Obama's High-Speed Rail Project Gets $1.5 Billion Slashed In Budget Deal

WASHINGTON -- As part of the final budget deal formally agreed to on Friday night, the Obama administration signed off on a big cut to a closely held transportation policy priority.

Multiple Hill sources from both parties confirm that the final continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through the end of September will include a $1.5 billion cut in funds for the planned national high-speed rail system. Jennifer Hing, communications director for the House Appropriations Committee, said that the reduction could actually grow larger as lawmakers negotiate the final language.

“The final agreement will reflect" the $1.5 billion of high-speed rail funds slashed from the temporary CR, Hing wrote in an email to HuffPost, "but that is not to say that it couldn’t be more.”

In signing off on cuts, the Obama administration is taking a major hit to one of the president’s favorite transportation priorities. In the process, he is also giving fodder to critics who have accused the White House’s push for high-speed rail as pie-in-the-sky policy that would fall far short of transforming the nation’s antiquated infrastructure.

Already there have been several Republican governors who have refused to accept federal money to build high-speed rail projects in their states. Florida Gov. Rick Scott turned down $2 billion alone, citing concerns that the state’s portion of the funds would go well beyond projections. That money was, in turn, sent to the Department of Transportation to be awarded to other interested states. Now it appears a good chunk of it will go towards deficit reduction.

The White House was able to secure $8 billion in high-speed rail money in the 2009 stimulus package. The current level of funding was $2.5 billion-a-year. The cuts secured under the budget deal reached on Friday night brings the annual rail dollars down to $1 billion, though administration officials stressed that none of the lost funds would come from existing projects that have received grants.

The president had budgeted $1 billion himself in his 2012 budget proposal but as recently as mid-February 2011, Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood was encouraging Congress to authorize $53 billion over the next six years.

Comments

[This American]

02:00 AM on 04/14/2011

High speed rail is totally inappropriate for the U.S., even if we had the money. In our current situation it is pure lunacy

[WestCoastftw]

02:38 AM on 04/14/2011

No high speed rail is in fact badly needed in high traffic corridors of 500 miles or less. Portland to Seattle, LA to San Diego, LA to Vegas, Houston to Dallas, Chicago to Minneapolis, Boston - New York - Philly DC.

I am in complete agreement that our current financial situation is dire but we still have to invest in transportation infrastructure.

[luckinbi]

07:31 AM on 05/11/2011

Try riding a Midwest or Western Amtrak route today and find the ride is on-time or ahead of schedule; the number of freight train traffic is way below average.

With heavy freight traffic AMTRAK trains average 25mph. AMTRAK routes are primarilly on single track runs that carry two way traffic. A train capable of 80mph averages 25mph when it stops to wait for on-coming traffic to pass.

We don't need high-speed rail. We need double tracked routes that allow traffic to flow. Presently the rail system is constipated and the politicians propose a gold plated fix.

[sympathy]

10:34 PM on 05/27/2011

We have to plan ahead. We have to promote a mass transit system. How many roads can we let deteriorate, because road maintenance takes a back seat in a lot of states. We have had the luxury which was never smart of the 2,3, and more cars per family and now, we think we need them. This should be part of a long range infrastructure plan, and they can pull the money form the DOD. We are setting a bad example for our children, and leaving them another mess to clean up.

[Cat9]

11:10 PM on 04/12/2011

Ooops...his payback for union workers got a haircut

[ABACADABRA RABBIT]

03:07 AM on 04/13/2011

ouch

[Alex Shalan]

07:11 PM on 04/12/2011

Wait, wasn't this considered priority for "winning the future' in Obama's State of the Union? Guess it'll get cut more because Americans don't see it as necessity. China has cleaner and more efficient infrastructure than us. Not a shock.

[This American]

02:02 AM on 04/14/2011

Obama is much more concerned with winning the election than he is in winning the future. That "wining the future" thing is so last month.

[sawdustking]

01:59 PM on 04/12/2011

Good, nobody wants the high speed rail anyway. It costs the taxpayers a billion dollars a year just to keep Amtrak going as it is.

[WestCoastftw]

02:07 PM on 04/12/2011

Amtrak is not high speed rail.

[sawdustking]

02:14 PM on 04/12/2011

I never said it was.

[This American]

02:03 AM on 04/14/2011

High speed rail is 10x costly than Amtrack.

[RadCenter]

07:11 PM on 04/12/2011

Is that all?

Are you going to tell us how much Amtrak saves us in miles of energy-intensive concrete highways not needed, or reductions in health care costs due to less auto tailpipe emissions, or fewer acres of farmland paved over for interchanges? Are there no benefits that offset at least part of the costs?

Unless you can give us a net figure, your "cost" input is worthless.

[sawdustking]

07:48 PM on 04/12/2011

Rail makes sense in some places and I don't object to government loans and the use of imminent domain to get things started. But they should stand on their own. The Acela line is the only Amtrak line that makes a profit. Some of the places being proposed are just ridiculous. I live in Iowa and there was a proposition to put in a high speed rail between Iowa City and Chicago. Apparently the logic was that some of the University of Iowa's 30,000 students are from Chicago and they might not want to drive 3 hours to get home. There's no way a high speed rail carrying maybe a couple thousand passengers a week could ever pay for itself.

What make a lot more sense to me is to scrap this notion that rail can replace air travel and focus on replacing cars on the road. The best place to do that is in the cities. Give suburbanites the choice between a 15 minute train ride or a 60 minute drive. Give them parking garages so they can park for the day. That will take the most cars off the road and take them from where they are most congested. Tampa to Orlando? Nonsense.

[This American]

02:06 AM on 04/14/2011

The burden is on the proponent to prove that the benefits outweigh the costs. That hasn't been done so you libs won't be getting any trains for Christmas oops Im sorry winter hoiday.

[Tyche]

01:38 PM on 04/12/2011

They should have knocked off $1 billion from the extra $5 billion he gave defense spending.

[ABACADABRA RABBIT]

03:08 AM on 04/13/2011

or not spent 1 billion in one week bombing libya!

[canarypapers]

01:24 PM on 04/12/2011

Interestingly, when Bush signed a bill in the fall of 2008 to provide $13 billion funding to rail ($2.6 billion per year over 5 years), there was nary a pip from the GOP camp -- no dire warnings about evil socialist agendas or frivolous spending. Not so under the Obama Administration.

In a country with approximately 250 million cars on the road, each of which carries an average of 1.5 passengers per car, high speed rail makes sense.

In a country where 44% of the money we pay in taxes goes to fund wars -- most of these wars for oil -- it makes sense to develop alternative modes of transportation, so that we may lessen our dependence on wars for oil.

And this says nothing of the cost in terms of quality of life -- the quality of our own lives, as well as the lives of our children and grandchild­ren, who, for better or worse, will inherit the earth we leave to them, which has everything to do with the priorities we set today.

[RF]

12:32 PM on 04/12/2011

What voting Republican wrought...

Behold!

A new Overton Window...

[AndyWright68]

11:55 AM on 04/12/2011

Obama's project? Should you really call anything a "project" when it is funded by money stolen at gunpoint?

[tockeyhockey]

12:27 PM on 04/12/2011

please link to an article that reference said guns, theft. thanks in advance.

[AndyWright68]

11:01 PM on 04/12/2011

Article? There is a simpler way. Just don't pat taxes and ignore the thieves who demand your money and the guns will come to you.

[ManOutOfTime]

04:20 PM on 04/12/2011

Really? The IRS steals money at gunpoint? You're kidding, right? Yes, the government has projects. Federal, State, County, and Municipal governments all have projects. There are even multi-state and multi-county/regional authorities -- and they all have projects. They have not taken one dime from you at gunpoint. My wife and I will have paid probably $100,000 or so in just income and property taxes for 2010 - no idea what we paid in sales, tobacco, and other taxes - but a lot, I'm sure - no one has ever pointed a gun at me. If you are speculating what would happen to me if I tried to NOT pay the money which I owe by law, then EVERYTHING we do is enforced at gunpoint, right? In fact, it would be more honest to say you pay for your groceries or drive down the street at gunpoint, since the cops really will literally point a gun at you if you steal groceries or ignore traffic lights. At some stores, private security may aim a gun or taser at you. Get real.

[AndyWright68]

11:07 PM on 04/12/2011

Yes. They do. Don't pay and ignore their extortion threats and the guns will be at your door.

And they all use threats of violence to get the money they want for these "projects".

You cannot drive down the street without being threatened with their guns unless you beg for permission and pay them off. It's extortion.

When people pay for for something that is a voluntary exchange. No one is pointing a gun. Pointing guns at peaceful people is wrong. Would you point a gun at your neighbor if you wanted him to donate to a charity? But you would support the government pointing guns at your neighbor to force them to fund welfare. How odd. You are against sealing from your fellow man but support it when the government does it. I smell a hypocrite. .

[DannyGee]

11:50 AM on 04/12/2011

Why don't we rebuild our roads and bridges instead of building "high speed train" lines which aren't high speed at all?

[RF]

12:35 PM on 04/12/2011

Typical American comment thread retort-
Your ignorant reply shows that you do not even know what high speed rail is, or that there exists other countries that have these "trains"

Kinder?
Choo Choos in your basement have been vastly improved, my friend...

[DannyGee]

12:58 PM on 04/13/2011

incoherent rant.

[tockeyhockey]

12:44 PM on 04/12/2011

because building more roads does not reduce traffic or increase efficiency. train travel does.

road construction is simply a huge subsidy to the auto and oil industries. they don't need any more propping up. what we need is true high speed rail that would make workers companies more competitive.

[DannyGee]

12:56 PM on 04/13/2011

If you had read my post a little more thoroughly you would have seen absolutely no mention of "more roads" but instead repairing our ailing and dangerous existing infrastructure.

[ppace60657]

11:41 AM on 04/12/2011

Eh, so the rest of the industrialized world has a modern transportation system, it gives its citizens free health care, too. We don't seem to mind lagging behind, as long as our millionaires don't have to help support their country by paying taxes.

[DannyGee]

11:51 AM on 04/12/2011

how's that western european socialist state doing these days?

[tockeyhockey]

12:28 PM on 04/12/2011

it's going pretty well, apparently.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/24/germany-economic-recovery-recession-lessons_n_692534.html

[Raw Ron]

11:07 AM on 04/12/2011

Cutting these kinds of long overdue domestic investments to get republicans on board is foolish. By any measurement creating high speed rail goes a long way at expanding a economic center. It allows people to commute longer distances for work and commerce. This means investors can consider a wider radius of workforce, housing prices will stabilize because more rural locations will be plausible for people.
The list of benefits for this kind of investment go on and on.

If the only way to move forward with the bagger types is to starve our country of self investment we're in deep trouble. Just think if Bush had used that 5 trillion he added to the debt for domestic investment how much better off we would be.

[oilfield]

10:27 AM on 04/12/2011

cities that have rail for mass transit in them have a shot at having hsr work...without that, there is no chance...no one is going to ride a high speed train to orlando only to get on the bus system.

[Billzapoppin]

02:43 PM on 04/12/2011

Your expertise is underwhelming. When you say "no one," you mean "not I," and the world isn't what you say it is. I don't get people who say it can't work because no one wants to ride it or it's too inconvenient or the ride costs too much, as though convenience, demand and price will be frozen at their current levels for eternity. No technological advancement will ever take place, no cultural evolution, no economies of scale. Nope, not in the greatest country in the world. We just don't do that sort of thing here. No thinking, no creativity, no imagination; because the way things are now is just so righteously great.

[oilfield]

11:55 AM on 04/14/2011

why dont we test it in a place it is more likely to work....ny, ca ....then we will try to spread out cities like orlando and tampa.....orlando takes forever to get around by car....much less bus.

[idisVA]

09:50 AM on 04/12/2011

The rest of the world is laughing at us. Incredibly myopic.

[stumanchu35]

09:10 AM on 04/12/2011

Now that's cutting wasteful spending.

[Alex Damiani]

09:03 AM on 04/12/2011

Every country moving forward except the USA we love OIL, let's keep expecting other governments to take the lead so we can keep buying oil, driving SUV's with one passenger on them and avoid doing the right thing. I see another Rome in the horizon!