HI-SPEED TRAIN AGENCY UNHAPPY WITH ALAN LOWENTHAL’S BILL TO REIN IT IN
By Anthony Pignataro/CalWatchdog.com
At a time of contentious debate over a $45 billion (and some analysts say double that) proposal to build an 800-mile network of bullet trains crisscrossing California at speeds approaching 220 miles per hour, state Senator Alan Lowenthal has introduced a bill he hopes will bring some rationality to the project.
Senate Bill 517 (SB 517) would place the High-Speed Rail Authority—which since its creation has operated pretty much on its own—under the direct control of the state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency.
Lowenthal helped pass the original $10 billion bond measure that really jump-started the high-speed rail effort a few years ago, but his chief of staff, John Casey, recently told me that the Long Beach Democrat is “disappointed” by the state of the project.
According to Casey, Lowenthal feels the rail authority in recent years simply hasn’t been effective.
“The senator has been consistently disappointed with the level of detail in the [authority’s] business plan,” said Casey. “He’s found it not to be really serious.”
The composition and behavior of the High-Speed Rail Authority has left something to be desired, too.
Five of its nine members are governor-appointed, with the rest appointed by legislative leaders. As such, in recent years the authority’s board has run afoul of a scandal or two — accusations that two members were in violation of the state’s ban on holding “incompatible offices” as well as revelations that a few board members weren’t keeping accurate records of their travel expenses. (The state Fair Political Practices Commission recently ruled that they did not violate state law.)
In addition to putting the High-Speed Rail Authority under control of the state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, SB 517 would add that agency’s secretary to the rail authority as an ex-officio member. And according to the text of the bill, it would “enact various conflict-of-interest provisions applicable to members of the authority and its staff, as specified, and would prohibit a person from serving on the authority in certain circumstances.”
More from the bill: “The bill would require the secretary to propose an annual budget for the authority upon consultation with the authority. The bill would require the members of the authority appointed by the Governor to be appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate. The bill would provide for the members that are appointed to have specific background or experience, as specified.”
It should come as no surprise that the rail authority isn’t too keen on Lowenthal’s effort—though apparently not because Lowenthal failed to capitalize “authority” in his legislation and thus give the panel sufficient respect.
“The Board has previously opposed proposals to place the Authority within Business, Transportation, and Housing, and remains consistent in that position,” Board chairman Curt Pringle wrote in an undated but often incoherent letter to Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) chairman of the Housing and Transportation Committee. “It is our position that Senate approval of the majority the positions [sic] does not maintain the balanced nature of the Board.”
Pringle’s main argument, though, is that now is not the time to be fiddling with the accountability of the board, given its very sensitive need to find private financing for the cartoonishly expensive bullet train system being designed.
“An overhaul of the Board during these next two years of securing private investment and beginning construction would send the wrong signal to those critical partners,” Pringle wrote.
Oh, absolutely—if I were ponying up a few hundred million for bullet trains, I’d want to make sure the governing body was as controversial and secretive as possible.
There isn’t yet a published analysis of SB 517, but it’s due for a hearing in the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee on April 26—that’s Tuesday.
Of course, all of this may be moot—and by “all of this,” I mean the whole decision to build a bullet train system in California.
The May issue of Popular Science has a glitzy image of a futuristic mag-lev train on the cover, announcing the coming of new “supertrains” capable of speeds that would move travelers from New York to Los Angeles “in 41 minutes” without leaving the ground — and suddenly making the so-called “bullet trains” that are in California’s proposed system seem rather creaky and obsolete.
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6 Comments
1. Has anyone offered any explanation as to why they feel high speed rail projects need to be managed by state government or require taxpayer funds to facilitate?
2. Considering California’s persistent -and deepening- budget deficits, has anyone considered the possibility that even if there *is* a compelling argument in favor or item 1, now is probably *not* the time to commit our state to yet one more taxpayer-funded deficit-spending boondoggle?
Will this “resume building” project be better thought out than Suja Lowenthal’s (the other Lowenthal) downtown bicycle lane project that prevents fire department aerial ladder trucks from responding to high rise fires?
http://www.lbreport.com/news/apr11/bikefd.htm
the voters want high speed rail, get it done.
howrardx: Unfortunately the majority of voters in California never saw a bond measure they didn’t like. Most of them seem to have no flipping clue how bond measures correlate *directly* with deeper public debt and higher taxes. The very debt and tax increases, in fact, they later incessantly and petulently engage in BMW (bitching, whining and moaning) about.
Similarly, the majority of voters in California still labor under the apparent self-delusion that government-centric solutions are the best solutions and that if we would only tax-and-spend enough, and grow government enough, we could solve every one of our public policy challenges once and for all.
Most voters in California do not seem to be able to observe the past several decades of abysmal -and worsening- government performance in California, compare that with the party that has run the State legislature for that same amount of time, put two and two together and come up with four.
Most voters in California are Democrats (44.5% as of last September according to PPIC.org)
You do the math…
despite all the right wing jibber jabber greet spews above, the voters approved the high speed rail bond, its time to get started. isnt it interesting how in some cases (prop 8 for example) the will of the voters is inviolate but when its something the RW doesnt like (high speed rail) that will seems to matter less. arizona is right next door greet, its possible you might be more comfortable with your own kind.
Prop 8, was a travesty of unconstitutionality. Those who voted for Prop 8 were wrong, just as those who voted for Prop 1A in 2008 were wrong.
The project itself, as currently planned, is fraught with many flaws, erroneous data and hyper-optimistic projections.
http://reason.org/files/1b544eba6f1d5f9e8012a8c36676ea7e.pdf
Beyond the almost $10 *billion* in deficit spending California voters approved in 2008, the project is also being supported with up to $12.5 *billion* in federal funds (also deficit spent.) These funds, if they materialize at all, will be made available as a result of other states that have abandoned their own previously planned high-speed rail boondoggles. Is it possible that these states now understand something very important about such projects that California hasn’t quite figured out yet?
Oh yes, and that 2008 Prop 1A vote? A bare-bones 52.7% of those who bothered to vote, approved the measure. A pathetic 59.22% of those who were *eligible* to vote actually bothered to participate. So, in truth, in 2008 a mere 31.2% of eligible California voters approved Prop 1A and indebted the remaining 68.8% of us…for yet another government-facilitated California boondoggle.
How very considerate of them.