Building on Bob’s report about the San Francisco Clean Energy Act, the California Air Resources Board has released its draft blueprint designed to fall in line with the mandate of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, by cutting emissions 30% by 2020.  

The 75+ page plan includes a range of policy recommendations.  Chief among them is increasing the state’s renewable electricity standard.  The plan also contains provisions for a regional cap-and-trade program that could work in harmony with other more specific policies to reduce pollution economywide.  The plan also says CARB will consider a vehicle “feebate” program that would provide incentives to consumers to buy cleaner cars.

In addition, the proposal includes plans to reduce emissions from heavy-duty trucks with hybrid engine technology and better fuel economy.  Like many of CARB’s proposals, the heavy-duty truck provisions would improve public health by also reducing smog-forming pollution.  The plan also advocates for a high-speed train system in California.

Jim Downing at the SacBee has more here.  Analysis on the flip:

There’s no question that California needs to do what is within its control to act immediately.  Climate change is already imperiling two-thirds of the state’s unique plants, and Los Angeles is trying dubious ideas like seeding the clouds with silver iodide particles to force it to rain.  The only sustainable solution is to demand mandatory emissions caps to fight a runaway climate.

Some of their ideas are top-notch.  Robert in Monterey, as his High Speed Rail blog, notes that CARB endorsed HSR to reach their targets:

Transportation is one of the capped sectors of the economy – meaning we can no longer just fly around or drive around endlessly; there will be increasing limits and at the same time rising costs as the cost of the credit purchase is passed on to consumers. To achieve the required lower emissions, and to provide sustainable and cleaner forms of transportation CARB endorsed high speed rail as one of its recommendations.

Their explanation was not particularly detailed – basically an endorsement of the concept of HSR and a projection that it would save around 1 million metric tons of CO2 in 2020. That’s around 22 billion pounds per year, close to the figure of 17.6 billion pounds that Quentin Kopp has been quoting.

I also really like the feebate idea that is part of the plan:

CARB also identified a feebate program as one avenue for reducing vehicle pollution. Such a program would establish one-time rebates and surcharges on new passenger cars and light trucks based on the amount of global warming pollution they emit.  This program would deliver benefits on its own, but also would complement California’s tailpipe standards if both were implemented.  According to a University of Michigan study, implementing a clean car discount program would deliver an additional 21 percent reduction in global warming pollution beyond the tailpipe standards.

The worry, of course, is that by the time the lobbyists and special interests get through with these targets, they’ll blow loopholes in them so wide that their impact will be meaningless.  But since the hard target of a 30 percent reduction is state law, I think there will be more backbone to actually reach those targets.  Builders and design specialists have already seen this coming and are producing innovative solutions to reduce emissions and save money.  At its best, carbon reduction is both efficient and cleaner, so really nobody loses except giant polluters.  They’re going to use the state’s budget problems to raise all kinds of fears about cost, but they’re really separate issues.  Plus, as the Bee article notes:

The air board’s mission may already have been made easier by changes in the economy. Today’s high energy prices are driving many of the sorts of emissions-cutting changes called for under the plan.

Sales of fuel-efficient cars are up, transit ridership is breaking records and businesses are investing in ways to save fuel and electricity.

Many have raised concerns about the cap and trade system, but CARB chair Mary Nichols is clearly invested in it, having presided over the most successful cap and trade system in history while in the Clinton Administration, the one that virtually eliminated acid rain.  It may be insufficient to have a few states in the West implement a trading system, but some industries, like energy production, aren’t likely to up and leave California – the market of 38 million people is too lucrative.  Anyway this gives momentum and support for a national system.

What I would like to see is a progressive cap and trade setup, which recognizes that higher energy costs disproportionately impact the poor, and seeks to balance that.  This is easier said than done:

Two things are worth noting. First, utility costs are a bigger problem than gasoline. On a percentage basis, the poor pay 7x as much for utilities as the well off, while they pay only 4x as much for gasoline. What’s more, unlike gasoline, there are seldom any reasonable alternatives for utility expenditures.

Second, there are always tradeoffs. Using the money from permit auctions (or carbon taxes) to rebate other taxes is indeed progressive if the rebate is fairly flat, but only if you pay taxes in the first place – which many of the poor don’t. For the very poorest, then, a tax rebate scheme would still be regressive: you’d essentially be hitting them with a big new energy tax without any offset at all. Conversely, a more targeted approach, like expanding funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, helps the poor more directly but removes the incentive to use less energy.

The answer, then, is almost certainly a bit of this and a bit of that. No single solution targets assistance to the poor ideally, but a basket of solutions (payroll tax rebates, energy assistance, more funding for mass transit, etc.) can do a pretty good job. It won’t be perfect, but a well-designed program can make a cap-and-trade program pretty progressive.

Hopefully this will guide the CARB as they seek to work through the policy grinder and implement their reductions.  Right now the board is considering auctioning off few permits and giving away the rest, gradually eliminating the giveaway over time.  This kind of hair-splitting is wrong, and I hope they come to understand that.

I will be discussing this and the state budget this morning at 8 on KRXA 540 here in Monterey

California is undergoing a profound change. The land where the car was assumed to be dominant always had a higher amount of transit ridership than folks realized – LA’s bus system is one of the nation’s busiest – but with gas prices blowing right past $4 and headed for $5, Californians are flocking to transit – buses, light rail, subways, Amtrak, you name it.

And how does Arnold Schwarzenegger, avowed friend of the little guy, always looking out to protect Californians from taxes that might lighten their wallets, react?

By proposing a $1.4 billion cut to public transit. This is nothing short of madness. Rising ridership is limited by available buses and train cars, while soaring fuel prices put stress on transit agency budgets. MUNI’s Nathaniel Ford puts it well:

“Even with California’s massive deficit, scaling back the state’s support for public transportation makes no sense environmentally or economically,” said Nathaniel Ford, who runs the San Francisco Municipal Railway.

“Every dollar spent on transit helps clean the air by getting people out of their cars. And with gas prices continuing to escalate, we should be doing everything we can to encourage, not discourage, transit use.”

Arnold likes to tell Californians he looks out for their jobs and their wallets, but how on earth is does starving public transit of funds and shackling Californians to their cars and to rising gas prices do anything at all to help grow the economy and keep money in voters’ pockets? The Vehicle License Fee that Arnold cut costs the state $6 billion a year in order to save drivers an average of $150 – which they’ll spend on higher gas prices in the space of a month. He still hasn’t restored the $5.8 billion he has diverted from transportation funds over the five years he has been in office.

Congressional Republicans have voted $14 billion for Amtrak – so why is Arnold instead attacking mass transit alternatives in California? Surely it doesn’t have anything to do with massive contributions he has received from big oil companies.

Arnold’s silence on gas prices – THE topic of conversation across the state right now – provides a golden opportunity for Democrats. Californians are screaming for more transit – more buses, more trains, more opportunities to save money and have an easier, faster commute. Democrats ought to ensure they have it – voters understand that the cost of a new tax will pale in comparison to the cost of rising gas prices. Strong Democratic support for high speed rail would also show voters that Dems mean business, whereas Republicans literally have no plan whatsoever to deal with gas prices.

Crossposted from my high speed rail blog

According to an article the LA Times just put up on their website, Union Pacific Railroad is balking at sharing its right of way with high speed trains. For context, the CHSRA plan has always involved building HSR-specific tracks alongside existing rails currently owned by UP, to minimize environmental impacts and disruption to existing urban development. So this has the potential to be a serious problem:

Officials at Union Pacific railroad recently told the California High Speed Rail Authority that they have safety and operational concerns about running a bullet train close to lumbering freight trains.

“Just look at what happened in L.A. a few years ago,” said Scott Moore, a Union Pacific vice president, citing the 2005 crash of a Metrolink passenger train that killed 11 and hampered rail operations.

“Those accidents happen.”

This rationale is flatly ridiculous. As UP well knows, the accident referred to is the subject of an ongoing trial of Juan Manuel Alvarez who tried to commit suicide by parking his truck on the Metrolink tracks near Glendale. He did this on an at-grade crossing, which will be eliminated as part of the HSR project. And as is the case around the world, the HSR tracks will be fenced off from the public, making it difficult for a similar accident to occur. In fact, accidents of any kind are very rare on HSR systems, and it is very uncommon for HSR trains to hit passenger vehicles.

Further, I know of no specific problems where HSR trains have ever had an issue sharing tracks with any other trains – and I find it interesting that UP had to cite the 2005 Metrolink crash, since they couldn’t come up with any actual issues of HSR and freight running in close proximity. Trains commonly share multiple tracks next to each other without any problems.

So we have to ask what UP is really up to with this statement. I believe they are holding out for more money. They’ve done it before – several years ago Santa Cruz County resolved to purchase the branch line from Pajaro to Davenport, running through Santa Cruz and paralleling Highway 1, from UP. The negotiations dragged on for years as UP tried to overstate the value of the line and get the county to assume responsibility for all repairs of tracks and bridges – and when the county balked, UP threatened to refuse to sell the line. UP’s statement may well be a ploy for more money, some role in operations or profits from HSR, or other assurances from CHSRA and the state.

And of course, UP had no objection to – and has benefited greatly from – government-funded projects such as the Alameda Corridor.  For them to turn around and try and screw HSR is inconsistent at best. The state and federal governments should play hardball with UP over this – if they continue to drag their feet on negotiating with CHSRA, then perhaps UP doesn’t need the Alameda Corridor East, or the Colton flyover, or continued deregulation of the industry.

Some want to believe this is a crisis for HSR. If UP holds firm in its refusal to share ROW, there’s always eminent domain, but that would involve a long and drawn-out court process. If the CHSRA has to abandon the ROW-sharing plan, then they’ll need to completely redo the environmental impact reports, which could add 3-5 years to the construction time on the project.

That would be inconvenient, but it is long past time for us to get started on HSR. Gas prices and global warming have finally given urgency to HSR, and that should in turn give the public and their representatives the clarity of vision and sense of purpose to ensure that UP doesn’t hijack the project for their own concerns. State and federal political leaders need to ramp up the pressure on UP – and we need to do the same. High speed rail is too important for one company – even Union Pacific – to block. We can find ways to assuage their concerns while staying on track to get the high speed rail system approved and under construction by 2010.

The CA High-speed rail authority has some cool new ways to make you really, really wish we had HSR.  First, we have the video to the right. They’ve also done a rather cool little Flash “simulator” for the proposed route from San Francisco and Sacramento in the North all the way down to San Diego in the South.  It has a series of animated pictures showing the proposed development along the route, some wind farms, some new big buildings.

They still have the Gallery of images and video if you want something a bit more detailed. They have a specific “Bay Area” video as well.

Also, check out Robert’s High Speed Rail Blog.

As the LA Times reports today, we may be looking at blackouts in So Cal this summer as energy demand outstrips the power capacity of the grid. And as anyone who was around for the great west coast blackout in the summer of ’96, what starts cascading in So Cal doesn’t necessarily stay there, especially on those hot July/August scorchers that cook us all the way up the Valley. The state’s grid manager put it in terms of lacking adequate production:

The state will have 489 megawatts of new generation in time for peak demand in July or August, some of that replacing a 122-megawatt plant that’s being retired. Southern California will need to rely on imports from Arizona, Nevada and Mexico, as well as conservation, to avoid blackouts.

Demand probably will increase by 1,000 megawatts this year over last year, Cal-ISO Chief Executive Yakout Mansour said during a conference call. Power demand peaked at 48,615 megawatts in 2007.

And yet this only looks at one side of energy load problems, that of supply. While it’s not reasonable to ask people to turn off their AC in a real heat wave – although the degree to which one cools is definitely somewhere that people can make up some slack – energy efficiency elsewhere in the state can squeeze enough energy to keep things from tipping over into blackout. In fact, when we were at a similar point of crisis last year, because some of the So Cal wildfires were burning up transmission lines, voluntary energy reduction was what kept things running. Ditto for the Enron-masterminded 2001 energy shortages. Conservation is a big part of any solution.

But over the long term, how do we get the Golden State out of this trap of summer grid overload without going to more fossil fuel-powered peak load generators that pump more carbon into the atmosphere (making our summer heat waves that much worse in the years to come)?

Wind, solar, passive solar building design, urban trees and especially thermal solar.

As North American natural gas starts to hit its peak production, wind and solar have gotten progressively more economically viable for private investors. But the predictable annual crisis of the CA heat wave really cries out for public funding. Every brownout or blackout brings economic activity to a grinding halt, and the spot prices hit a lot of businesses pretty hard as the tipping point is reached. It would make a good deal of sense not to just wait for PG&E to build the power plants of the future, but rather to get the state involved in funding a bunch of capacity right now. European wind design has far outstripped the wind technolology that California pioneered in the 70s, all we need to do is start putting wind farms up, along the Delta and offshore.

Likewise, given the correlation between summer heat waves and an overstressed grid, building thermal solar down the valley and in inland So Cal, the very places where the peak usage occurs, would seem to be a complete no-brainer. As the mercury rises, so would the production of electricity. Combine this with a statewide and urban subsidy for solar panels on roofs (and perhaps grants for the construction of solar panels covering parking lots, would help to decentralize the production of electricity and reduce net demand, and in so doing take some of the stress off the transmission lines.

If the free market was going to provide this critical infrastructure in time to avoid crisis, we wouldn’t have this problem. But they haven’t, so we do. It is time for the state and local governments to step up and nudge things in the right direction. In the long run, we ought to think about trying to reduce our total consumption by pushing for planting more urban tree cover, and more efficient housing and appliance design (and yes, personal changes in wasteful behavior), but if we want to avoid blackouts in the short run, it’s going to take more seed money from the state.

Of course, in the really long run, shifting our energy production away from carbon-producing fossil fuels will be the only way that we can avoid devastating heat waves and resulting blackouts. That the short term solution also works for the long run should be a reminder that both virtuous and vicious cycles tend to feed upon themselves. And it should be noted that just as with building the High Speed Rail line, sponsoring the construction of a bunch of thermal solar power plants down the valley, and wind in the Delta and along the coast would provide sorely needed jobs to communities already mired in endemic underemployment that are reeling from the collapse of the housing bubble.

And how to pay for it all? Well, a royalty tax on oil pumped in California, as is done everywhere else in the country, would seem a rather elegant solution.

originally at surf putah

Originally posted at my high speed rail blog

On Monday Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters devoted his column to the high speed rail plan. Unfortunately he showed a total lack of understanding of the reasons to build it.

So Dan Walters needs our help in grasping why this project is so necessary to California’s future.

After describing some of the very real issues with the overall funding plan, he devotes the second half of his column to an attack on high speed rail:

The most romantic bullet train vision is the lightning-fast trip from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco. But how many people really want to make that trip each day, and would it represent a marked improvement over the very frequent air travel now available?

I can anecdotally provide him with about two dozen names of CDP convention attendees who expressed the desire for a high speed train to connect San José to their homes in SoCal. But we can answer this charge much better by explaining why HSR will be not just an attractive – but necessary – transportation option.

First, attractiveness. I dealt with that last week when discussing the 5% increase in Acela market share on the Northeast Corridor. Acela isn’t even a true high speed rail system – ours would provide double the speed of Acela. LA-SF is one of the busiest air corridors in the country, and if a flawed high speedish train can take nearly half the market share from airlines in the Northeast, that suggests it’ll work here too.

Second, necessity. Walters assumes that present conditions will last for some time to come. But nowhere in his column are the words peak oil mentioned. Nor does he discuss soaring gas prices. Both will make it difficult and unattractive to continue flying between the two halves of our state, causing either supply disruption or fare increases beyond the ability of most Californians to pay. Walters may not believe in peak oil, even though it is a fact. But the constant rise in oil prices is going to have to eliminate cheap fares sooner or later.

He goes on to try and undermine the CHSRA claims on air travel:

The High-Speed Rail Commission’s environmental impact reports contain some underlying air travel projections that are very difficult to swallow. It would have us believe that air travel demand between Northern and Southern California would nearly double between 2000 and 2010.

That flies in the face of actual airport traffic figures and seems to conflict with another commission projection that in the absence of building the bullet train, air travel times would increase only fractionally between 2000 and 2020.

This passage essentially says nothing. Demand may well have increased, but traffic figures have not met demand. Airports are congested – witness LAX or OAK on a weekend. Most California airports lack the capacity to add slots – Orange County is limited to 14 gates, LAX expansion has languished for three decades, SFO and OAK physically cannot expand any further into the bay. If peak oil is not real, then that means our population really will continue to expand – and without new terminals and runways, and in the absence of airplane innovation (most airplane R&D goes to fuel economy, as supersonic transport appears to be a dead concept) air travel times cannot physically increase.

How about auto travel? The commission projects that driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco, seven hours in 1999, would take eight hours by 2020. But as anyone who makes long-distance drives through the state knows, Interstate 5 is very lightly used now, at least outside urban areas.

This is wrong on two points. First, Interstate 5 is NOT lightly used outside urban areas. Certainly not in the San Joaquin Valley. It is a very heavily used artery. I have on several occasions been stuck in traffic jams in the middle of nowhere in Fresno County on I-5, and on several occasions found it took nine hours to drive from OC to Berkeley.

Second, those urban areas continue to expand. When new development pops up further north on I-5 near Castaic, or in the Tracy area, that adds congestion that a long-distance commuter will encounter on their drive between LA and SF. There never used to be a regular traffic jam on 580 in Livermore, but it’s a fact of life now. One used to be able to drive through the Santa Clarita area on the way to LA without encountering much traffic, but that is now difficult.

California’s traffic congestion is an urban condition, and the most likely patrons of high-speed rail wouldn’t be long-distance travelers but commuters – a poor use of expensive, sophisticated technology.

Again, this is simply not true. Interstate 15 between SoCal and Vegas is another example of a non-urban interstate that regularly sees massive traffic jams. And Walters’ argument that most users would be commuters is itself flawed – either because it is flat wrong (ridership on Amtrak California’s intercity trains has been steadily rising for years now) or because it doesn’t take into account the attractiveness of a quicker commute.

That explains why the most ardent support for bullet train service is to be found in the Central Valley, which is poorly served by airlines and whose main artery, Highway 99, is highly congested with auto and truck traffic.

Bullet trains would make commuting to and from places like Fresno, Modesto and Bakersfield easier. But wouldn’t that merely encourage the sort of sprawl that we are supposed to be discouraging?

Sprawl is a product of land use laws and cheap oil. We’re already losing the cheap oil, which itself is going to stop most sprawl in its tracks. As to land use practices, why should HSR be responsible for the lack of good smart growth planning in the Central Valley? The state ought to step in and subject all local land use planning decisions to AB 32 guidelines on carbon emissions, and localities need to improve farmland protection and infill development rules no matter what HSR’s fate is.

Walters argued that:

even the most ardent advocates have yet to present a persuasive, fact-grounded rationale for spending so much borrowed money on an entirely new transportation system.

Well, Dan, my blog is intended to be exactly that persuasive, fact-grounded rationale. HSR is necessary to our state’s future.

Crossposted from my new HSR blog

Those are the polling numbers CHSRA Board Chair Quentin Kopp cited in a Sacramento Bee article over the weekend:

Kopp said the bond measure enjoys public support for the landmark project. As the bond reads now, 58 percent of Californians favor the bond and 32 percent oppose it, he said.

Now, we don’t know any details of this poll other than what Kopp gave Judy Lin, the author of the Bee article. And those details matter. How many people were polled? What was the exact wording of the question asked of respondents? How many people said they were familiar with the high speed rail project? (If that number was above 40% I would be shocked.) All of that information is crucial to understanding this poll, and how seriously we ought to take it.

But for now, 58-32 is all we have to go on. And it is very encouraging. The rule of thumb for California ballot propositions is that the Yes position must be above 50% in the polls early on if it is to have a chance at passage. This is because most ballot props lose support as the election draws nearer. Negative campaigning is very effective, and as attacks on the proposition increase nearer the election, support ebbs. If you’re well above 50% before those attacks begin, though, the chances are typically good that the proposition will pass.

According to some critics, this is not a good year to take HSR to the polls. The usual argument is that given the state’s budget crisis, voters will not likely be willing to float $10 billion in bonds. I realize this is a valid concern, but I am confident we can pass this plan. Especially in November, when we are likely to see a very high turnout of progressive voters – the very folks who are most likely to get why HSR is such a good idea.

But to help ensure passage, the following points need to be driven home to California voters over the next 8 months:

• HSR is necessary to our economic survival, in both the short term and definitely in the long-term. Californians need to see this as a necessary project that, if they voted to kill it, would cost them more than they’d save.
• HSR is affordable – it won’t break our state’s debt ceiling, the system will likely generate a surplus as do all other HSR systems in the world, it’s cheaper than expanding airports and freeways, and it will spur a lot of economic growth.
• HSR is necessary for our transportation needs – this really depends on more people learning about peak oil, but perhaps $4 gas and fuel surcharges on flights will help get us part of the way there. Californians have to see that they cannot expect to drive and fly around the state for much longer. If they want to see mom and dad in Orange County at Christmas in 2020, they’re going to need a high speed train.
• HSR is necessary for our climate needs – it would eliminate 12.4 billion pounds per year of carbon emissions, equivalent to removing a million vehicles from the roads. If Californians really do take global warming seriously, they will see HSR as a compelling solution to the climate crisis.

Note the common theme: HSR is necessary. It isn’t, as the Contra Costa Times’ Capricious Commuter said, “an esoteric infrastructure project.” It is vital to this state’s future. If we are to win the vote this fall, we are going to have to make sure Californians understand that fact.

This is crossposted from my new California High Speed Rail blog

As those of you who have been reading me for the last year know, I love high speed rail. And you’d also know that I am deeply skeptical – to put it mildly – of public private partnerships (P3). So what am I to do when they are joined together in a shotgun wedding? From a press release put out by the California High Speed Rail Authority:

California High-Speed Rail Authority Executive Director Mehdi Morshed, joined Governor Schwarzenegger Tuesday in participating in a roundtable discussion at the State Capitol regarding the importance of investing in California’s infrastructure and maintaining the state’s economic growth through public private partnerships.

Mr. Morshed noted the California proposed system of high-speed trains offers a unique opportunity to develop a new model for “P3” or public private partnership financing….

Mr. Morshed noted that high-speed trains are attractive to private investors because California’s proposed system will bring a $1 billion annual profit or surplus, once built.

Now it’s not as if this is totally new. The 2002 Implementation Plan always envisioned that private financing would play some sort of role in the HSR project, although at the time it was expected to be limited to the bonds.

But what exactly is meant by “private financing” – and how bad might this really be for HSR?

The Authority’s finance team anticipates public-private partnership opportunities will include project debt financing, vendor financing, system operations and private ownership.

I can live with private involvement in debt and vendor financing, even though government can always borrow more cheaply. System operations is iffy at best – government runs the French, Spanish, German, and Japanese lines quite well, and when system operations were privatized in Britain, the results were deadly. Private ownership, however, is a line we must not cross – public ownership of infrastructure is key to an effective, safe, and affordable transportation system for Californians. High speed rail is an economic catalyst and an environmental and sustainablity necessity. It needs to be held in public hands for public uses, and not hollowed out for private profit.

And that $1 billion is a very, very enticing figure, especially for private companies and investors, who likely see in public infrastructure the kind of profit opportunities that they are now being denied in real estate and financial speculation. But that $1 billion would also be incredibly useful in building out the full HSR network envisioned in the 2002 Implementation Plan – or extending the service beyond its current routing (building an Altamont Pass alignment, for example).

In Europe, those operating surpluses are regularly plowed back into expansion of the HSR network. Spain’s first HSR line, the AVE train from Madrid to Córdoba and Sevilla, proved so profitable that RENFE (Spain’s government-owned rail network) was able to plow that money into recent extensions to Malaga, Valladolid, and Barcelona. France’s state-owned rail network, SNCF has been able to do the same with expansion of its TGV lines as well. The operating surplus alone does not pay for these projects, but it helps reduce the added bond or tax monies needed to construct the new lines. Or, the surplus could be used to pay the bonds off ahead of schedule.

So there is a strong incentive to use those operating surpluses for HSR upgrades and extensions or bond repayment, instead of handing it over to private investors. But it seems clear that P3 is the price of obtaining Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s support for the plan. From the press release:

The bond measure, which is within the Schwarzenegger Administration’s current debt capacity guidelines, will also provide nearly $1 billion for improvements to local and regional passenger trains projects that complement and connect with the high-speed train system. The bond is also a significant component of the Governor’s Strategic Growth Plan as described in his proposed 2008-09 budget.

That section, especially the language about “debt capacity guidelines,” seems a very clear signal to me that Arnold is going to throw his weight behind the November HSR bond – but only because it promotes his goal of P3 for public works.

It’s a shotgun wedding, and the question is, how should we react? Is HSR worth the price of P3? Already we’re having to accept a lot of tough things to get this project moving. The Pacheco Pass alignment seems less ideal from a ridership and environmental perspective. And the plan floated by Fiona Ma and Cathleen Galgani to drop the insistence that LA-SF be the first line to open risks building a system that contains a missing link.

But neither are these poison pills. As I noted above, the Implementation Plan always called for private investment, to leverage the state, local, and federal funding. What seems more worrisome here is that Arnold is using HSR to advance a privatization agenda that is already being implemented in our state. HSR is too important a project to force into a shotgun wedding with Arnold’s privatization push.

The battle of whether to run the High Speed Rail Line through the Altamont Pass or the Pacheco Pass was pretty much a lose-lose for the Commission headed by former Legislator Quentin Kopp. If they chose the Altamont Pass they gave cities in the East Bay good access to the train, but kept the train far from Gilroy and Santa Cruz. And of course, by choosing Pacheco, the Board has angered the East Bay folks.  Thanks to the Chronicle for this handy-dandy map –>

But, while there was little debate by the board at this meeting, it was not without fireworks. San Jose Mayor (and sometimes Democrat) Chuck Reed and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom showed up at the meeting in Sacramento yesterday. However, while this meeting featured the big names arguing for the Pacheco pass route, some members of Congress and other various politicians have threatened federal funding for the rail system if it didn’t go through the Altamont Pass. Ahh…fun.

Either way, it looks like next year just might be the year we see the $10B in bonds for high speed rail. That alone won’t be enough to get this done, but it would certainly provide plenty of motivation to get the process really moving. The Governator has indicated that he might just let this get on to the ballot. From the Chronicle:

Whether Arnold comes out in favor of the plan is still up in the air, but if he does give his blessing, perhaps the stars will align for a successful 2008 campaign for HSR.

Flip it for the fun HSR video.

In light of the projected $14 billion budget shortfall, Senate leader Don Perata said late yesterday “‘it would be imprudent and impolitic to support an expansion of health care’ before addressing the state’s budget deficit and its impact on existing programs.”

Meanwhile, Fabian Núñez is “so confident that we will be successful in reaching agreement that I have called for the Assembly to meet on Monday, December 17 in order to take up and pass AB 1X.”  So where are we actually heading on this?

Governor Schwarzenegger is calling for 10% spending cuts across the board in response to the budget shortfall that everyone knew was coming.  And as Dave points out, this means everyone who can’t afford to live without government gets screwed while the rich continue on their merry way.  It also means that next year’s budget fight will likely turn this year into the good ole days of budget wrangling.  And if Perata is serious about not passing anything as long as there’s a shortfall, then we ain’t passing anything for a while cause the shortfall isn’t going anywhere.

But before we even get to that, we find out whether all the extended sessions, coalition-shredding wars over an acceptable level of health-care (I’m looking at you Shum/Maviglio), time, money and both literal and cyber ink may end up coming to nothing because Don Perata can’t see spending on an important mandate when the political leadership in Sacramento can’t figure out how to balance a budget.

This is ultimately going to encapsulate most of the Calitics greatest hits from the past year; starting with health care, this runs through privatization, water usage, high speed rail and transportation, prison reform, Núñez pecadillos, labor relations, term limits, clean money, taxes, and the 2/3 rule.  Because it all runs back to the ability of people to get elected and pass a budget.

Most of all, it’s likely to reinforce the absurd lack of strong, public political leadership in this state.  There are no advocates.  Nobody has tried to convince me to sacrifice.  Nobody has tried to convince me of the inherent wisdom in a program that I might not otherwise think was a good idea.  The art of the possible is starting to discover that, as it turns out, not very much is possible with a $14 billion shortfall and no bold attempts at change.

Perata’s statement closed by saying “The real issue now is the deficit and how this squares with everything else that we are going to do.”  Everything is back up for debate.  Now that we’re staring at the very real possibility of getting less than we started with, it might not be such a bad time for a return to the fundamental principles of budgeting and state spending.  I’m not sure it could end up much worse.