California's proposed bullet train pulled out of the Senate station, barely, but now is heading to its next stop -- in the courts.
From the Wall Street Journal's Jim Carlton and Max Taves: "After clearing a major legislative hurdle, California's proposed bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco still faces obstacles—including lawsuits and uncertainties over future funding—that could delay it for years."
"Friday's narrow state Senate vote approving $4.7 billion in bonds for the train and related projects sends the funding bill to a likely signing by Gov. Jerry Brown, a proponent of high-speed rail. The vote helps ensure the state will get to keep $3.3 billion in federal matching money for its efforts to build the nation's first bullet train."
The Senate vote carried a major suprise -- a shift in position of Sen. Joe Simitian, the once-ardent supporter of high-speed who changed his mind.
From the Mercury News' Mike Rosenberg: "Ten years ago, he enthusiastically co-authored a bill to put the bullet train on the ballot. On Friday, after years leading intense oversight hearings on the polarizing $69 billion plan, he stunned listeners on the Senate floor and voted against the start of construction -- nearly killing the project altogether."
"Simitian, the bespectacled, professorial lawmaker from Palo Alto who was thrust into the role of unofficial bullet train watchdog in Sacramento, epitomized the bullet train debate like no other. The Golden State has always been in love with the allure of high-speed rail, but as the details unfolded -- skyrocketing cost, uncertain funding prospects, iffy rider estimates and a puzzling plan to start building in the Central Valley -- polls say a majority of Californians now oppose the project."
"It was a vision I shared but a plan I couldn't support," Simitian said Sunday, two days after he delivered a passionate, 17-minute soliloquy, breathlessly going back and forth on his tortured positions over the years as if arguing with himself. "My hope is that the project is a success. I'm just not convinced this is the right way to make it real."
One possibility offered to California's high-speed rail program was a partnership with the French rail system, which has produced a high-quality, successful bullet train. The French, however, got a cold shoulder from the Golden State.
From the LAT's Dan Weikel and Ralph Vartabedian: "Instead, the rail authority continued to concentrate planning in the hands of Parsons Brinckerhoff, a giant New York City-based engineering and construction management firm. Although they have occasionally consulted with high-speed railways, officials decided that hiring an experienced operator and seeking private investors would have to wait until after the $68-billion system was partially built. Last week, the state Senate approved — by a single vote — $8 billion to get construction underway."
"It's like California is trying to design and build a Boeing 747 instead of going out and buying one," said Dan McNamara, a civil engineer who worked for SNCF's U.S. affiliate. "There are lots of questions about the Parsons Brinckerhoff plan. The capital costs are way too high, and the route has been politically gerrymandered."
"Under the authority's management, cost and ridership estimates have fluctuated wildly. The project's ability to lure private investors remains uncertain, the route through the eastern Central Valley has ignited a legal war with the agricultural industry and some experienced operators, such as the Central Japan Railway Co., have lost interest in the project."
The November ballot puts voters in the budget-writing business, and it involves a lot more than just taxes: The electorate also will decide on whether to go for two-year budgeting, an idea that has been around for decades.
From Capitol Weekly's Mandy Honeychurch: "Hopefully it will allow the Legislature to focus for a specific time to take care of budget issues,” said Roger Salazar, a spokesman for California Forward, a reform group that supports the initiative. “It gets rid of the ever present cloud that hangs over the state because the budget cycle is so overwhelming.”
"If California goes to a two-year budget, it will be the 20thstate to do so. The 19 others include Ohio, Washington, Indiana, Minnesota and Texas. Thirty-one states currently have annual budgets, including California, Florida, Illinois, Arkansas and Georgia."
"Historically, states preferred the two-year budget, although many shifted over the years to annual budgeting. According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, 44 states enacted biennial budgets in 1940; now, only 19 do."
Speaking of money handling, a new estimate from Wall Street puts the nation's public pension debt at $2.2 trillion, which is a slight increase over the earlier estimate of $766 billion. The numbers change, however, appears to be a question of methodology.
From CalPensions: Ed Mendel: "In a reporting overhaul proposed last week to give investors a better way to compare pension funding, Moody’s uses an annual earnings forecast based on corporate bonds, 5.5 percent, much lower than the 7.5 to 8.25 percent forecast by pension funds."
"Whether pension funds, which often expect to get two-thirds of their revenue from investments, can hit their earnings targets is at the center of the debate over whether public pensions are “sustainable” or will overwhelm state and local government budgets."
"Sweeping cost-cutting pension reforms, which face lengthy legal challenges from unions, were approved by voters last month in San Jose and San Diego, where retirement costs are 20 percent or more of the city general fund and projected to continue growing."
And from our "Higgs boson" file comes the tale of lousy reporting, much of it straight out of science fiction -- which actually is a lot more interesting.
"You can read Ian Sample at The Guardian or Dennis Overbye at The New York Times, for example, and get a little smarter, and then read some other people and feel like you have been lobotomized, but the crazy headlines got more attention. I am going to talk about those crazy people."
There's no byline on this (National Post) article but it says they used material from AFP, which pretty much tells you all you need to know. While Associated Press is not perfect - their squawking nonsense about local hot temperatures being caused by global warming got ridiculed by me a short while ago - nobody rewrites as poorly and inconsistently as AFP..."
"Yes, the Higgs boson was going to give us faster-than-light travel. What was their source for that? None that I could find, actually. Nowhere in the article does any scientist actually claim that.
"Instead, in the comments we have their audience speculating that if the Higgs gives the universe mass, then we might be able to "un-mass" ourselves and travel from place to place at faster than light speeds. And one person talking about ways they might weaponize the Higgs."
"So maybe it's an instance where a media company solicited crazy comments first and then built the headline on those. I certainly can't find any way that the Higgs is going to let me spend a weekend at Alpha Centauri."
Time to book a ticket ...
