U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today awarded a $928.6 million grant to the California High-Speed Rail Authority for initial construction of California High-Speed Rail. Construction will begin next year in Fresno, creating tens of thousands of jobs in California.

“California’s population will grow by 60 percent over the next 40 years,” said Secretary LaHood. “Investing in a green, job creating high-speed rail network is less expensive and more practical than paying for all of the expansions to already congested highways and airports that would be necessary to accommodate the state’s projected population boom.”

Today’s grant, when combined with voter-approved state support and previously-awarded federal dollars, will fund the construction of the first usable segment of the California system in the Central Valley. In the recently released business plan, the Authority embraced a phased implementation similar to those used for international systems. The first construction project will put more than 100,000 people to work during the next five years. Over the course of the network’s construction, more than one million jobs are expected to be created, and the economic activity spurred by the new system is expected to add up to 450,000 new non-high-speed rail jobs to the California economy by 2040.

As Californians For High Speed Rail’s Executive Director Daniel Krause explained in an email to their members, this has the effect of keeping that money out of the hands of anti-rail Republicans:

Previously, almost $3 billion had been obligated (including money for the Transbay Terminal HSR station project). Today, the final $928.6 million was obligated, bring the total guaranteed federal funding close to $4 billion. The only thing that can threaten this money now is if state lawmakers don’t move forward with construction in the Central Valley in 2012. Now is a great time to contact you representatives to remind that we now can start this visionary project and create jobs at a time we desperately need them.

Republicans are still planning to try and get that money though. Ralph Vartabedian, the anti-HSR reporter at the LA Times, wrote about their newest efforts:

The case against the bullet train is being led by a group of California Republicans, including Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Atwater) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), the House majority whip, who have argued the project is deeply flawed and has become unaffordable as the cost has spiraled to $98.5 billion.

Denham, a subcommittee chairman on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he believes all of the project’s grants can be rescinded by Congress and should be reallocated to highway construction in the Central Valley. Republican staffers are formulating plans to grab the bullet train money, which they said has not been spent or put under contract.

This isn’t news, of course. Jeff Denham has been trying since February to defund California high speed rail. Apparently he believes his constituents do not want jobs but instead want dirty air.

Denham is a first-year member of Congress who will face a stiff battle to keep his seat in 2012. Last month former astronaut Jose Hernandez announced his candidacy for the CA-10 seat, which has been drawn to be more competitive and include more Latinos. Denham apparently thinks that going hard right against rail and jobs is going to help him in 2012. I’m not so sure.

Vartabedian also hints at a new strategy for House Republicans in their quest to kill California high speed rail: convince Northeastern Democratic Senators to take California’s money and spend it on the Acela corridor:

Even if the House were to rescind all or a portion of the California funding, the U.S. Senate would have to agree. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has been a resolute supporter of the project. One political strategy that has surfaced to entice votes from East Coast Senate Democrats is to propose reallocating the California funds to passenger rail projects in their states.

The upcoming House hearing will be chaired by Rep. John Mika (R-Fla.). Mika has often expressed support for the concept of high speed rail, citing the East Coast as having the necessary population density and urban environment to support it. California officials say Mika supports high speed rail, but he has never endorsed the state’s project and now appears to have joined the skeptics.

Let’s pause a moment and laugh at Vartabedian’s inability to properly spell John Mica’s name.

OK, back to the story. California has the necessary population density, but facts never stopped Republicans before. The bigger question is whether Senate Democrats would screw over Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer this way.

Somehow I have a hard time seeing John Kerry, Charles Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, and the other Democrats who represent the NEC states agreeing to do this and to undermine Obama as well.

Still, it’s another sign that Congressional Republicans hate high speed rail and are determined to kill it. Tens of thousands of jobs are at stake for California, and if the state legislature moves ahead and agrees to spend the money voters approved to start the project, California high speed rail will begin construction and become that much harder to kill.

It’s common for Cabinet secretaries to leave a presidential administration after the first term, so Ray LaHood’s announcement today that he will leave his post as Transportation Secretary in 2013 should not be a surprise. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

Many transportation advocates were skeptical, to put it mildly, in late 2008 when Barack Obama tapped this largely unknown Republican Congressman to head the Department of Transportation. Nobody had him on their short lists. Obama’s victory was a crucial moment for sustainable transportation to get funding and policy preferences that it had long been lacking, and we rightly did not want this key post to go to waste. New York City transportation chief Janette Sadik-Kahn was a popular pick for the office, and few of us knew what to make of LaHood.

Not only were our fears unfounded – LaHood has turned out to be one of the best picks Obama made for any of his Cabinet level offices. Secretary LaHood has been the kind of reliable, steady, persistent champion of bikes, pedestrians, and passenger rail – including high speed rail – that we needed and wanted. LaHood has never once flinched in the face of the barrage of right-wing attacks on HSR, and has never once shown an inclination to cave when specific projects were criticized.

When teabagger governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida turned against HSR projects and demanded they be allowed to use the federal HSR grants they’d received for those projects, LaHood was clear that it wasn’t an option, and redirected those funds to states like California, Washington, and New York where political leaders still understood the value of HSR.

In California, LaHood has remained one of the HSR project’s most important and effective champions. He has steered over $4 billion in federal funds to our project. He helped direct the choice of the Central Valley segment from Fresno to Bakersfield as the site of initial construction (owing to the easier and lower construction costs and the higher unemployment in the Valley). And he has not once backed away from those decisions no matter how many NIMBYs and HSR deniers try to get him and the White House to do so.

Just last month LaHood, speaking in Oakland after a long meeting with Governor Jerry Brown, mounted a strong defense of the California HSR project:

Now this isn’t an obituary; LaHood has over a year left as Transportation Secretary to continue his good work on behalf of smart transportation choices. It appears the White House is pleased with his work, since they haven’t asked him to back down from his pro-transit positions. Of course, one important question is whether the Obama Administration’s strongly pro-HSR position comes from the very top or whether LaHood was instrumental in pushing it. There was plenty of evidence during the 2008 campaign that Obama was genuine in his support of HSR, which means LaHood’s successor likely will be as well.

Which raises the question of who exactly that successor should be. Let’s start floating some names:

• JSK. Sadik-Kahn has probably done about all she can do in NYC. It’s a natural move for her to go to Washington, DC and carry on LaHood’s policies with a supportive president – and hopefully with a Democratic Congress as well. (I know some people don’t like it when I get partisan, but it is a fact of life that Congressional Republicans hate passenger rail. LaHood appears to have been one of the very few exceptions.) There would be no doubt of her strength on sustainable transportation issues. I’d tab her as the front-runner right now.

• Jim Oberstar. He represented Minnesota in the House for over 35 years when he narrowly lost the 2010 election to a teabagger. Oberstar was responsible for drafting the revolutionary House version of the Transportation Bill reauthorization which had tons of funding for sustainable transportation. He also strongly backed proposals to put $50 billion for HSR funding in that bill. There’s been no evidence of Oberstar seeking a rematch in 2012, so he’d be available and a well-qualified person to continue fighting for smart transportation choices in DC.

• Earl Blumenauer. He represents Portland in Congress, and is another prominent advocate for rail and transit choices, biking to work on Capitol Hill. Like JSK and Oberstar there would be no doubt of Blumenauer’s willingness to fight for sustainability and high speed rail.

• R.T. Rybak. The Minneapolis mayor is, like JSK, very pro-bike and pro-rail. I had the chance to meet him at Netroots Nation in June and he was quite knowledgable about transportation policy issues. He’d be a strong choice too – and he might also be interested. Rybak has statewide ambitions, but Minnesota’s governor and both Senators are Democrats early in their terms, so they’re not in a mood to retire. Rybak will have to bide his time elsewhere, and the Obama Administration is as good a place as any to do it.

• Ed Rendell. The former Pennsylvania governor has been a champion of infrastructure spending on transportation projects. I’m less certain of where he stands on high speed rail – I know he is a supporter, but is he willing to go to the mat for it the way LaHood did?

Many of the above names came up after the 2008 election as possible candidates for the job, and I’m sure they’ll still be in circulation to succeed LaHood. Of course, Obama went with someone none of us expected and it turned out better than we could have hoped. Perhaps there is another dark horse out there? If so, speculate away in the comments!

UPDATE: Ray LaHood has an interesting quote about the reason why he is Transportation Secretary:

While some bicycling advocates might hope the president would nominate someone of similarly bike-friendly proclivities, LaHood made it clear that wasn’t why he was nominated. “I wouldn’t have this job if I wasn’t a Republican,” he said. “If I was anything else, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Did we just get really, really lucky in 2008?!

Transcript:

There’s a lot of support for high speed rail in California. We have made the largest investment in high speed rail money, more than $3 billion, which has been matched by other money from the state. There is a very, very strong support for high speed rail among the citizens of California. People are tired of being in congestion in California. People are looking for other modes of transportation. People in California are looking for high speed rail to come.

When high speed rail comes to California, it can be the model for the country, it really can be. It will be truly high speed, it’ll connect the state with rail service that doesn’t currently exist, it’ll be connected to transit systems, so people can get on their transit systems in their hometown and get on a high speed rail line.

I just had a very long meeting with the governor about high speed rail, and I answered a lot of his questions, and I believe that we are on a good track here in California for high speed rail.

We are not gonna be dissuaded by a little bit of background noise of criticism, because there’s a loud, loud amount of support for high speed rail in California.

Secretary LaHood’s support for the project, echoing that of his boss President Barack Obama, is crucial for the project’s survival. He has turned out to be one of the best appointees of the Obama Administration and his commitment to high speed rail is needed not just from a public perspective, but also in working with Governor Brown to ensure the project moves forward.

Obviously the meeting between LaHood and Brown is the real news here. It’s not clear what went down in that meeting, but LaHood would not have been as upbeat and confident as he was in the video had it not gone well. Governor Brown almost certainly grilled LaHood, but that’s just how he is – Brown knows the issues well and wants to ensure any obstacles are going to be resolved to his satisfaction.

With Brown and LaHood presumably on the same page, the future for high speed rail in California remains bright.

Second, the Sac Bee had an excellent editorial defending the project over the weekend, including a fantastic graphic showing how the SF-LA route compares favorably to the LGV Sud-Est in France. Go look at it!

Of course, one core piece of the LAO’s attack on HSR was their suggestion that California follow the lead of Scott Walker and Chris Christie and demand that we be allowed to use federal rail funds for other purposes, including delaying their expenditure. I predicted that the feds would not go along with this, and that the LAO would have known this if anyone on their staff actually had a clue about HSR.

Today we learn that I was right and the LAO was wrong:

Federal officials say that a 2012 deadline to start construction of a multibillion-dollar high-speed rail system in California is firm and can’t be postponed.

The U.S. Transportation Department said in a letter Wednesday to the California High-Speed Rail Authority that regulators have no authority to change the deadline. The department also says it won’t allow the state to move the first stretch of track from the Central Valley to a coastal city.

The LAO ought to toss out their report and start from scratch, this time with people who actually know a thing or two about HSR, interview people who have worked on HSR, gather stats from other countries (and from the Acela) on HSR, assess the benefits of HSR as well as the costs of not building HSR, and produce a report that actually provides some informed discussion and recommendations that are based in reality and respect what the people of California voted to do.

The report has made the LAO look foolish and uninformed. For the sake of their own credibility, they would be wise to start over. California deserves a well-informed assessment of the HSR project, not an uninformed hit job that is so easily dismissed.

UPDATE: Here’s the full text of the letter from the US Department of Transportation. It leaves no doubt that they are definitively smacking down the LAO. Mac Taylor and Eric Thronson come off looking like chumps.

Kienitz Letter to CHSRA, 5-11

Now would be a good time for the LAO to admit their error and get this right. Instead they appear to be doubling down on their mistakes:

“The letter doesn’t say anything we didn’t know and I don’t think it changes our recommendations at all,” said Eric Thronson, the fiscal and policy analyst who wrote the LAO report. The letter doesn’t rule out changing the starting point for construction if the federal agency was given a compelling reason, and “we don’t think they’ve been asked to do so,” he said.

Thronson is simply wrong here – the LAO explicitly said they were sure that the feds would let the state mess around with the funding:

Seek Flexibility on Use of Federal Funds. We propose that the Legislature direct HSRA to renegotiate the terms of the federal funding awarded to the state by the Federal Rail Administration (FRA). We believe the state must obtain relief from the current federal restrictions on the project if it is to be developed successfully, and therefore that the Legislature should proceed with the project only if this flexibility is obtained from the federal government…

However, we believe it is likely that the federal government would ultimately work with the state to grant more flexibility, for the following reasons.

Eric Thronson and Mac Taylor, the Legislative Analyst, actually believed the feds would grant more flexibility, even though they had steadfastly refused to do that with all other states that had requested it. If I were a state legislator, I’d be pretty pissed off that the LAO, whose job it is to provide informed analysis, fucked up this badly, this obviously.

The LAO wanted the legislature to abandon the project if the feds wouldn’t grant flexibility. Everyone who believes that a Democratic legislature and a Democratic governor – who brought the concept of HSR to California 30 years ago when he was governor – would side with the LAO, Alan Lowenthal and Joe Simitian over Barack Obama, raise your hands. Keep them high where I can see them.

The LAO is facing a serious crisis. Their hard-earned credibility is ebbing away every day they refuse to repudiate their flawed and ridiculous HSR report. They would do well to stop defending their failures, admit their error, and set things right by producing a new, informed study that helps show Californians how to get this project done.

California – Central Valley Construction Project Extension – $300 million for a 20-mile extension along the Central Valley Corridor. This will continue to advance one of the highest priority projects in the nation that will ultimately provide 220 mph high-speed rail service from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The work funded in this round will extend the track and civil work from Fresno to the “Wye” junction, which will provide a connection to San Jose to the West and Merced to the North.

It’s not as much as California wanted – an application was submitted for all $2.4 billion – but it is a sign of further federal support for the project, and is welcome news.

The bulk of the funds went to the Northeast Corridor ($800 million) and the Midwest ($400 million). Given the need to keep Senators and Congressmen from other states happy and supportive of the HSR project – especially after Republicans demanded and won huge cuts to federal HSR funds – this move should be no surprise, and may even be good for California HSR in that it helps build political support for HSR in more states and among more members of Congress.

I’m sure some will be disappointed with the fact that California didn’t get a larger share. That would have been nice, but with so many other states competing, it may not have been all that realistic. Some may also read into this a slap at the California project. I’m not sure that’s warranted, but we should be at least a bit concerned that NIMBYism and HSR denial is starting to creep its way into the state legislature, and could undermine the project if not stopped.

Still, the bigger need is for more federal funding – a lot more. Clearly there is nationwide demand for HSR, and teabaggers won’t govern Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida forever. Congress made a big mistake cutting HSR funds and President Barack Obama made an even bigger mistake agreeing to those cuts. The White House may have decided to use the Florida HSR funds to rebuild political support in Congress for HSR funding. If that means California gets a smaller share today, but results in more federal funding in the years to come, then it’s definitely worth it.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority on Wednesday voted unanimously to apply for all of the high-speed rail funding recently returned to the federal government by the state of Florida….

If California can capture Florida’s share, crews could link Merced and Bakersfield — the “backbone” of the system — and extend tracks either north or south by nearly 40 miles.

“California has proven that it can and will lead the nation with a vision of true high-speed rail,” Curt Pringle, chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority Board, said in a news release. “Every mile of track laid in the Central Valley represents another step toward realizing a statewide system.”

And from the California High Speed Rail Authority’s press release:

The resulting funds could allow the completion of the entire backbone of the statewide system – linking Merced and Bakersfield, including stations in each respective city. In addition to completing the backbone, it could also allow the Authority to build either north or south – north 39 additional miles toward the Bay Area or south, past Bakersfield, up to the Tehachapi Mountains.

It’s unclear whether California will actually get all the money. Other states are going to be competing for this funding, and of course there’s the bigger question of whether Congress will find some way to take the money back. It would be great if Central Valley Republican members of Congress would fight for this money instead of against it and against the jobs it would bring, but they’ve shown no sign of doing that. So California will have to plow ahead without them.

Applications are due to the US Department of Transportation on April 4. I would expect Ray LaHood to give this a quick turnaround.

Less than half a year after rejecting federal funds to build a high-speed rail connecting Milwaukee to Madison, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is now asking for at least $150 million from the feds to upgrade an existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago passenger line….

The shed that Walker plans to upgrade to make it comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act will account for about $30 million of the $150 million grant money, but it’s a project that would have actually been paid for had Walker just kept the $800 million the feds had originally given him.

But it gets better: even the locomotives, train sets and maintenance base would have ALL been covered by the original grant.

This is pretty ridiculous. Scott Walker is a greedy joke who thinks that government merely exists to enable his ever-changing whims. It isn’t. He doesn’t get to reject money one day and then turn around and suddenly change his mind the next.

US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood should reject this proposal out of hand. Wisconsin is a great state and it deserves better rail service, but not while Scott Walker is governor. There may well be a recall of him next year, so maybe then Wisconsin can get some of the train money that the people of the state deserve. But Scott Walker made his bed, and now he’s got to sleep in it. No more train money for him.

Senator Harry Reid and US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood both spoke at a news conference in Las Vegas today:

“Our nation’s first high-speed rail project means one thing for Nevada: jobs,” said Reid. “This announcement brings us one small step away from tens of thousands of new jobs not only through the project’s construction, but by boosting our tourism. This line will connect tourists from southern California to our state’s great attractions like the Las Vegas Strip and the Hoover Dam. This announcement is excellent news for our state’s economic recovery.”

“This is an important day for high-speed rail in Nevada,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “High-speed rail will create jobs, reinvigorate our manufacturing sector and spur economic development for years to come in Nevada and around the country.”

Not everyone is happy, including the city of Barstow, which is upset that they’re going to be bypassed:

From the Barstow Desert Dispatch:

With the completion of the final Environmental Impact Statement, the train only needs approval by the Federal Railroad Administration before it can begin construction. Reid estimated at the press conference that the train could begin construction as early as one year from the time of approval of the final EIS.

Part of the final EIS is the economic study Barstow commissioned last year, as well as a study of the predicted employment and economic impact commissioned by DesertXpress.

The City of Barstow is opposed to the DesertXpress project because the economic study commissioned by the city estimates it will decrease traffic traveling through the city to Las Vegas by up to 33 percent and the project could result in a combined loss of 2,295 jobs within the city. Both the City of Ontario and the Helendale Community Services District have signed resolutions opposing the DesertXpress train.

Barstow Councilman Tim Silva said Friday that the city would take a look at the EIS now that it has been finalized and the city would continue its efforts to halt the progress of the train.

I’m not unsympathetic to Barstow. But at the same time, saying that we shouldn’t build a bullet train because it might hurt Barstow is like saying we shouldn’t have built the telegraph because it put the Pony Express out of business. As a nation and a society, we should be providing resources to enable cities like Barstow to adapt to change, instead of slashing government spending and driving a city like Barstow to try and cling to a costly, failing model for its city (being a stopover for drivers on the way to or from Vegas).

The Florida Supreme Court has upheld Gov. Rick Scott’s authority to kill a proposed Orlando-Tampa high-speed rail line backed by President Barack Obama.

The justices on Friday rejected a bipartisan challenge to the Republican governor’s refusal to accept $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money for the project. The high court put the case on a fast track because U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood had given Scott until Friday to accept the money or lose it to similar projects in other states.

This is the second time in less than 10 years that a Republican governor has killed high speed rail in Florida, as Jeb Bush similarly undermined an HSR project in 2004. As gas prices soar and as traffic on Interstate 4 continues to worsen, Florida is now chaining itself to the automobile. It’s a very sad day for Florida, and I hope that Scott’s successor reverses this huge mistake and finally gets high speed rail built there.

Of course, this means that $2.4 billion is now up for grabs, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood suggest it’s mostly going to California:

Several states, including New York and Rhode Island, have asked LaHood for Florida’s rail funds, but the only project that would achieve the high speeds associated with bullet trains in Asia and Europe would be California’s.

“I know that states across America are enthusiastic about receiving additional support to help bring America’s high-speed rail network to life and deliver all its economic benefits to their citizens,” LaHood said in a statement.

This may be a reflection of Representative John Mica’s argument that the federal government is wrong to spread its HSR funds around to non-bullet train projects. If California won most or all of the funding, it would probably get trains to Bakersfield station, and would be a big step in demonstrating the feasibility of true high speed service (150 mph and above) in the US.

Still, other states have political power, especially as House Republicans threaten to eliminate all annual HSR funding AND take back the HSR stimulus money that hasn’t already been obligated, including Florida’s $2.4 billion. So the real fight will be to stop Congress from cutting those funds, and to stop President Barack Obama from caving to those demands.

Early this morning, at 1:35 AM Pacific Time, the Republican-controlled House passed HR 1, the bill to fund the federal government. It includes some stunning cuts, including total elimination of high speed rail funding and the US Department of Transportation’s Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants. It is not immediately clear whether this rescinds the $8 billion in HSR stimulus funding, as Jeff Denham had originally proposed, or whether this just hits at the annual HSR appropriation.

Either way, it’s a sign of how dangerously deluded the House has become under Republican control. HSR is a bipartisan project – in California many Republicans and most Democrats support it, including the leaders of the Republican caucuses in the state legislature – but in Congress, a highly ideological and out of touch with reality group of Republican legislators have decided that America should never build or innovate anything again, and that we must instead cling to 20th century methods that the rest of the globe – and many Americans – no longer want as their only option. I know that many HSR advocates want to be cautious about how we deal with partisan politics, and that’s fair, but we also have to realize that when the House was in Democratic hands, HSR was very strongly supported.

President Obama has pledged to veto this Republican bill – but he is NOT opposed to the concept of cuts in general. The key is the inevitable negotiations between the House, the Senate, and the president over what cuts will be agreed to. I expect Obama to fight hard to keep HSR funding.

Meanwhile, Republican Congressman John Mica is trying to keep Florida high speed rail alive – but only in a much shorter form:

U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, floated a proposal to dramatically shrink the project to an Orlando International Airport to Walt Disney World link, cutting Tampa and Lakeland out of the mix, for now.

Mica, who chairs the House transportation committee, said an initial 21-mile starter train, with a stop at the Orange County Convention Center, shows the best ridership potential and could even turn a profit. Some portion of the $2.4 billion in federal grant money would flow to Orange and Osceola counties and the city of Orlando. The three governments would forge a compact to solicit bids and oversee construction of the project and other partner governments could be added later, he said.

The shorter distance likely would take much of the high speed out of high-speed rail in Florida. The trains have to travel several miles to reach speeds of 160 mph or more and slow down well in advance of stops.

This would basically be a train to take people from Orlando Airport to Disney World. Which is fine, but it’s clearly much less useful than a link to Tampa, and would do little to relieve traffic on the Interstate 4 corridor. On the other hand, a starter line might keep the concept of HSR alive long enough for the larger project to Tampa to be revived once the federal government is free of the Tea Party insanity. As a West Coast-based HSR advocate, I won’t presume to tell Floridians what to do here, and Florida politicians are promising to fight to overturn Governor Rick Scott’s decision to end the project:

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, shared a legal opinion from Tampa City Attorney Chip Fletcher. It contends that there are a variety of ways local governments could team up to create an umbrella government to accept grant money and oversee the rail project. And Fletcher’s opinion states that either the Florida Department of Transportation or the Legislature could assign the federal grant money over to the newly created agency.

On the other hand, the threatened revolt in the legislature to override Scott on HSR is fading as quickly as it began, with Republican legislators backing off their earlier threats to pick a fight (presumably they all received calls from the Koch Brothers and other oil company barons threatening their future political prospects if they tried to restore the project). US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has given Florida a one-week reprieve to try and figure out a solution before he redirects funding to other states.

The clock is ticking. While I hope Florida can work this out – their HSR project is a very good one and deserves to be built – it’s time for other states to get ready in case LaHood calls time and starts redirecting the funding.