train fans about the prospects for massive new federal funding.

— The ideological cheerleading for the bullet train that one often sees on the pages of the state’s biggest newspapers.