Since then, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has been unable to attract outside investors and doesn’t have even 40 percent of the money it needs to complete the initial 300-mile, $31 billion segment — much less the $68 billion needed to build a rail line linking San Francisco and downtown Los Angeles. This has led bullet-train advocates, starting with Robert Cruickshank of the California High Speed Rail Blog, to repeatedly urge Congress and the Obama administration to provide more federal dollars. In planning documents from three years ago, state officials said they were hoping on $42 billion in federal help.

But Republicans took control of the House in the November 2010 election, and they have repeatedly denounced the state’s project, led by Rep. Jeff Denham of Turlock. And the office of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, has confirmed there’s not a dime for the state’s bullet train in the gigantic, five-year, $305 billion transportation bill that Congress approved last week in an overwhelming bipartisan vote.

CA Democrats fought for bullet train funds in 2012

In 2012, during negotiations on a similar omnibus transportation measure, California’s House Democrats were strongly critical of the bill for, among other things, blocking new federal funding for the Golden State high-speed rail project. But Nexis and Google News searches show no similar pointed criticism of the new transportation bill. This 2013 analysis by Governing magazine shows why enthusiasm has waned among federal lawmakers:

In California … if the feds were to pony up the rest of the $42 billion the state is expecting, it would be more than the federal government spends nationwide on grants for new subway, light-rail and bus rapid transit lines combined. … At a time when Congress has canceled White House tours in order to reduce spending, it’s hard to envision Washington lawmakers making that sort of long-term commitment anytime soon. …

 

In a budget deal struck with Republicans in April 2011, the administration lost funding for its [high-speed rail] program, and it hasn’t come back since. … Meanwhile, despite all his calls for high-speed rail spending, Obama hasn’t developed a concrete proposal on how to provide an ongoing, dedicated revenue stream for those projects, which advocates say is key. Even the nonpartisan GAO warns that counting on future federal funding for projects like the one in California is highly speculative. Joshua Schank, head of the Eno Center for Transportation, says it’s unlikely at this point that the administration will continue to throw its full weight behind high-speed rail because so far the program “hasn’t yielded much dividend politically. Nor,” he adds, “has it yielded much in terms of high-speed rail.”

Cruickshank, however, thinks there’s a maniacal quality to GOP opposition. “To Republicans, of course, the risk to the taxpayer isn’t based in fact but in ideology. They believe nobody rides passenger trains in America, so any such attempt to fund one is doomed from the start. They mention that government might have to subsidize its operating costs and even though the global experience suggests they don’t, they’re ignoring the fact that government massively subsidizes roads without any expectation that they’ll cover their costs,” he wrote in 2013.

Nevertheless, aides to President Obama say he will sign the transportation bill, perhaps this week.

“Prop 1A’s flaws include the ban on operating subsidies and the requirement that all funding be identified before construction on a segment begins, as well as the smaller size of the overall bond authorization.”

Cruickshank never acknowledges that it is only because of these taxpayer protections that the project narrowly passed. Meanwhile, in the comment sections, posters angrily trash Judge Kenny’s ruling, ignoring the fact that at the November “remedies” hearing, the state Attorney General’s Office didn’t dispute his conclusion that the project didn’t have close to adequate financing or environmental reviews to begin construction.

But it seems to be sinking in with Cruickshank that the federal spigot has been turned off and that Congress won’t be coming to the rescue with the massive cash infusion the project needs. So how does he want to revive his beloved bullet train? With $29 billion in new taxes and a grab of $13 billion in cap-and-trade fees as AB 32 gears up. Among the money grabs he envisions:

“• An increase in the gas tax of 6 cents per gallon for 20 years

“• Road tolls of $4 per vehicle on six highways that parallel high-speed rail as it enters the Bay Area and Southern California

“• An $8.50 increase in the annual vehicle license fee (VLF) for 20 years”

Cruickshank completely ignores the fact that polls show Californians have turned on the bullet train. Oh, yeah, they’re going to love paying $29 billion in new taxes for a poorly managed, deceit-ridden project that won’t even go from Los Angeles to San Francisco — just from San Jose to northern L.A. County.

What is about rail — from light rail to bullet trains — that brings out such delusional and cultlike behavior? I think at least part of it is the greens’ hate of automobiles (or other folks’ automobiles). But I don’t think that’s all of it.

But I ventured to the blog this weekend and gave it a good look after reading Steve Greenhut’s piece for Reason in which he mentioned that Cruickshank appeared to think Gov. Jerry Brown would just defy the courts if they continued to hold that the project didn’t have sufficient funding in hand and hadn’t completed sufficient environmental reviews to break ground, as Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny concluded in an Aug. 16 decision. (Some breaking news from a case insider: On Nov. 8, a “remedies” hearing will be held at which Kenny and attorneys involved in the case discuss the rail authority’s response to his ruling.)

To Cruickshank’s credit, he appears to realize the grim implications of Kenny’s ruling. In his first post after the decision, he says the judge has not decided to block the project “for now.” But why does he say Kenny found the project wanting under state law?

“… the California high speed rail project, and the CHSRA, are being held responsible for the actions of Congressional Republicans. It is they who are blocking further federal funding for high speed rail, jeopardizing the federal contributions identified in the 2012 Business Plan – exactly the shortcoming that Judge Kenny used as the centerpiece of his ruling.”

Why would other 49 states subsidize CA’s costly project?

But just because a state agency’s business plan says the federal government will fork over tens of billions of dollars doesn’t mean that will happen. There is only one major bullet-train project going forward in the U.S., and it is here in California. Why would the other 49 states want to subsidize an in-state rail line for the 50th state?

And it’s not just House Republicans who aren’t fans. Earlier this year, it was Senate Democrats.

As I wrote in March, the budget that Senate Democrats have embraced contains so little discretionary funding for California’s bullet-train project that it is impossible to see how the $68 billion project ever gets done.

“But here’s an interesting twist. The primary author of the budget — Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash. — is so down on the Obama administration’s bullet train initiative that she tried to kill it in 2011. This is from a Sept. 21, 2011, AP story:

‘WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-led Senate Appropriations Committee has voted to provide $100 million to build high-speed rail lines, a small portion of what President Barack Obama has proposed for one of his economic priorities.

“The panel voted by voice Wednesday to include the money in a $110 billion transportation and housing bill for next year.

‘Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the bill’s author, included nothing for high-speed rail in the original measure, citing budget constraints.

‘But senators backed an amendment by No. 2 Senate Democratic leader Richard Durbin of Illinois adding the money. He said it would be paid for with unspent money from past home district projects called earmarks.’”

State voters never told project depended on immense federal $

Yo, Robert, nice attempt to spin Congress’ balking at a unilateral gift to the Golden State as about House GOP obstructionism.

There’s also this flaw in Cruickshank’s argument. What matters isn’t the rail authority’s 2012 fantasy business plan. It’s what state voters were told in 2008 when they approved Proposition 1A and provided $9.95 billion in bond seed money for the project. They were promised that private investors would be eager to partner with the state, which has proven completely wrong. They weren’t told the project couldn’t even finish its initial operating segment without vast federal subsidies.

It’s easy to find other Cruickshank whoppers. In this Aug. 26 post, he insinuates that since bullet train critics didn’t like the project when it was expected to be much cheaper, that somehow shows they’re irrational and can never be trusted to support wise public policy.

“It’s also hard to envision critics suddenly changing their tune. They objected when the cost was pegged at $33 billion in 2008 and it’s unlikely any system connecting SF to LA could ever be built for less.”

Yo, Robert, the main reason they objected to the reasonably priced $33 billion project IS THAT THEY DIDN’T BELIEVE FOR A SECOND IT WOULD ONLY COST $33 BILLION!

Antis’ $90 billion estimate way closer than $33 billion

This is from the first paragraph of the rebuttal argument from the voters guide for the November 2008 bullet-train initiative:

“The whole project could cost $90 billion—the most expensive railroad in history. No one really knows how much this will ultimately cost. Taxpayers will foot this bill—it’s not ‘free money.'”

The $90 billion guess was prescient. Back when the state actually was considering high-speed rail all the way from downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles, the cost estimate was $98 billion. The only reason it went down to $68 billion is that the Brown administration now only contemplates high-speed rail from San Jose to the northern L.A. suburbs.

If dishonesty were a crime, Robert Cruickshank would be fighting to stay off Death Row.