[Page H2426]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HIGH-SPEED RAIL BOONDOGGLE

  (Mr. LaMalfa of California was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, what began as a concept to connect 
California's two largest cities with high-speed rail has become a 
national embarrassment and one of the most expensive boondoggles in 
modern infrastructure history.
  After more than 17 years and $6.9 billion in just Federal money, and 
overall $17 billion raised over 17 years, not a single mile of high-
speed rail track has been laid, just a few bridges built.
  A report released today by Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and 
the Federal Railroad Administration confirmed what many of us have been 
saying for years and years: This project is not viable. It is riddled 
with mismanagement, massive cost overruns, missed deadlines, fantasy-
level ridership projections, and even promising 1.1 million jobs in the 
process. After they got pinned down in committee at the State 
legislature, they finally admitted it was 1 million job-years.
  If you do the math on that, Mr. Speaker, they claim 10,000 workers 
there currently, so that would mean about 100 years to equal 1 million 
job-years. They seem to be right on track for 100 years in building 
this project.
  It is still $7 billion short just to build a sliver of this segment 
between Merced and an almond orchard somewhere outside of Bakersfield, 
hardly the world-class system voters were promised back in 2008.
  The original vision for the project from S.F. to L.A. also included 
spurs to Sacramento and San Diego possibly, which would have been about 
an 800-mile network.
  Now, well after a decade, what is left is simply the 119-mile stretch 
through the Central Valley I just mentioned, which doesn't really 
connect any major metro areas. That segment is years behind.
  The whole project should have been done by 2020. They are hoping to 
get that Central Valley Project done by maybe 2030.
  That project, the Central Valley part by itself, would be $38.5 
billion. The original concept of the whole thing was $33 billion from 
S.F. to L.A.
  The total estimated cost today is a staggering $128 billion. As I 
mentioned, over a 17-year period from 2008 to now, they have raised 
only $17 billion. They are short $110 billion. They think they are 
going to come to the Federal Government and ask for that here? Are they 
going to hit the taxpayers for more? Are they going to pass more bonds 
to raise $110 billion--what?--five or six times more than what they 
have already raised over 17 years?
  There is no serious plan to even secure that kind of money. There is 
no credible timeline to finish the construction. There is no evidence 
that the California High-Speed Rail Authority is even capable of 
delivering or operating the system. The authority has failed to meet 
even the most basic terms of its Federal grant agreement.
  That is why I am so pleased that Secretary Duffy has taken a good 
hard look at this and has come up with the conclusions they have.
  They have not acted in good faith. They have downplayed the risks. 
They have run out of time and money. Basically, the voters--the people, 
everybody--have been lied to in order to keep this project alive.

                              {time}  1030

  Even Governor Newsom, about the first week or two he was in office as 
Governor, for a moment there he said, you know, maybe we need to relook 
at this thing because it is not going very well. He must have got a hot 
set of phone calls from some angry donors, or somewhere in the system 
in Sacramento, because he got right back on track, so to speak.
  The Trump administration is right to put this project on notice, claw 
back whatever Federal money is still unwasted in that, and make sure 
that not a single dollar goes toward this boondoggle.
  As a Californian, I can see plenty of other needs that California has 
that are grave, such as our water infrastructure, our electricity 
infrastructure, our highways, and our levies that prevent floods. I 
would probably dwell mostly on the water supply situation, as more and 
more of it seems to be devoted to fish, running it right out to the 
Pacific Ocean. Less and less agriculture is being planted and operated 
in California, including the issue in the San Joaquin Valley where more 
acres are taken out, which creates a higher dust situation, which 
contributes to more of what is known as Valley fever, a big problem. 
Instead, they want to put so-called solar farms--calling solar panels 
``farms'' is an insult anyway.
  So much of the Nation's food supply comes from California, the 
specialty crops: tomatoes, almonds, pistachios, so many things that 
America consumes. Many of these crops are 100 percent grown in 
California or 90-plus percent grown in California. Yet, they still want 
to keep wasting money on this high-speed rail boondoggle that, as I 
said, is $110 billion short of today's projections of finishing this 
thing when they have only raised $17 billion over 17 years.
  Certainly, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has shown that it 
can't deliver on this project. Shift the money to something else. 
California could build 25 large dams and store enough water to grow 
everything it could ever want to grow in California. It is time to 
focus on infrastructure that really makes a difference for 
Californians, the American people, and keeping food on the table.

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