A Yahoo news contributor recently asked the local group High Speed Boondoggle a question that is becoming more common: Does the future of HSR depend on President Obama's re-election?
I thought the answer was quite enlightening. Here it is with a couple light edits:
Last month, the answer would have been "yes, but not entirely". It's pretty clear that even if re-elected, Obama would only get the funding he needs for HSR if the Democrats got control of both the House and the Senate. Now, we're not so sure that even matters. In a surprising move, the Democrats at the federal level have broken rank with the president. The Democrat-controlled Senate Transportation Appropriation Subcommittee joined the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Subcommittee earlier this month in shooting down HSR funding through 2013. It's surprising because we've long assumed the strategy for the Democrats was to do everything they could to keep HSR in California alive until the upcoming presidential election. With seemingly little political will remaining in Washington to further fund HSR, that returns the argument to the state where the Democratic party holds the legislative power and will likely continue to do so.
At the state level, the Dems have been toeing the party line, even those like state senators Joe Simitian and Alan Lowenthal, whom we know take issue with the plan and yet refuse to draw a line in the sand and stick to it. The one recent twist is Democratic Senator Mark DeSaulnier. We have pinned the rationale against speaking out on the assumption that so long as the president wants HSR, no Democrats are going to risk their careers by bucking the president, no matter how damning the reports or even how illegal it may be (vis a vis the original Proposition). The other expectation was that they made promises to the unions and now that all the jobs have literally been placed in this one mega-basket, the Democratic legislators are unlikely to admit they made a mistake in asking the unions to back the project.
As governor, Jerry Brown has taken it upon himself to be the head cheerleader for HSR in the state and he is not backing down. Has he had some reassurances in private from the White House? We don't know. But because things seem to be changing in Washington, we'd say Governor Brown is at risk of becoming the fall guy unless he positions himself with a way out, which he is savvy enough to do. So, to answer your question, in our humble opinion it seems that now more than ever the ultimate decision rests in the hands of the state legislators and no longer with Obama's re-election.
This is all just an educated guess. Only time will tell how this plays out. One thing we know for certain, this project has a way of morphing at every turn. Who knows? This might be by design because as you know it is hard to hit a moving target.
http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/news/local/low-turnout-at-hsr-info-meeting/article_5e2323fe-9b97-11e1-bf4f-0019bb2963f4.html
Burlingame beware-- as many have long suspected, full 4-track build-out remains the plan of the Authority at both ends of the project. That is why, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary from Caltrain reps. regarding the benefits of the Blended system, the 4-track system with all its costs, physical impacts and other implications for local cities, is still what the Authority is talking about.
Posted by: jennifer | May 12, 2012 at 01:58 PM