The hunt for dollars to build the $64-billion bullet train

The hunt for dollars to build the $64-billion bullet train

The California High Speed Rail Authority faced backlash after requesting to import parts for rail cars. 

(Associated Press)

Ralph VartabedianContact Reporter

The California High-Speed Rail Authority quietly approached federal officials in July to discuss an ambitious solution to its most pressing problem, one that has hung over the project for more than five years.

The state does not know where to find all of the $64 billion it will cost to get the first passengers rocketing between San Francisco and Los Angeles on a bullet train.

With the Obama administration on its way out, it seemed like a good time to nail down more long-term federal support on the assumption that Hillary Clinton would be the next president.

So the state set up a meeting to ask the U.S. Department of Transportation to publicly announce a federal loan of up to $15 billion that would help build an initial rail segment from San Jose to Shafter, northwest of Bakersfield, which would cement federal support during the transition to a new presidential administration.

source US High Speed Rail Association

Such a loan — even the commitment for one — would also show potential private investors that the project was “creditworthy,” according to a briefing document for the meeting.

But federal officials did not go along with the state’s suggestion. “At this time, California has not submitted a financing request,” said Clark Pettig, press secretary for the Transportation Department.

They are going to have to put a lot more money into this project than they thought.

Elizabeth Alexis, co-founder, Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design

Federal officials are unlikely to make any new loans in the next month. Meanwhile, the election of Republican Donald Trump makes the rail authority’s funding problem more serious than ever.

The project has long been vilified by congressional Republicans, particularly by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), who has called it a “boondoggle” that was “doomed to fail from the start.”

And House rail subcommittee Chairman Jeff Denham (R-Turlock) has vowed to block any future federal funding for the project, citing long-standing concerns about its poor management controls and planning.

Senior congressional staffers say they don’t have any direct knowledge of Trump’s views or those of Elaine Chao, his pick for Transportation secretary, but they doubt they will attempt to challenge the existing Republican opposition to the project.

Robert Poole, transportation policy director at the libertarian Reason Foundation, said he too is doubtful that Trump and Chao would support the project with new money. Poole noted that Chao, a former deputy secretary at the Transportation Department, has supported projects that have private backing, something California’s bullet train lacks.

If those expectations are borne out, it would leave the project on a continued search to fill giant gaps in its funding, even as construction of rail bridges, viaducts and trenches through a section in Fresno accelerates.

Voters approved a $9-billion bond for what was then a $33-billion project in 2008, but most of that money has been hogtied by complex taxpayer protections that were part of the ballot proposition. The rail project has been unable to satisfy those rules.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-cash-20161224-story.html

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