A number of distinguished California Democrats are calling on the U.S. Division of Transportation to approve a grant utility for $536 million in federal funds to maneuver ahead with the state’s long-awaited high-speed rail community.
The monies would come from funds already allotted usually to “federal-state partnership[s] for intercity passenger rail grants” by the 2021 “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law” and made obtainable through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024.
Democrats urged Secretary Pete Buttigieg to approve the funds, saying progress on the “California Phase I Corridor” is “essential to enhancing our nation’s and California’s strategic transportation network investments.”
“The Phase 1 Corridor aims to address climate concerns, promote health, improve access and connectivity, and boost economic vitality, while addressing current highway and rail capacity constraints,” a letter to the outgoing Cupboard member learn.
BUILDING STARTS ON HIGH-SPEED RAIL LINE BETWEEN LAS VEGAS AND LOS ANGELES AREA
Drafted by Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, Sen. Alex Padilla, and California Democratic Reps. Jim Costa, Zoe Lofgren and Pete Aguilar, the letter requires the funds to go to 2 tasks specifically: tunneling by the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California and thru the Pacheco Go of the Diablo Mountains in Northern California.
“These investments will continue to support living wage jobs, provide small business opportunities, and equitably enhance the mobility of communities in need – including disadvantaged agricultural communities – all while reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Schiff and the opposite lawmakers wrote.
“Please consider the enormous value and meaningful impact that FSP-National grant funding will provide to advancing CAHSR beyond the Central Valley,” they informed Buttigieg.
The bores are wanted, the lawmakers mentioned, to attach with different intercity passenger rail techniques together with the Brightline West, CalTrain, Metrolink and Altamont Commuter Categorical.
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Ongoing building of the California bullet prepare mission is photographed in Corcoran, California, left, and Hanford, California, proper. (Getty)
Based on California Republicans, the general high-speed rail mission is sort of $100 billion over price range and many years not on time.
Trump’s DOGE duo of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy aren’t eager on the concept of continuous to fund what many Republicans take into account a pricey and unfruitful endeavor.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., mentioned as a lot earlier this month in remarks on the Home flooring.
“I am very happy to report that the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency has honed-in on perhaps the single greatest example of government waste in United States history – and that is California’s high-speed-rail boondoggle,” Kiley mentioned.
The official DOGE X account additionally described each California’s high-speed rail expenditures and requested funding in a November tweet.
Earlier this month, Ramaswamy additionally known as the plans a “wasteful vanity project” that burned “billions in taxpayer cash with little prospect of completion in the next decade.”
He mentioned Trump “correctly” rescinded $1 billion in federal funding for the mission in 2019 and lamented President Biden’s reversal of that transfer.
“Time to end the waste,” Ramaswamy mentioned.
California’s prime state Senate Republican echoed the DOGE leaders’ issues.
Sen. Alex Padilla (Getty Photographs)
“When President Trump returns to office in a few weeks, he must defund the high-speed rail. This wasteful government experiment must end once and for all,” he added.
If accepted, the federal funds might be bolstered by $134 million in state monies from California’s “cap & trade” program, in accordance with the Sacramento Bee.
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At a 2013 convention, Musk floated the concept of a “hyperloop” which was additionally introduced in a white paper. Although it has not but come to fruition, Musk mentioned on the time he had thought whether or not there’s a higher method to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco than what California has proposed.
“The high-speed rail that’s being proposed would actually be the slowest bullet train in the world and the most expensive per-mile,” he mentioned. “Isn’t there something better that we can come up with?”
The world’s richest man described Hyperloop on the time as a mix of a Concorde, a rail gun and an air-hockey desk.
