California Democrats send Newsom a budget without money for high-speed rail
The conspicuous absence of money for high-speed rail in the $262.6 billion budget bill approved Monday by state legislators in Sacramento could have major consequences for construction work of the bullet-train line in Fresno County and the San Joaquin Valley.
The budget bill sent by the state Assembly and Senate to Gov. Gavin Newsom late Monday includes billions of dollars for transportation across the state.
But it does not include more than $4 billion sought by the California High-Speed Rail Authority and Newsom to advance work on the high-speed rail project that has been under construction in Fresno, Madera, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties for for seven years.
“If new Proposition 1A funds are not approved, the Authority will be forced to suspend most construction activity and with that most of the 1,000 weekly construction jobs will be eliminated,” the state rail agency stated in its latest business plan. “Additionally, funds will be redirected to costs related to closing construction sites and, later, to delay claims.”
Both houses of the Legislature are controlled by Democrats, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, has called for the state to redirect high-speed rail money to urban transportation projects.
In his budget proposal earlier this year, Newsom asked the Assembly and Senate to give a green light to releasing the last $4.2 billion in money from Proposition 1A, a high-speed rail bond measure approved by California voters in 2008. Nearly all of that would be used to complete construction work on a 119-mile section of the route from north of Madera to Shafter, in Kern County northwest of Bakersfield.
Proposition 1A provided a total of more than $9.9 billion to help pay for development and construction of high-speed rail in California.
The omission of the bond allocation from the budget bill isn’t necessarily the end of the line for work in the Valley, long described as the “backbone” of what is envisioned as a 520-mile route for electrified trains to run between San Francisco and Los Angeles by way of Fresno and the Valley. Future phases would extend service to Sacramento and San Diego, as described in Proposition 1A.
“Right now Legislative leadership and the Governor’s Office are negotiating on the transportation package,” rail authority spokesperson Melissa Figueroa said Tuesday. “We anticipate movement on that in the coming weeks.”
“It’s imperative that we receive the voter-approved funding in order to continue progress on the Central Valley,” Figueroa added. “Without the Proposition 1A funding we will be forced to slow the pace of construction and lay off workers as soon as next spring.”
The budget tension comes just a couple of weeks after the California High-speed Rail Authority came to terms with the Biden administration and the Federal Railroad Administration over a $929 million railroad grant awarded under the Obama administration but canceled by President Donald Trump in 2019.
Part of a larger package
High-speed rail is one piece of a much larger transportation package that remains subject to negotiation between Newsom and legislative leaders, said Brian Annis, chief financial officer for the rail authority.
Annis noted that in 2012, when the rail authority received its first major appropriation from Proposition 1A, it also came through legislative action separate from formal approval of the state budget. Now, as a potential piece of a broader transportation funding package, Annis is hopeful that another vote later this summer or in the fall, before the end of the legislative session, will include the bond allocation for the bullet train.
“It’s not unprecedented that a little more time is needed to finalize the deal,” Annis said. “There’s a lot of very important work, not just high-speed rail, that’s on hold right now until final action.”
Earlier this year, agency representatives said they anticipated awarding a contract this summer for construction of tracks and other systems needed to prepare the route for trains. The rail authority has not yet received bids for the work, but Annis said he believes the contract award itself will be pushed off until the fall.
“It hasn’t delayed that procurement yet, but we have some risk of that if (the budget) is not resolved in this session,” he said.
While the bond money would allow the rail authority to complete construction of the Madera-Shafter segment, it would not directly provide any funds for the future expansions into Merced and Bakersfield to extend the Valley route to 171 miles.
Annis said it would give the agency the flexibility to use cap-and-trade money paid into the state’s greenhouse gas reduction program to build out the Merced-Bakersfield route. In cap-and-trade, companies participate in auctions to buy credits that can be applied against their emissions of carbon dioxide.
Annis and Figueroa acknowledged that there is some discord among Democratic legislators over high-speed rail, including a desire to funnel some of the funds into work in more populous parts of the state – as well as Republicans who have long been critical of the project no matter where the money is spent.
“This is a controversial project,” Figueroa said. “Some members of of the legislature have very distinct views on that.”
What’s under construction?
The agency currently has three separate construction contracts active in the San Joaquin Valley, all for “civil infrastructure” such as bridges, viaducts, trenches, and over- and underpasses, as well as relocating utilities out of the path of the route.
Figueroa said the agency’s most recent construction jobs update reported over 1,100 workers deployed to construction work sites up and down the 119-mile line.
In the Fresno-Madera area, some of the most notable work has been a viaduct over the Fresno River east of Madera and new bridge over the San Joaquin River. Several road overpasses have also been completed and more are under construction in Madera County.
Near downtown Fresno, there’s a trench being built to take the bullet-train tracks under Highway 180 and a nearby canal and freight railroad line. There are current street closures on Tulare Street and Ventura Street for construction of new underpasses beneath the existing Union Pacific Railroad freight tracks.
Further south, a new viaduct continues to take shape over Highway 99 at the south end of Fresno, and more overpasses are under construction in Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties.
A two-mile stretch of Highway 99 between Ashlan and Clinton avenues in west-central Fresno was nudged westward by dozens of feet by Caltrans to make room for the bullet train line between the freeway and the adjacent Union Pacific tracks.
The most recent capital expenditure plan for construction in the Valley puts the price tag for the 119-mile segment at $13.8 billion. Additional money – ranging from $3 billion to $4.5 billion – is estimated to be needed to create an operable Valley segment, including extending the current construction into downtown Merced and Bakersfield, installing tracks along the route, and purchasing the electric trains to carry passengers.
This story was originally published June 29, 2021 at 12:34 PM with the headline "California Democrats send Newsom a budget without money for high-speed rail."
