The Legislative Analyst’s Office clearly hoped that their attack on the California high speed rail project would prove decisive and lead the legislature to follow the disreputable path taken by Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, and New Jersey in rejecting federal passenger rail funds.

That’s not going to happen. Instead, a backlash is growing against the LAO’s report. In particular, criticism is mounting of the LAO’s shocking and unusual decision to intervene in a policy debate, especially one that voters have already settled.

Here’s a sampling of the reaction against the LAO (and there’s more on the way, including our own op-eds):

Assemblymember Cathleen Galgiani blasted the LAO’s lack of expertise and their desire to handicap the project:

Last year, I asked the Legislative Analyst Office whether they had consulted with anyone who has had experience in building a high-speed train system. The answer to this question was no.

This year’s report fails to provide us with any detail about the extensive process the Federal Rail Administration already went through to arrive at this decision. If the LAO had talked to the FRA, they’d know that the FRA has sought peer review from countries that have built profitable systems, and that those reviews have been considered all along during California’s planning process.

It’s a very serious problem that the LAO is not only producing studies on the HSR project without having done any of this crucial background work, but that they are calling for the project to be gutted as well. The legislature and, ultimately, the people of California rely on the LAO to provide informed and impartial analysis. We knew their analysis was quite partial – against the project. We now know it was uninformed as well.

Galgiani continues:

So as far as I am concerned, the LAO report is just an opinion, issued without a full knowledge and understanding of what it takes to plan and build a high-speed train system and the level of information that can reasonably be expected at this early stage of our project.

We should be asking these global builders of profitable systems whether they are confident that California is on the right track for building high-speed rail in a feasible way, and the answer will be yes.

That’s a reasonable thing to ask, isn’t it? After all, if the companies that have the most experience in HSR think our project is on the right track, shouldn’t that matter more than a bunch of uninformed project skeptics who have never taken the time to understand how HSR works? After all, Siemens USA and many others have shown their support for the project.

Galgiani concludes:

The LAO report also suggests that the Legislature not approve bond funds or stimulus money for consultants on the project.

My response to this suggestion: There will always be some who will continue to slam the California High-Speed Rail Authority in the knees with a baseball bat and then ask them why they can’t run any faster.

Can’t put it any better than that.

At Fox and Hounds Daily, a conservative publication, John Wildermuth rises to the project’s defense. Wildermuth, who had been a reporter on the California politics beat for the San Francisco Chronicle for many years, saw immediately what the LAO was up to:

You want to kill a project like high-speed rail? Just let the Green Eyeshade Brigade start working on it.

On Tuesday, Mac Taylor and his Legislative Analyst’s Office put out a report that treated the 15-year-old effort to tie the state together with a 200-plus mph train as something nasty that needed to be wiped off his shoe.

Ouch. Wildermuth goes on to list some of the problems with the LAO’s report, including its “passing mention” of the project’s benefits, and defends the concept and the plan, reminding readers that voters backed the project for good reasons:

I don’t think so. Regular Californians dream bigger than the accountants, analysts, politicians and, yes, even pundits. In the past, the state’s leaders have put their mark on California with highways, dams, roads, water systems, bridges, universities and other gee-whiz projects that were a risk when they were first conceived.

But Californians have always been risk takers and people more interested in hearing how something new can get done than in being told why it’s impossible.

Japan, France and other countries have shown high-speed rail isn’t impossible. It shouldn’t be impossible in California, either.

People like Wildermuth are the ones that the LAO and other HSR opponents need to flip over to their side. But that’s not happening. Wildermuth saw right through the LAO’s game, and wasn’t moved by it at all.

Fresno mayor Ashley Swearengin took issue with the report as well:

“I think, with anything, there are a couple of valid points, but there are some conclusions in this report that are absolutely unfounded,” Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin said.

The mayor said the report’s conclusions — which call for significant legislative intervention — feel political in nature.

Among her biggest concerns are taking the decision on which segment to build first from the state’s High-Speed Rail Authority and giving it to the state Legislature.

“Can you imagine our state Legislature being responsible for that kind of decision when they can’t even make run-of-the-mill decisions like balancing the budget?” Swearengin asked. “It would entirely be political, and would not be based on the effectiveness of the trains or the overall project.”

Ultimately, she said, it would end up being a parochial project limited to the Los Angeles region and the Bay Area.

Yep. That’s exactly what Senators Alan Lowenthal and Joe Simitian seem to want. Gut the project, take the money for their pet commuter rail projects, and screw the overall project goal of connecting SF to LA. Mayor Swearengin’s response is strong and solid, showing that Fresno won’t go down without a fight.

She was joined by the Fresno Bee, which agreed with Mayor Swearengin that the project should not become a political football as the LAO seems to want:

But the LAO report appeared to be more of a thinly veiled excuse to kill the high-speed rail project than sincere recommendations to improve the 800-mile system. We expected much more out of the LAO’s office than a political document to undermine the project….

High-speed rail must pencil out and its business plan must be viable. Those questions rightly need to be asked, and the High Speed Rail Authority must be able to answer them and justify the project. But turning this project into a political fight does not serve the transportation needs of Californians.

I think that’s a reasonable conclusion. I would be the first in line to welcome an LAO report that was genuinely interested in helping the project succeed by pointing out things it could improve, and suggesting constructive ways it could do so. Instead the LAO took the opportunity to attack the entire project itself, even though voters already said they wanted it. When major newspapers are calling out the LAO for making a “political” intervention, you know the LAO is in trouble.

CALPIRG, which has done a lot of work on behalf of the project over the years, added its own statement attacking the LAO report:

If we want to resign ourselves to a California without high-speed rail, that requires us to depend on congested freeways to get around and that requires even more expensive freeway and airport construction to meet growing transportation needs, then the legislature should follow the advice of the Legislative Analyst’s Office and refuse to fund high-speed rail planning this year.

But if we are going to build this high-speed train between Los Angeles and San Francisco, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work in the Central Valley, not delay construction further…

We recommend that the legislature and governor focus on that oversight, rather than reexamining the decision that has already been made to start construction in the Central Valley. Starting construction elsewhere only makes sense if we abandon the vision of connecting high-speed rail between northern and southern California.

CALPIRG points out what the LAO merely glanced at: high speed rail is about California’s future, and about avoiding the cost of doing nothing.

Over at the Transport Politic, Yonah Freemark mounts a strong defense of the decision to start construction in the Central Valley, which the LAO ignorantly criticized:

The stretch through the Central Valley – along which trains will travel at 220 mph – is the crucial investment for a fast train system in the state. By allowing trains to accelerate to extremely fast speeds not possible within metropolitan areas, the system can produce true time savings over automobile and air alternatives.* Without the Central Valley link, the network would simply be a series of improved commuter lines.

Freemark gets at the heart of the issue, which the LAO avoided in their zeal to undermine the voter-approved project: the federal funding system for HSR is deeply flawed. He argues, correctly, that the federal government ought to be using a full-funding grant agreement approach. Congress has not given the executive branch that authority, which has created the current uncertainty around federal funding. That absolutely has to be addressed, and HSR supporters are acutely aware of that. But Freemark goes on to point out that even in the absence of such a process, the LAO is wrong to call for the project to be ended:

The LAO report effectively suggests that the project be put on hold pending the answers to these questions. If California cannot be sure that it can fund the entire system, the logic goes, perhaps it should not be building the central stretch. But abandoning the work the state has done so far, or just delaying the program in hope of more definite policies in the years ahead, is a recipe for giving up on the project altogether. Today, California has momentum on its project – a supportive governor and billions of dollars in the bank amassed just over the past two years – so in the face of confusion in Washington, it at least has a chance to move forward. If the state relaxed its grip now, would it be able to keep going?

Finally, Californians For High Speed Rail had its own critical response to the LAO report (which I helped write):

“Rather than trying to help the project, the LAO recommendations would jeopardize almost $4 billion in Federal funding,” said Daniel Krause, Executive Director of CA4HSR. “Asking the Federal government to change where construction begins at this late juncture, when U.S. Department of Transportation has clearly stated their intent that funds go to the Central Valley, is just not realistic. Most major transportation projects, including the Interstate system and I-5 here in California, started construction in less challenging areas like the Central Valley.”…

Brian Stanke, Chairman of CA4HSR added, “We have serious questions about the LAO’s judgment on this matter. The real risk to the economy is to slow down the high-speed project and risk almost $4 billion in Federal funding. We are appalled that the LAO would recommend any actions that would threaten a project that will provide thousands of jobs at a time when jobs are desperately needed in California.”

The LAO appears to have hoped that its biased and uninformed attack would cause a collapse in support for the HSR project. It’s done the opposite. Not only are supporters rallying to the project’s defense, but others in the media who might be swayed by the LAO report are seeing right through it and rejecting its biased conclusions.

Ultimately, the LAO itself may be the real loser here. It spent decades building up a a reputation for credible, impartial analysis. Their attacks on the HSR project, especially given how uninformed those attacks are, have begun to undermine that hard-earned reputation. The LAO is a good idea and under Elizabeth Hill and others provided an invaluable service. It’s a shame to see Mac Taylor throw that away in the pursuit of his own agenda.