Organization Opposes Freeze of High Speed Rail Funds

A Bay Area public policy organization announced its opposition to federal legislation introduced Friday that would freeze federal funding for
California's high-speed rail.

The legislation, sponsored by House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, and nine other California Republican congressmen, would freeze funding on the project while auditors gather evidence about the project's feasibility, according to McCarthy's office.

"With all the current examples of taxpayer money being squandered on politically correct projects that have little chance of success, we should absolutely not be wasting even more money on a very expensive high-speed train from nowhere to nowhere," co-sponsor Congressman John Campbell said in a statement.

The Bay Area Council, a business-sponsored public policy advocacy organization, opposed the proposed legislation, saying that building high-speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco would create jobs and provide a clean and efficient solution to manage growth.

"California has prospered and become a world leader across so many industries and disciplines because we have dared to look to the future, to be bold in our thinking and confident in our actions," council president Jim
Wunderman said in a statement Friday.

"Many questions remain to be answered about how we will implement a project as large and complex as high-speed rail, but the Council believes that the question of whether it's the right thing to do for California's future has already been answered when voters approved almost $10 billion in
bonds to build the system," he said.

–Bay City News Service