The political sleight of hand pulled off last week by Gov. Jerry Brown with the help of Democrats in the Legislature deftly outmaneuvered opponents of the state’s beleaguered high-speed-rail project in a questionable deal that funds the train while draining dollars from environmental projects that truly could reduce greenhouse gases in the state.
The plan materialized in the final hours of budget negotiations last week and will steer $250 million in cap-and-trade revenue to high-speed rail. At the same time, to recoup the money they pay to the cap-and-trade fund, oil companies are expected to raise prices that could mean a jump of 10 to 20 cents per gallon at the pump. Cap-and-trade income is supposed to be used by 2020 according to AB32, the enabling legislation.
This is a terrible deal for everyone in the state except for Gov. Brown, who apparently wants to make the high-speed train his legacy project, and the construction unions that helped him in the last election. More important, it is a another attempt by the rail authority to somehow keep the project alive when all available evidence shows there simply is not enough money to even begin to build the Madera-to-Fresno segment, let alone the entire project, whose latest price tag is $68 billion.
No one believes that high-speed rail will be running in six years without a plan to make up a deficit of more than $20 billion just to get the first segment completed in the Central Valley. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny ruled last November that the rail authority acted in violation of Proposition 1A, which included the $9.95 billion bond measure voters approved in 2008. Judge Kenny told the rail authority to rescind its business plan and in a separate order, denied the authority’s request to validate $8 billion in bond expenditures.
The authority’s current plan would use $3.3 billion in committed federal funds and $7 billion of the $9 billion in Proposition 1A funds, of which $4.2 million has already been allocated. But the plan would be $21 billion short of the estimated $30 billion cost of the first segment.
In addition, the rail authority’s hope of attracting private investment has not resulted in any offers and there is little likelihood that the present Republican Congress will ante up any funds for a Democratic governor’s favorite boondoggle.
In our view, it is sheer political trickery to assign 25 percent of the cap-and-trade income, which has been earmarked for projects that will cut greenhouse gases within the next six years, to high-speed rail. Certainly there are more appropriate projects for the Legislature to consider that actually would lower pollution. A possible breakdown of how the state will allocate cap and trade funds now earmarks 25 percent for high-speed rail, 15 percent to local transportation projects, 20 percent to affordable housing, and the rest to energy and natural resources projects.
With $250 million a year, high-speed rail will have funding to keep the rail authority alive and perhaps write other business plans. But the chances of it ever being built continue to shrink and estimated costs of completing the project continue to rise. Our hope is that enough members of the Legislature have the courage to buck the governor and the construction unions and say goodbye to this grandiose idea that the voters passed with the best of intentions in 2008, but had no idea of its true cost.
Redwood City attorney sues ‘First Amendment auditors’ after Menlo Park disputeApril 2, 2026 11:31 am
