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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.


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Mike Muldoon
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
mmuldoon@rosemontseneca.com