House Republicans late Thursday night adopted an amendment that would prohibit California from receiving any high speed rail money in a huge five-year transportation bill headed to the House floor next week. The $270 billion bill also eliminates bicycle and pedestrian programs and detaches urban mass transit funding from its traditional revenue source. The underlying bill did not include any high speed rail funding to begin with, and indeed would cut Amtrak by 25 percent, so the prohibition serves mainly as a stick in the eye to California’s plan for bullet trains.
The action is part of a continuing effort by Republicans to kill the entire project, which was a major element of President Obama’s 2009 stimulus. California’s $100 billion plan for bullet trains running from San Francisco to San Diego already has the stimulus money in hand to get started, but future federal funding on which the project depends is very much at risk if House Republicans maintain control of the chamber, not to mention take the White House.
Although House Republicans are touting their success in keeping the bill free of earmarks, they are having problems with the bill within their own caucus. Rank-and-file member complained that it was hatched behind closed doors before landing in committee, and the conservative Club for Growth coming out against the bill. Its reliance on funding to materialize from oil drilling is considered somewhat magical.
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