Three months after canceling a $929 million federal grant to the troubled California bullet train project, the Trump administration has unexpectedly given its go-ahead to the state to approve environmental documents that are needed to complete planning for the long-delayed project.

In May, after the funding was canceled, the relationship between the federal and state government seemed so bumpy that bullet train officials worried that Washington would try to sabotage the project by delaying approval of necessary paperwork. Instead, on Monday, the Federal Railroad Administration fulfilled a long-standing state request and moved environmental reviews of pending plans for the project’s full Los Angeles to San Francisco route from the federal to the state level. According to the Los Angeles Times, previously the agency had only approved segments from Bakersfield to Fresno and from Fresno to Merced.

“This action is an important milestone for the high-speed program,” said Brian Kelly, chief executive of the California High-Speed Rail Authority. “We’ve lost valuable time waiting with the FRA’s disengagement, so I am very thankful for this action and I am hopeful this step is the beginning of a more collaborative and cooperative relationship prospectively.”

But while state officials were relieved by the federal decision, funding obstacles still remain. The state only has about one-quarter of the $80 billion-plus it would take to link Los Angeles and San Francisco – and that’s for a plan that doesn’t use high-speed rail for segments from San Francisco to San Jose or from Los Angeles to its northern exurbs. This downscaling has led some longtime backers of the project, such as former state Sen. Quentin Kopp, to renounce it as a betrayal of promises made to state voters in 2008 when they approved $9.95 billion in bond seed money for what was then envisioned as a $43 billion statewide train system.

The lack of funding was behind Gov. Gavin Newsom’s February decision to pull back from predecessor Jerry Brown’s commitment to building a statewide system. Instead, Newsom said all $20.5 billion in available funding should be used to build a high-speed route between Bakersfield and Merced in the Central Valley. 

Speaker wants changes to Newsom’s focus on Central Valley

But it now appears that even that scaled-back plan will face opposition from some key Democrats in the Legislature. On Thuesday, the Times reported that Democratic Assembly members from the Los Angeles and Bay areas – including Speaker Anthony Rendon – have for weeks discussed shifting the state’s rail focus. They hope to take up to $6 billion that Newsom wants to use in the Central Valley to improve rail service from Pasadena to Anaheim and commuter rail in and out of San Francisco. They believe a shorter, scaled-down version of the Central Valley route is viable with funding in the $14 billion range.

“I like the concept,” Rendon told the Times. “Any project that doesn’t have a significant amount of service to the largest areas in the state doesn’t make much sense.”

The prospect of taking state bullet train money for the Los Angeles area was first raised publicly in April by several members of board of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Any reduction in the scope of the Central Valley route proposed by Newsom is likely to face bitter opposition from the area’s politicians, who see the bullet train as crucial to improving the economy in one of the state’s poorest regions. They were enthusiastic about Newsom’s comments during last year’s campaign that a bullet train would be ideal to connect Silicon Valley workers with relatively inexpensive housing in the Central Valley.

When Gavin Newsom is sworn in as California governor on Jan. 7, he’s already indicated he will take criticisms of the state’s troubled $77 billion high-speed rail project seriously.

That’s in sharp contrast to outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown, who described project critics as “declinists” with no vision for what the Golden State could become. Brown only offered vague pronouncements when asked about giant cost overruns and the $50 billion or more gap between available funding and what’s needed to build the high-speed rail linking Los Angeles and San Francisco.

If Newsom lives up to his word, he’s going to need to respond to profound issues raised by project watchers in and out of the state government over the last two months.

In November, state Auditor Elaine Howle issued a harsh report on poor management practices in the California High-Speed Rail Authority, especially the billions in cost overruns due to the decision to launch construction of the project’s $10.6 billion, 119-mile first segment in the Central Valley before the authority was fully ready. Howle’s audit led Newsom to tell a Fresno audience that he might shake up the leadership of the rail authority.

Among the few specifically positive observations that Newsom has made in recent months about the project was that the first segment held promise to link Silicon Valley workers with less expensive housing in the Central Valley.

Project seen as ‘notoriously unpopular’ in Central Valley

But a Dec. 23 Sacramento Bee analysis found that even though the bullet train project was generating thousands of jobs in the agricultural region, it was “notoriously unpopular” among residents.

“They resent how construction has carved up their farms and scrambled their highways,” the Bee reported. “Completion of just a partial segment through the Valley is still years away, and residents doubt the project will ever get finished. They question the promises that high-speed rail will lift the Valley out of its economic doldrums.”

This skepticism is increasingly shared by elected Democrats both in the Central Valley and the rest of the state.

A Dec. 28 Los Angeles Times report quoted Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon as saying problems with the bullet train are so widespread that it should “be paused for a reassessment.” Rendon said the prospect that the project would run out of money before ever reaching the Los Angeles region left voters in the area feeling deceived.

Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman Jim Frazier, D-Oakley, has made clear that he will work to have rail authority chairman Dan Richard ousted because of cost overruns and management issues.

The bullet train’s image has also deteriorated among state pundits.

When California voters approved $9.95 billion in bond seed money for the then-$45 billion project in 2008, the ballot initiative was broadly supported by newspaper editorial boards.

“Americans who visit Japan or Europe and hop a bullet train get a stunning reminder of how far behind much of the industrialized world we are in swift, clean, efficient transportation,” the San Jose Mercury-News editorial page declared on Oct. 18, 2008. “Californians can change that by approving Proposition 1A, a bond to begin construction of a high-speed rail system that would whisk passengers from Los Angeles to the Bay Area through downtown San Jose in a mere 2 1/2 hours. It will be a catalyst for the economic growth of California and this region over the next 100 years.”

An editorial printed last month in the Mercury-News showed a 180-degree swing in opinion: “The incompetence and irresponsibility at the California High-Speed Rail Authority are staggering. … It’s time to end this fiasco to stop throwing good money after bad.”

Decision on cap-and-trade funding may signal Newsom’s intentions

An early sign of Newsom’s level of enthusiasm for continuing on Brown’s path is likely in coming weeks as initial work is done on the 2019-20 state budget. The California Air Resources Board reported pulling in $813 million from its Nov. 14 auction of cap-and-trade air pollution credits – a heavy haul.

If Newsom opposes diverting 25 percent of cap-and-trade revenue to the bullet-train project – as has been done since 2015 – that will be the clearest indication yet that he is ready to back away from the troubled project.

“The state rail authority is studying an alternative to build the first segment in the Bay Area, running trains from San Jose to Bakersfield,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “If the plan does change, it would be a significant reversal that carries big financial, technical and political impacts, especially in Southern California.” Local officials and residents have argued that the area’s transportation needs and challenges far outweigh those in the San Francisco Bay Area, where public transportation is dense and plentiful.

Moving the goal posts

The controversial, last-minute shift hinted at pessimistic calculations within the state’s High Speed Rail Authority as to how best to mitigate cost pressure and environmental constraints faced in the south, where any rail line will have to navigate — and penetrate — the area’s rugged natural terrain. “This new interest in building from the north first comes just one week after announcing an $800,000 effort to find a suitable starting location in Burbank, near L.A.,” Business Insider noted. “The hope is that the north-first plan would be less risky, making it more likely that construction can begin before the project becomes politically nonviable.”

In addition to changing the project’s starting line, the new plan also shifted its destination — another concession to the dramatic obstacles posed by a scheme routed directly into the L.A. basin. “The alternative being examined would run from Silicon Valley to Bakersfield and be less costly than the current proposal to connect the Central Valley with Burbank because it wouldn’t entail expensive tunneling costs,” as the San Jose Mercury News observed. “The outcome of the new evaluation will be known in the coming weeks, when the state unveils its 2016 business plan. The document will be the most comprehensive update for the $68 billion project in four years.”

At the same time, however, local officials in Bakersfield have yet to warm to the new proposal. “Connecting California high-speed rail between Kern and the Bay Area before building south toward Los Angeles would not resolve the touchier issues surrounding the project’s local impacts, but it would provide more time for planning the route south from Bakersfield,” they have informed the Bakersfield Californian. “There have been contentious discussions about different proposed alignments through Kern and how they would affect local homes, businesses, schools and churches, as well as Kern’s prospects for landing a maintenance facility that would bring more than 1,500 good jobs.”

Feet to the fire

The changes have come hot on the heels of a sharp escalation in lawmakers’ displeasure toward rail authority officials. Since October of last year, when the Los Angeles Times broke news of the authority’s secrecy over anticipated cost overruns, the project’s fortunes have fallen under increasing scrutiny in Sacramento. In the story, the paper recalled, it “found that the years remaining before the deadline were not enough to construct 300 miles of track, bore 36 miles of mountain tunnels, build six train stations, erect high-voltage electrical systems and construct a heavy maintenance facility. The story was based on comments by tunnel engineers, construction experts and geologists.”

“The story also reported that the agency’s primary consultant, Parsons Brinckerhoff, had submitted a cost estimate in October 2013 that projected a 31 percent increase in the cost of the initial construction segment and a 5 percent increase in the cost of the full 500-mile system. The estimate, which was the culmination of a two-year effort by a team of engineers, was not used when the state issued its 2014 business plan several months later.”

At a recent hearing called to address that and other issues, lawmakers were told that the Times had made a mistake about the ballooning cost of construction.

“Rail Authority CEO Jeff Morales said that’s not accurate,” KQED reported. “There was no 31 percent increase in the cost of the program,” according to Morales. “We did not withhold information about a cost increase in the program because there was no increase in the program.”

These developments put project supporters on the spot in two different ways.

The Los Angeles hearing suggests attitudes about the bullet train in Los Angeles County are moving against the project. That’s what happened in Silicon Valley, where voters supported Proposition 1A in 2008 to provide $9.95 billion for a statewide bullet train system but shifted to intense opposition when the real-life effects of building a high-speed rail system through wealthy communities triggered a powerful, well-financed campaign to force the state to back off.

This and $30 billion in cost savings led Gov. Jerry Brown and the rail authority to adopt a “blended”plan in which high-speed rail would extend from Fresno to northern Los Angeles County, with slower rail on each end connecting riders to downtown San Francisco and downtown Los Angeles, respectively.

But after the rail authority decided last year to accelerate construction in Southern California, community opposition began to build. This has helped fray the loose coalition of the region’s politicians who have long supported the idea of a bullet-train system but are uncomfortable with the emerging specifics.

Is Antonovich’s proposal actually a ‘poison pill’?

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich — who once lobbied to make sure the bullet train’s route went through his district — now is the leading proponent of minimizing disruption to his district by tunneling through the San Gabriel Mountains for the train’s 15-mile Palmdale-to-Burbank link. Given that this would add billions of dollars in construction costs to a project that already can’t identify how it’s going to pay for its first $31 billion segment, that’s close to asking the rail authority to do the impossible. Such “poison pills” are one way for politicians to oppose a project in indirect fashion.

Antonovich’s 2014 proposal, in turn, led to concerns in January from two other elected Democrats who previously backed the bullet train project enthusiastically. This is from the Los Angeles Business Journal:

Rep. Adam Schiff came out in opposition on Thursday to a proposed alignment of the state’s high-speed rail project that would require a tunnel beneath the Angeles National Forest – damaging chances the plan will be carried out.

 

In a letter sent this month, Schiff, D-Burbank, and Rep. Judy Chu, D-El Monte, told California High Speed Rail Authority Dan Richard to scrap any consideration of a route under the San Gabriel Mountains between Palmdale and the San Fernando Valley because it would be harmful to the environment.

Wealthy environmentalists don’t like Antonovich’s plan. But some poor and middle-class homeowners of the San Fernando Valley don’t like the rail authority’s alternative, and they depict their fight as akin to David vs. Goliath. This is from Glendale resident Stephen Mills’ letter in Friday’s L.A. Times:

California High Speed Rail Authority board member Lou Correa said that he detected “a little bit of NIMBYism” regarding the reaction to bullet train plans. He should get used to it.

 

Affluent neighborhoods have successfully fought intrusive development that would have affected their quality of life, and now working-class neighborhoods are doing the same.

How much is CA project an Obama priority?

Meanwhile, in Washington, the House’s action to pull back federal funds from the state’s high-speed project may prove as consequential as the developments in Los Angeles County. The provision was included in the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal 2016, a multibillion-dollar measure that includes many provisions the White House supports.

If the Senate approves this funding bill, would President Obama actually veto it in the name of preserving federal grants to an embattled, increasingly unpopular project that would help only one of the 50 states?

That’s not clear. Doing so would likely prompt a sharp reaction from the Washington Post’s editorial page. It has long been a harsh critic of California’s project.

A 2011 editorial, headlined “California’s high-speed rail system is going nowhere fast,” noted that the state “hasn’t credibly identified a source of funds for the system” and questioned Gov. Jerry Brown’s enthusiasm for the project.

In an effort to better understand the challenges posed by high-speed rail, a delegation of three state Senators spent the Legislature’s spring break in Japan to investigate the first and, arguably, best high-speed rail system in the world.

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, Senate GOP leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar and Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, began the four-day trip with a briefing from the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo before moving on to Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto. The delegation also received a tour of the country’s High Speed Rail Operation Center and discussed transportation, seismic safety, clean energy, environment and climate change with various Japanese officials, including Issei Kitagawa, the country’s transportation and tourism minister.

Here at CalWatchdog.com, we don’t think a few state Senators should have all the fun. That’s why we packed our bags and headed to Tokyo to research Japan’s world-class rail system for ourselves.

Japan: World leader in high-speed rail

What makes the Japanese experts on high-speed rail? For starters, it’s the birthplace of high-speed rail. Since its opening in 1964, the Shinkansen has transported an estimated 5.6 billion passengers throughout the third largest economy in the world. The phrase “bullet train” comes from the Japanese translation of “dangan ressha,” which was used to describe Japan’s first high-speed rail system.

“Japan’s high-speed rail system is one of the best if not the best in the world,” Huff explained following the trip. “It has a safety record unparalleled in a seismically active country with a lot of similarities to California.”

Safety, especially as it related to earthquakes, is perhaps the most important takeaway for California. Japan boasts an impressive safety record – with no major injuries in 50 years. During the tragic 8.9 magnitude earthquake in 2011, trains were sent an automatic shut-off command from a control center in Kinkazan. That warning gave 33 trains enough time to safely stop.

Japanese bullet trains, which travel up to 200 miles per hour, are prepared for other natural disasters. When a bullet train in Northern Japan derailed during a 2013 blizzard, none of the 130 passengers and crew on board were injured.

Huff: Rail works with high-density populations

While California can incorporate Japan’s safety protocols into its design and construction, the state will have a harder time matching ridership, in part, due to vastly different transit habits and urban growth patterns.

“The biggest difference is they have a high density population that has not evolved around a ‘car culture’ as we have here,” Huff explained. “Only half of Japan’s population own a car, and all of the associated costs of ownership – parking, gas and everything else – are prohibitively expensive. Taken together that creates the raw ingredients for a successful high-speed rail system.”

As Slate’s Eric Holthaus points out, air travel is ingrained in American travel, with rail barely a blip. “In 2012, Americans traveled nearly 3 trillion passenger-miles by car, 580 billion by air, and more than 300 billion by bus,” Holthaus wrote in January. “Passenger rail was barely even comparable—just 7 billion passenger-miles.”

Supporters of high-speed rail say that U.S. passengers don’t embrace rail because it’s currently too slow. Throughout the world, transportation experts have cited a 3-hour rule for travel– passengers prefer rail for journeys under three hours. In his review of high-speed rail research, Chris Nash of the Institute for Transport Studies at University of Leeds concluded, “Targeting air markets where rail journey times can be brought close to or below 3 hours therefore does make sense.”

California likely to break 3-hour rule

Japan’s well-designed system easily meets that three hour rule, allowing passengers to fly through security and arrive at the station just minutes before departure. A trip from Nagoya to Kyoto, which would have been a two-hour journey by car, took under 40 minutes on high-speed rail. And the rush hour commute to Nagoya station was so bad that it took longer to reach the station than the trip itself.

That’s why Japanese airlines are steadily losing ground to the bullet train. “Six out of 10 travelers on the Tokyo-Hiroshima line used to fly the route, but now the ratio has reversed in favor of the bullet train,” Nikkei Asian Review observed in 2013.

California’s high-speed rail system faces the opposite problem, where airlines can transfer passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in under 90 minutes. The state’s planned route has also extended the travel time and will likely break the important 3-hour travel rule.

Last year, Louis Thompson, chairman of the High-Speed Rail Peer Review, testified before a state Senate committee that California’s system would not meet the anticipated trip times of two hours and 40 minutes, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Japanese high-speed rail encourages growth

Fewer riders translates into concerns about profitability. To make Japan’s high-speed rail system more profitable, rail companies own the surrounding land and are encouraged to develop.

The Economist noted that Japan’s system “thrives because of a planning system that encourages the building of commercial developments and housing alongside the railway route. JR East owns the land around the railways and lets it out; nearly a third of its revenue comes from shopping malls, blocks of offices, flats and the like.”

Given California’s environmental laws and anti-development mentality, it’s hard to envision the state embracing new major development projects.

For Huff, the trip left lingering doubts about California’s current high-speed rail plan.

“My takeaway for California is that if Governor Brown intends to continue pushing for a high-speed rail system he might be better served by starting in the big cities and building systems that will help connect people immediately, and then expand later,” he said.

After an August court ruling from Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny that the massive project didn’t have a legal business plan because it had inadequate financing and environmental reviews, the Attorney General’s Office filed a “remedies” brief that included no remedies. It didn’t dispute Kenny’s conclusion that the business plan was illegal. Instead, the state argued that the project could continue for the time being using federal funds.

As I wrote for CWD in October …

“It seems awfully problematic for the state to concede its plans break the law yet still want to proceed with a $68 billion project.”

Then came round two of legal filings in January, this one appealing Kenny’s rulings. This time the Attorney General’s Office argued that Kenny’s August and November decisions on the illegality of the business plan were flat-out wrong and an assault on the prerogatives of the state’s executive and legislative branches.

Arguments not raised at trial can’t be brought up on appeal

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 Katy Grimes

U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein’s husband Richard Blum, won the first phase construction contract for California’s high-speed rail.

I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.

If I didn’t witness the insanity and corruption in politics every day, I wouldn’t have believed this.

“The Perini-Zachary-Parsons bid was the lowest received from the five consortia participating in the bidding process, but “low” is a relative term,” the Laer Pearce, author of Crazifornia wrote. “The firms bid $985,142,530 to build the wildly anticipated first section of high speed rail track that will tie the megopolis of Madera to the global finance center of Fresno. Do the division, and you find that the low bid came in at a mere $35 million per mile.”

“As this fiasco progress, remember that this $35 million per mile represents the best California can do on the section of track the High on Crack Speed Rail Authority selected to go first because it will be the cheapest,” Pearce said.

Read Pearce’s story here. And stop staring dumfounded at the computer screen. Yes, this is true.

By Katy Grimes

There have been warnings since Proposition 1A was passed in 2008 that the rail authority would award construction contracts to union contractors, providing a bidding advantage to companies that agree to sign a Project Labor Agreement.

Now, it appears that the High-Speed Rail Authority is finalizing these predicted plans.

While the public has not seen a formal policy, many in the non-union labor field have had suspicions.

The Northern California Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors has been predicting since 2008 that a scheme was already underway to give unions a monopoly on the rail construction.

Most interesting is how this is done.

The Scheme

At the board meeting of the California High Speed Rail Authority Thursday, an item to approve a policy concerning “enhanced community benefits” for construction of the high speed rail system was on the agenda.

“Construction industry observers believe the High Speed Rail Authority will use this policy as justification for contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement with unions for construction of the rail system, including related structures such as stations,” said Kevin Dayton, a Project Labor Agreement expert, formerly with the ABC, and now with the Dayton Public Policy Institute.

Dayton explained that this “community benefits” policy may seem innocuous on the surface because it is supposed to to be a work program to enhance employment opportunities.

The “community benefits” employment list includes economically disadvantaged and low-income workers, veterans, youth, unemployed, homeless, single parents, and even people with criminal records, Dayton said. This High-Speed Rail employment policy claims to “ensure that California benefits as much as possible.”

But according to Dayton, while the Community Benefits policy for High-Speed Rail may sound good in theory, in reality it is the plan for unions to get the work under a Project Labor Agreement.

“Unions will claim workers are dispatched out of ‘local hiring halls’ and a ‘Helmets to Hardhats’ veterans program under a Project Labor Agreement,” Dayton said. The rail authority board even sent out a press release after the Thursday board meeting announcing that they “adopted a hiring policy targeting California communities and disadvantaged workers.”

At the rail board meeting Thursday, the staff emphasized that it would help with the hiring of veterans and the adoption of pre-apprenticeship programs. But Dayton said that these are customary union talking points when pushing Project Labor Agreements.

Design-build

The High Speed Rail Authority plans on awarding construction contracts using a ”design-build” bidding procedure, which means it can use rather subjective criteria as the basis for selecting its construction contractors, Dayton said. Using this process, the rail authority doesn’t even have to consider the lowest bidder of the project.

The importance of outing the High-Speed Rail Authority’s plans is because they knowingly are avoiding the high-profile public scrutiny process that a legislative hearing or legislation requires. Perhaps more importantly, public officials and elected lawmakers get to avoid voting on this policy.

Without the public vetting process that most legislation receives, Dayton said that the public will remain unaware of the High-Speed Rail’s decision to use Project Labor Agreements, as well as the long-term repercussions and excessive costs to taxpayers.

Well-used tactic

Dayton said this is not a new tactic. “The same tactic was used to get a PLA on the San Diego Convention Center and the new George Deukmejian Long Beach Courthouse,” Dayton said. “They work behind the scenes to get the design-build contractor to sign the PLA, so it is never public. And, it appears that the contractor voluntarily agreed to the PLA.”

“The City of San Diego and the California Administrative Office of the Courts even claim that the Project Labor Agreements are not a matter of public record,” he said. “But Clark Construction, the contractor awarded the public contracts, declines to provide them to the public.”

Dayton has been warning about this scheme for several years. In January 2011, Dayton wrote one of many stories about it on The Truth About PLAs.

“Construction union meddling with the California High-Speed Rail project began as far back as February 2003, when construction unions pushed for the enactment of Assembly Bill 1506, a bill that required the High-Speed Rail Authority to operate a ‘Labor Compliance Program,'” Dayton said. “As reported in the October 1, 2003 Merced Sun-Star, then-State Senator Jeff Denham asked soon-to-be-recalled Gov. Gray Davis to veto the bill because it could lead to a Project Labor Agreement. Rumors continued to circulate in the next six years about the unions targeting the project for a PLA.” But Davis predictably signed the union friendly bill into law.

Lo and behold, Dayton was right. But it got worse. In March 2011, the State Senate Rules Committee appointed Bob Balgenorth, then-president of the union-run California State Building and Construction Trades Council, to a vacant seat on the California High-Speed Rail Authority Board of Directors. His influence on the HSR board all but solidified that the construction projects would all be done with union labor, driving the cost of the project unnecessarily high.

Dayton added that any chance of local workers getting hired to work on the rail construction projects was never a priority, and that most of the labor would not only come from other parts of the state, but would come from out of state.

Dayton even identified the construction companies involved with the High-Speed Rail project PLA scheme.

PLA alert

The Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction also sent out an alert Thursday warning that the High-Speed Rail Authority was planning on voting on the union-only construction agreements:

“PLA ALERT!: CA High Speed Rail Authority to Vote on Union-Only Project Labor Agreement TODAY!

“Today at 10:00am at City Hall in Sacramento, the California High Speed Rail Authority will be doing something we have warned about ever since this ill conceived, deceitfully presented plan to create a slower and more expensive way to travel verses flying was concocted: Have this 19th Century choo-choo train built with union-only labor by way of a Project Labor Agreement or ‘PLA’.  That should help keep this project’s runaway costs down.”

Dayton, the Associated Builders and Contractors and the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction have been warning taxpayers, business owners, and workers for years that the California High Speed Rail Authority is a prime target for a union-only Project Labor Agreement (PLA).

And the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown have ignored these warnings.