Because Democrats failed to pass a new Transportation Bill when they controlled both Congress and the White House in 2009 and 2010, the bill’s renewal has been stuck in limbo since the far right seized control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections. Despite some efforts to get a new bill approved this year, the bill appears to be stuck. And as Transportation Issues Daily reports, there are two reasons why we shouldn’t expect a new bill anytime this year:

There are two reasons Congress is unlikely to pass a new bill, and instead will extend SAFETEA-LU, in a lame duck session.

1. The logistics are against it. Congress will likely have only about four weeks to deal with a multitude of issues. True, there are about seven weeks between Election Day and January 2 when the sequester-triggered spending cuts are scheduled to occur. But holidays will cut out two weeks to three weeks. Figure another week off right after the election. There simply won’t be enough time to deal with all the issues that are being postponed to the lame duck session.

2. Other issues will trump transportation. First and foremost will be a 2013 budget, and dealing with the looming sequestration spending reductions and expiring tax cuts. Other issues that likely will need to be addressed and could trump transportation: payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits, doctors’ Medicare payments, the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and the estate tax and the renewal of a tax-extenders package. Other issues that could get postponed to the lame duck session include major legislation like the renewal of the Farm Bill.

Perhaps the best predictor that the lame duck session will be “chaotic [and] high-stakes” is that lobbyists are already cancelling their November/December vacations. One lobbyist advises others to complete their holiday shopping before the election.

The best hope for high speed rail advocates is that nothing happens until 2013 and Democrats win this November’s elections – keeping the Senate and the White House and retaking the House. It’s no guarantee that Dems would pass a Transportation Bill, as 2009 and 2010 showed us. On the other hand, the experience of those two years would show Dems that they might not have a lot of time in the majority and should get good things done now. More importantly, Democrats in the House and the Senate have shown support for funding high speed rail, and we know that President Obama has been a strong proponent of HSR funding.

A new Transportation Bill with dedicated and predictable funding for HSR would go a long way to easing some of the concerns from HSR skeptics in California about the project’s finances. Tea Party Republicans in the House have gutted federal HSR funding in the last two years, making other HSR projects look less viable because of the lack of long-term federal funding. A new majority in the House could reverse that and bolster the California HSR project with dedicated funding.

At least, that’s the hope.

The California High Speed Rail Authority is pushing back hard against a flawed study that claimed high speed rail operating costs in California would be higher than current planning suggests. Michael Rossi, one of Governor Jerry Brown’s appointees to the CHSRA board, found more flaws in that report:

But in a letter to the authors Friday, Mike Rossi, a former banking executive who serves on the board of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said the analysis used flawed data. The report was based largely on a report from BBVA, a Spanish foundation, which used mistaken cost data supplied by the International Union of Railways, Rossi said.

Rossi said that the foreign system most like the one California is planning is in Taiwan, which has a cost per seat mile of 3.1 cents, less than half of California’s projected 6.5 cents. Rossi has taken the lead in crafting the business model for the future California system, which he says will generate multimillion- dollar surpluses on the day it starts partial operations.

In addition, Rossi said Enthoven and Grindley improperly used the cost per passenger mile for part of their analysis, which mixes up costs and revenues.

Of course, there’s still no mention in the LA Times article, authored by Ralph Vartabedian, that Enthoven owns property next to the proposed HSR route and in 2010 submitted a public EIR comment explaining his concern that the project would reduce his property values. Nor does Vartabedian mention that Enthoven and Grindley are affiliated with the Community Coalition on High Speed Rail, a group that in its own words has said “CC-HSR is doing everything it can to derail the current high-speed train project.”

The media has no business treating this study or its authors as a serious document, especially given its serious flaws.

For the last four years there have been regular indications that the private sector is very interested in participating in the California high speed rail project. Many critics and reporters have dismissed that interest, in part because no firm commitments have been made. Of course, the public sector hasn’t made a firm commitment either, so it makes sense that private investors are waiting. That doesn’t mean they aren’t interested or that solid investment proposals don’t exist. They do. But as with many investment proposals, they often wait in the background until the time is right. In the case of the HSR project, that means a clear sign that the public sector intends to move forward.

With the California High Speed Rail Authority’s adoption of the Madera to Fresno EIS yesterday, one of those possible private investors decided to step forward:

Now, a businessman touting a possible site for a train-maintenance station near Chowchilla is dangling such an investment to the agency.

“We are convinced of the viability of California,” said Ed McIntyre, a partner in the the proposed Gordon-Shaw heavy-maintenance facility site. McIntyre told the authority’s board today in Fresno that he and his partners are prepared to commit up to $1 billion in private-sector investment through development of their site.

McIntyre said that in addition to an estimated $668 million to build the heavy-maintenance facility — a station planned to be located somewhere in the San Joaquin Valley to service trains for the statewide train system — his group is also willing to build a maintenance-of-way facility, where crews would be based to maintain the tracks and right-of-way. Together, the two facilities would add up to a commitment of about $1 billion.

“To those who want further study or planning … I think we’ve planned enough,” McIntyre told the board. “I encourage you to move forward” with approving the environmental impact report for the Merced-Fresno section of the system.

McIntyre is speaking for a lot of other potential investors when he says that HSR is viable. All the studies indicate this is the case, notwithstanding those reports produced by NIMBYs and project opponents. The business case for investing in HSR has long been known – a 2010 UBS report indicated that HSR was a sound investment but that the primary risk was governments would stop supporting it, rather than any concerns about ridership.

This investment proposal won’t be the last to materialize. Many more are waiting in the wings to see whether the state legislature will follow through on the commitment voters made in 2008 to get this project built. It’s a cliche, but this news shows that if we build it, they will come – “they” being both riders and investors.

Good article in the Fresno Bee about Republican candidates in the Central Valley making opposition to the high speed rail project a top priority in their campaigns – even when it means reversing long-held positions:

For Republican candidates this election season, high-speed rail is Enemy No. 1 — or had better be.

And that’s putting some Republicans who once supported the idea in an uncomfortable spot.

Take Republican Assembly hopeful Jim Patterson, for example. On Bullard Avenue, just west of Blackstone, a sign for Patterson’s 23rd Assembly District campaign proclaims: “Stop the High Speed Rail Boondoggle.”

But a Republican opponent, Fresno attorney David DeFrank, points out that in the 1990s when Patterson was Fresno’s mayor he spoke glowingly of the project.

That, Patterson responded, was a different proposal that was to be routed along Highway 99 and paid for with private dollars.

Welcome to the 2012 political campaign, where the state’s proposed high-speed rail project has become one of the hottest campaign issues for Republicans from city council right up to Congress.

Some of this is about crass partisan politics. The article quotes a GOP strategist as saying HSR is one issue where Republicans can draw a clear contrast with Democrats. So it is worth keeping in mind that for a lot of Republicans, their anti-HSR statements are intended not as factual assessments of the project but instead as politically motivated attacks designed to undercut Democratic candidates.

But it’s also about Republican candidates needing to appease their own base – both their voters and their donors. Most right-wing voters, who make up the base of the Republican Party, are ideologically opposed to passenger trains. This causes difficulties for those Republicans who are supportive of rail, like Patterson, or like many people who do vote Republican and who like trains. Because most Republican voters oppose trains, any Republican candidate has to play to that train-hating base if they are going to prevail against another Republican. They don’t have to do that, but if they didn’t then another Republican could run to their right on an anti-rail platform and win more of the base’s votes.

Similarly, the people who fund the Republican Party are also dogmatically opposed to rail, especially high speed rail. The Koch brothers emerged in 2010 as key funders of GOP candidates, and they fund right-wingers who among other things oppose rail and other forms of public transit. They do so because they have several business lines in oil, and perceive trains as a threat to their bottom line. This attitude is shared among many of the wealthy donors on the right, and it’s an important consideration for Republican candidates.

That puts Democrats like State Senators Alan Lowenthal and Darrell Steinberg in a tough position. Lowenthal wants to go to Congress as a Democrat. For his party to retake the majority this fall, they’ll need to pick up some Central Valley seats. If Lowenthal continues to side with Republicans against fellow Democratic candidates on the HSR project then it could cause significant problems for him with the Democratic leadership, including Nancy Pelosi, as it would undermine the all-important effort to retake the House.

For Steinberg, the problem is similar, although he’s not himself running for Congress. Steinberg needs good relations with Congressional Democrats and also needs to see Dems pick up some Valley seats, including a key run for the State Senate by Cathleen Galgiani, one of the strongest supporters of the HSR project. Steinberg would cause himself serious political problems if he helped undermine those Valley Democrats, even though that’s exactly what Sen. Joe Simitian would have him do.

High speed rail would provide a dramatic economic boost to the Central Valley, creating desperately needed jobs in the near term while enabling the region to participate in the economic growth driven by the coastal metropolises. For Republicans to oppose the project is to consign the Valley to decades of economic stagnation. But that’s exactly what their agenda is. Let’s hope California Democrats don’t help them succeed.