CALIFORNIA’S HIGH-SPEED RAIL PLAN: 

SKYROCKETING COSTS AND PROJECT CONCERNS 

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ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DECEMBER 15, 2011 

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CALIFORNIA’S HIGH-SPEED RAIL PLAN: 

SKYROCKETING COSTS AND PROJECT CONCERNS 

(112–69) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DECEMBER 15, 2011 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

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committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

ANDY HARRIS, Maryland 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington 

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

JEFFREY M. LANDRY, Louisiana 

STEVE SOUTHERLAND II, Florida 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

CHARLES J. ‘‘CHUCK’’ FLEISCHMANN, 

Tennessee 

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

LAURA RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

(II) 

(III) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

TESTIMONY 

PANEL ONE

Hon. Dennis A. Cardoza, a Representative in Congress from California’s 

18th District ......................................................................................................... 45 

Hon. Devin Nunes, a Representative in Congress from California’s 21st District ........................................................................................................................ 45 

Hon. Jim Costa, a Representative in Congress from California’s 20th District . 45 

Hon. Kevin McCarthy, a Representative in Congress from California’s 22nd 

District, and Majority Whip ................................................................................ 45 

Hon. Loretta Sanchez, a Representative in Congress from California’s 47th 

District .................................................................................................................. 45 

Hon. Dana Rohrabacher, a Representative in Congress from California’s 46th 

District .................................................................................................................. 45 

PANEL TWO

Joseph C. Szabo, Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration .................... 67 

Roelof Van Ark, Chief Executive Officer, California High-Speed Rail Authority .......................................................................................................................... 67 

Hon. Jerry Amante, Mayor of Tustin, California, and Member, Board of 

Directors, Orange County Transportation Authority ........................................ 67 

Hon. Ashley Swearengin, Mayor of Fresno, California ........................................ 67 

Gregory R. Gatzka, Director, Kings County Community Development Agency . 67 

Elizabeth Goldstein Alexis, Co-Founder, Californians Advocating Responsible 

Rail Design ........................................................................................................... 67 

Kole Upton, Vice President, Preserve Our Heritage ............................................ 67 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Hon. Joe Baca, of California ................................................................................... 111 

Hon. Russ Carnahan, of Missouri .......................................................................... 113 

Hon. Anna G. Eshoo, of California ......................................................................... 117 

Hon. Barbara Lee, of California ............................................................................. 118 

Hon. Zoe Lofgren, of California .............................................................................. 120 

Hon. Laura Richardson, of California .................................................................... 121 

Hon. Adam B. Schiff, of California ......................................................................... 126 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Hon. Dennis A. Cardoza .......................................................................................... 127 

Hon. Devin Nunes 1 .................................................................................................

Hon. Jim Costa 1 ......................................................................................................

Hon. Kevin McCarthy 1 ...........................................................................................

Hon. Loretta Sanchez .............................................................................................. 132 

Hon. Dana Rohrabacher 1 ........................................................................................

Joseph C. Szabo ....................................................................................................... 136 

Roelof Van Ark ......................................................................................................... 233 

Hon. Jerry Amante .................................................................................................. 249 

Hon. Ashley Swearengin ......................................................................................... 255 

Gregory R. Gatzka ................................................................................................... 258 

Elizabeth Goldstein Alexis ...................................................................................... 270 

Kole Upton, Vice President ..................................................................................... 278 

Page

IV 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Hon Gary C. Miller, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, request to submit the following letters with questions to the California High-Speed Rail Authority about the California high-speed rail plan: 

Letter to Michael Rossi, Board Member, California High-Speed Rail 

Authority, from the following members of the California State Legislature: Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, Assemblyman David 

Valadao, Assemblyman Brian Jones, Senator Doug LaMalfa, Senator Bob Huff, and Senator Bob Dutton, December 8, 2011 .............. 5 

Letter to Bonnie Lowenthal, Chair, and Kevin Jeffries, Vice-Chair, 

California Assembly Transportation Committee, from 

Assemblywoman Diane L. Harkey, 73rd District, November 29, 

2011 ......................................................................................................... 12 

Hon. Laura Richardson, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California, request to submit the following letters: 

Letter to Hon. John L. Mica, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Florida, and Chair, Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure, from the US High Speed Rail Association, December 15, 2011 ............................................................................................ 27 

Letter to Ray LaHood, Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation, 

and Joseph C. Szabo, Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration, from 94 members of the California State Legislature, October 

19, 2009 .................................................................................................. 29 

Hon Devin Nunes, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, 

request to submit the following: 

‘‘Review of ‘Bay Area/California High-Speed Rail Ridership and Revenue Forecasting Study,’ ’’ Research Report UCB–ITS–RR–2010– 

1, by David Brownstone, Professor of Economics, UC Irvine; Mark 

Hansen, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC 

Berkeley; and Samar Madanat, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley; Institute of Transportation 

Studies, University of California, Berkeley, June 2010 ..................... 293 

‘‘High-Speed Rail Authority: It Risks Delays or an Incomplete System 

Because of Inadequate Planning, Weak Oversight, and Lax Contract Management,’’ Report 2009–106, by the California State 

Auditor, April 2010 ................................................................................ 352 

‘‘High-Speed Rail is at a Critical Juncture,’’ by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, May 10, 2011 .................................................................... 404 

Marc Scribner, Land-use and Transportation Policy Analyst, Center 

for Economic Freedom, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Freedom 

of Information Act Request to: (a) Office of the Secretary of Transportation, Department of Transportation, June 21, 2011, and (b) 

Federal Railroad Administration, Department of Transportation, 

June 21, 2011 ......................................................................................... 432 

Hon. Jeff Denham, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, 

request to submit letter to Members of Congress opposing funding for 

California high-speed rail, from State Senator Doug LaMalfa, Fourth District, and attachments: ‘‘Editorial: The Train to Neverland,’’ Wall Street 

Journal, November 12, 2011; and ‘‘California High Speed Rail: The Facts’’ ... 63 

Page

V 

Hon. Ashley Swearengin, Mayor of Fresno, California, request to submit 

the following: 

Letters in support of California high-speed rail to Hon. John L. 

Mica, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida, 

and Chair, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and 

Hon. Nick J. Rahall II, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of West Virginia, and Ranking Member, Committee on 

Transportation and Infrastructure, from the following: Al Smith, 

President and CEO, Greater Fresno Area Chamber of Commerce; 

John Hernandez, Executive Director, Central California Hispanic 

Chamber of Commerce; Dora Westerlund, CEO, Fresno Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; Tate Hill, President, Fresno Metro 

Black Chamber of Commerce; Steve Geil, President/CEO, Economic 

Development Corporation; Amarpreet Dhaliwal, Chairman, Fresno 

Council of Governments and Mayor, city of San Joaquin (all aforementioned letters dated December 13, 2011); Ronald E. Brummett, 

Executive Director, Kern Council of Governments, December 14, 

2011; Amy Shuklian, Mayor, city of Visalia, December 12, 2011 ...... 440 

‘‘Case for High-Speed Rail Grows Only Stronger,’’ by Edwin Lee, 

mayor of San Francisco; Kevin Johnson, mayor of Sacramento; 

Chuck Reed, mayor of San Jose; and Ashley Swearengin, mayor 

of Fresno, U.S. Mayor Newspaper, reprinted from Sacramento Bee, 

June 7, 2011 ........................................................................................... 449 

‘‘Now is the Ideal Time to Make High-Speed Rail Work,’’ 

FresnoBee.com, December 13, 2011 ..................................................... 451 

Joseph C. Szabo, Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration, responses 

to questions from the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 2 ..... 147 

Roelof Van Ark, Chief Executive Officer, California High-Speed Rail Authority, responses to questions from the Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure ....................................................................................................... 243 

ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD 

Hon. Russ Carnahan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Missouri, request to submit written statement entitled, ‘‘Japanese Corporate 

Use of U.S. POWs as Slave Labor,’’ from Joseph A. Vater, Jr., President, 

Descendants Group, an Auxiliary of the American Defenders of Bataan 

and Corregidor, Inc. ............................................................................................. 114 

Aaron Fukuda, Co-Chairman, Citizens for California High Speed Rail Accountability, letter regarding Central Valley concerns/opposition to California high-speed rail, to Hon. John L. Mica, a Representative in Congress 

from the State of Florida, and Chair, Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure, December 8, 2011 ....................................................................... 452 

James T. Callahan, General President-Elect, International Union of Operating Engineers, letter to Hon. John L. Mica, a Representative in Congress 

from the State of Florida, and Chair, Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure, and Hon. Nick J. Rahall II, a Representative in Congress 

from the State of West Virginia, and Ranking Member, Committee on 

Transportation and Infrastructure, December 20, 2011 ................................... 456 

1 Reps. Nunes, Costa, McCarthy, and Rohrabacher did not submit written 

statements. 2On page 150, Mr. Szabo indicates that the response to question 7 was 

submitted on January 23, 2012. The response that he is referring to is 

the response to question 1 on page 206. 

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(1) 

CALIFORNIA’S HIGH-SPEED RAIL PLAN: 

SKYROCKETING COSTS AND 

PROJECT CONCERNS 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, WASHINGTON, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m. in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Mica (Chairman 

of the committee) presiding. 

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I would like to call this hearing of the 

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to order, and 

welcome everyone this morning. 

The topic of today’s hearing is, ‘‘California’s High-Speed Rail 

Plan,’’ and its subtitle is, ‘‘Skyrocketing Costs and Project Concerns.’’ This is the second in a series of hearings on the national 

high-speed rail program. 

And we are pleased to have, as the order of business, first of all 

we will hear opening statements from members of the T&I committee. And then we have a Members panel, and we have very active interest from Members of the California delegation who have 

been invited to testify. And then we have an additional panel with 

Mr. Szabo and others, officials Federal and local, and stakeholders 

in the California project. 

So, with that as the order of business, we will go ahead and proceed, and I will start with an opening statement. And then we will 

yield to Members as they arrive. 

Well, let me say, first of all, I consider myself a strong advocate 

of high-speed rail. We worked on the PRIIA, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, which President Bush signed. And 

one of the provisions of that bill was to set some parameters for 

high-speed rail. And within that legislation there were a number 

of corridors identified, and the California corridor was one of those 

corridors identified as having potential for high-speed rail. 

I have done everything I can to support high-speed rail. I was 

pleased when President Obama initially signaled and actually 

worked and got some substantial funding, $8 billion, for high-speed 

rail, and included that in the American Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act. Congress additionally appropriated another $2.5 billion. So we 

had a total of $10.5 billion, a fairly significant amount of money, 

which you could actually have at least launched, hopefully, a successfully model for high-speed rail in the country. 

Instead, what we saw take place is that Amtrak, who sort of 

dominated the process, and FRA, who went along with overseeing 

2 

the distribution of funds and grants, ended up getting nearly 98 

percent—Amtrak ended up getting about 98 percent of the projects. 

Unfortunately, the entire high-speed rail program has turned 

into sort of a bait and switch operation. And most of the projects 

that we have and nothing of the 70-some projects that were approved, and Amtrak has say over, none of them really achieve, either by U.S. standards or international standards, high speed, and 

most are snail-speed trains. 

We heard last week a rundown of other projects touted as highspeed, some in the Midwest and other locations, which achieve— 

the highest speed, I think, is about 80 miles an hour, on average, 

which does not classify anywhere near 110 or today 150, which is 

common in Europe and Asia, and the President also often cites as 

models. 

So, the one hope for high-speed rail of all the projects that were 

chosen was California. And California seems to be imploding every 

day. The California project is turning out to be an additional disaster in a long list of projects touted for high-speed rail. The major 

problems that we see with California—and I will just summarize 

them—these are just some of the headlines that we picked off the 

Internet. In fact, there were so many of them, I said to the staff, 

‘‘Just put up a sampling.’’ But all of them clearly demonstrate that 

the California project is in dire straits. And the problems are, as 

I identify them, pretty simple. 

First, any project, particularly for transportation, mass transportation, has to start with what they call an initial operating section—IOS. And they, unfortunately, chose a location that doesn’t 

serve many people. There are more cows and vegetables, I guess, 

along the corridor that they chose than riders. And by picking the 

wrong location, I think they set off on the wrong foot. 

The second thing that we have found with this project is—and 

it isn’t something that we came up with, but the State came up 

with—was just within the last month. The cost is—the projected 

cost has doubled from $42.6 billion to $98.5 billion, or could be as 

high as $117 billion, depending on future alignments. That is—the 

cost overruns aren’t bad enough by itself, but the completion date 

is pushed back 13 years, from 2020 to 2033, which means that you 

would have a huge operational subsidy for a very weak ridership 

passenger route until, again, you completed the system. And even 

then the numbers for ridership are questionable. 

And finally, I am told that because of this situation with the way 

the project seems to be imploding, that we will not have vehicles 

that will be able to achieve high speed, even in this first segment. 

So what we will have is another snail-speed train at extremely expensive infrastructure cost. 

So, those are my concerns. And again, our committee tries to be 

responsible for looking out for the taxpayer interest in these 

projects. This project, by itself, consumes, I think, 36 percent of all 

the high-speed rail funds. It may be as high as 40 percent. And so, 

it is a very serious concern to the committee that, in fact, we have 

a huge amount of the money that Congress has designated in a 

project that will not show success. 

I would like to see success. I have been a strong advocate of the 

Northeast Corridor, since we own that right of way. Amtrak operVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:42 May 25, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULL\12-15-~1\71740.TXT JEAN
3 

ates service and we have 20 percent of the population density of 

the United States and all the intermodal connectors. 

Finally, I have been out to Fresno and looked at the route and 

heard from some of the folks. Unfortunately, some of the communities do not have either the population or the fixed infrastructure 

connections or service available to make the project a success. 

So, those are some of the basic concerns that I have. We want 

to hear from Members of the California delegation. First we will 

hear from them on our panel, and then those who have joined us 

and will provide their testimony today. 

So with those comments, I am pleased to yield to the ranking 

member, Mr. Rahall. 

Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no opening statement, just an observation. For the past 10 years I have served as 

ranking member and then chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. And I watched you guys fight over water. Now 

I am coming over here to Transportation and Infrastructure, and 

you are fighting over trains. It is like a never-ending TV reality 

show. That is the end of my comments, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Let’s see. We have—in order of seniority, let me go 

now to Mr. Miller, who is a Member of the California delegation, 

and a member of our committee. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I enjoyed the ranking member’s comment about fighting. I 

think we have some disagreement here without a problem. I appreciate my colleagues from California coming here today. And Chairman Mica, I really appreciate the time you have taken to go to 

California to look at our cow patch. That is the proposed link of the 

first part of this system. 

But, you know, the problem we have is California is about 37 

million people today. And by 2030, it is going to increase by another 25 percent to 46 million. And transportation is a huge issue, 

without a doubt. And many of us here on the panel, a few on the 

right here, we all represent an area that knows what Long Beach 

and the LA County harbor can do to our areas, because it is tremendously impactive on us. About $250 billion worth of trade goods 

come through our districts. 

And the high-speed rail proposal has two options. It could become a debt-laden drag on the California and U.S. economy, or it 

could lead the way to an—employment, fiscal responsibility, and innovation. But the facts that have been presented in the past and 

we look at in the future raise tremendous concern. We have to look 

at ridership, the route, risk mitigation, and where the high-speed 

rail fits in to the future of California. 

Just 3 years ago, they proposed it would be $33 billion to draft 

it and complete it, and now we are talking about $98.5 billion, 

money that California clearly doesn’t have. And some of the projections are using funds that, clearly, Congress doesn’t have to give, 

either. 

Current ridership forecasts they are still using 2007 models. I 

don’t know why that is. It is 2011. So we are using outdated ridership numbers already. 

4 

We are looking at high-speed rail building on an interstate system comparing to the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, where significant 

revenue streams and major Federal participation occurred. But we are looking at $50 billion in Federal monies that is not 

there to do this project. When you look at qualified tax credit 

bonds, thinking about $12.4 billion. If we are going to get 2 percent 

of that $50 billion, that is a billion dollars. That leaves us about 

a $11.9 billion shortfall. 

Recent polls, about two-thirds who have voted believe California 

should vote on the State high-speed rail project. Nearly two-thirds 

say that they would vote no. Main reason is due to the changes in 

the estimated cost and completion dates. 

Now, I would like to submit for the record a letter from California State Legislature and the information requested in the letter 

from the California High-Speed Rail Authority, that it may be a 

part of the record. 

Without objection, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. MICA. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, sir. I am just concerned 

by the 2012 draft business plan. I don’t think many of the issues 

have been addressed. We might agree or disagree on whether highspeed rail will answer California’s transportation needs. But under 

the current fiscal climate we have out there, it doesn’t make sense 

to me. It doesn’t make sense where the first leg would go. I don’t 

know how you would get this system in place in a viable way. And 

once it is there, how do we fund it? The revenues generated by it 

are not going to be sufficient, including California, based on the 

current fiscal situation, and it cannot afford to continue to fund the 

shortfall that is in it. 

So, I am looking forward to the witnesses and your opinions. And 

I know we have different parts of California here, so I am looking 

forward to what the different parts have to say. And I thank you 

for your time, Mr. Chairman, and yield back. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you. I am going to switch—Ms. Brown 

wasn’t here, and I need to hear from our ranking members. I will 

go to Ms. Brown, and then we will go back to Mr. Shuster, and 

then we will go back to the California delegation. 

Ms. Brown, you are recognized. Welcome. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and here we go again. 

The Republicans didn’t vote for high-speed rail funding. They cut 

future funding. Yet, we are holding our second full committee hearing on this subject in 2 weeks. We are ending a year of work, and 

still there is no surface transportation bill, no FAA bill, no water 

resources bill. This committee is fiddling, while the United States 

transportation and infrastructure is burning. 

I am glad that the current leadership of this committee and the 

House were not in charge when Eisenhower developed the interstate highway system. We would have had hearing after hearing, 

talking about what a mistake it was to connect the States, how the 

roads would lead to nowhere, how nobody would ever drive from 

State to State, and how we just couldn’t afford it. We would also 

be a third world country, instead of the leader of the free world. 

Thankfully, we had elected officials with visions in those days. Our 

committee used to build infrastructure projects and put people to 

work. That is why I have served on this committee for 19 years. 

This week the House and Senate passed a bipartisan pipeline bill 

that improves safety while allowing the industry to continue serving its customers. 

If this committee is going to hold hearings about the infrastructure in California, we should be holding a hearing to find out why 

the State is building the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge with 

5,300 tons of inferior Chinese steel. Maybe some of the people testifying today can explain why the State of California’s largest public 

works project in history will be stamped ‘‘Made in China,’’ while 

steel workers right here in America go without work. We certainly 

can’t blame the EPA for that one. 

According to the United States Census Bureau projection, the 

population of California will reach 60 million by the year 2050. 

This explosion in population will result in the crippling of the aging 

public transportation infrastructure already strained under the 

weight of its own capacity. California, 170 miles of roads, are the 

busiest in the Nation. 

21 

As a result, the statewide cost of the time lost and fuel wasted 

in traffic congestion is estimated at $18.7 billion annually. Travelers on California’s interstates are increasing five times faster 

than capacity. This is a formula for disaster, and anyone who has 

driven in California’s major cities knows this all too well, and I was 

recently there, and I can attest to that. 

Looking at air travel, the busiest short-haul air market in the 

country is between Los Angeles and San Francisco, with 100 daily 

flights, and more than 5 million passengers annually. This is larger 

than the New York to Washington, DC, market. In fact, the LASan Francisco air route is one of the most delayed-prone in the Nation, with approximately one out of every four flights delayed by an 

hour. 

What is the solution to the congestion? According to the California High-Speed Authority, to achieve the same capacity as the 

San Francisco-Los Angeles high-speed rail system, California would 

need to construct 2,300 new lane miles in highway, 150 additional 

gates at the California airport, and 4 new airport runways, to the 

tune of $114 billion over the next 20 years, which is equivalent to 

$171 billion, with inflation, far more than it would cost to develop 

the planned high-speed rail system. 

I hope that during today’s hearing the panelists and the Members who oppose the development of the high-speed rail in California will give us some details regarding how they intend to finance and address the critical needs of moving people, goods, and 

services in the State that is growing in population each year. 

With that, I welcome all of the panelists, and I am looking forward to hearing their testimony. 

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentlelady. The chairman of the rail subcommittee, Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing today. I also would like to welcome my five colleagues from California. Welcome today. Look forward to hearing 

your testimony on a subject that we have had two hearings—this 

is our second hearing—and the reason is because some of us believe this is a extremely poor investment in the transportation system. 

And I would like to remind my partner on the railroad subcommittee that 4 years ago when you were in the majority you 

didn’t pass out a highway bill. I believe we are going to pass one 

out of this committee early next year. And I would also like to remind her that there were $800 billion—I believe most of it squandered—that we could have used for a highway bill instead, I think 

it was somewhere around $68 billion—we could have spent $200 

billion, $300 billion. The needs in this country are $500 billion or 

$600 billion strong. 

So, again, when you want to criticize our side, I think you need 

to take a step back and look what that stimulus bill didn’t produce. 

And now here we are today, talking about a project in California. 

I think the chairman has laid out all the statistics, and I am sure 

we will hear from Mr. Denham on those statistics, so I won’t go 

over those. But I will offer an alternative. 

Well, first of all, I just saw a recent poll that said that 59 percent 

of Californians would reject the bond package that they passed 

22 

some time ago. And Secretary LaHood was just here a week ago 

saying that this is what the people of California want. Well, it appears this is not what they want. They are reassessing. And looking at the escalation in cost, that is a wise thing for people to do 

when they see something going out of control. 

But also, I would like to offer an alternative solution. There are 

tremendous needs in California in the transportation system. I 

have traveled to southern California on a few occasions, and become well acquainted with the problems in southern California. I 

met with the folks there and been briefed a couple of times about 

the needs of rail in southern California. We really should be starting on high-speed rail or higher speed rails, improved passenger 

rails in San Francisco, the Bay Area, and also in southern California, not starting in the center of the State, where there are no 

congestion problems at this time. 

I have a list of 30 projects here that are half of the money that 

would fund these projects from San Diego to Los Angeles. It would 

probably, estimates are, double ridership in southern California. It 

would reduce the trip time from 2 hours and 40 minutes to 2 hours 

if these projects were put in place. And these projects can all be 

completed thereabouts—around 2017, which falls in line with the 

timing on the stimulus money for these projects. 

And you have tremendous congestion. As my colleague from California said, 37 million people, there are almost 20 million or a little 

over 20 million in southern California. So when I look at the need 

for improved passenger rail in this country, that is one of the 

places. The Northeast Corridor has tremendous population density, 

and of course, southern California, with high population density. 

So, you know, if we are going to invest money, let’s invest it 

wisely. Let’s invest it in places that are going to have significant 

benefit by that investment. And again, I think that looking at 

southern California first makes a lot more sense than to spend $3 

billion of Federal taxpayer dollars added on to whatever the ending 

number is going to be. I am sure—it is $90 billion today. By the 

time this thing gets completed it will probably be $120 billion, $130 

billion. 

So, this is a timely hearing. I look forward to hearing from my 

colleagues and, of course, the other panelists today. And, Mr. 

Chairman, thank you much. Thank you for having this hearing. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Chairman Shuster. We will now recognize—we will go back to the California delegation on the committee. Mrs. Napolitano is next. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you for 

holding this second meeting on this important topic. And I associate myself with the remarks of Ranking Member Brown’s statement, and also with the last statement made by my colleague, Mr. 

Shuster, in regard to being in southern California, the need where 

southern California has, I would say, 13 million, about maybe a 

third of California’s population. And that is just LA County, not 

counting San Diego, and the rest of the counties around there, San 

Bernardino and Riverside. 

My concerns are with the initial investment of the California 

high-speed rail project. They spent initial investment in urban 

projects that assist high-speed rail, the commuter and rail congesVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:42 May 25, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULL\12-15-~1\71740.TXT JEAN
23 

tion. That approach would immediately solve major transportation 

problems in California, as we work towards a full high-speed rail 

system. Get me. I am not against the high-speed rail. I am against 

the projects funding being inadequate, one. 

Two, it will take away from local projects of transportation, eventually. And we all know California has a great distinction for taking money from bond monies and everything that was supposed to 

be squirreled away for a specific topic. I can name a few, but I 

won’t go into that. 

The high-speed rail separation should be made first, because that 

will help not only speed the delivery of services to the rest of the 

Nation, but will create less impact on the local, well, environment, 

on the road rage, on having to sit at rail separations. It is going 

to use the urban rail corridors that need to be grade separated, and 

that is a priority. They will alleviate current problems of congestion, pollution, safety hazards. And if it is delayed due to budget 

concerns, we will at least have the grade separations in place. 

My other worry is that, at the current cost, the high cost of increase of going from $48 to $98 billion, is who is going to pay for 

it? Most Californians will not be able to ride the high-speed rail, 

if it is projected at $150 1-way ticket to go to southern—from 

southern California to, say, San Francisco or Sacramento. Why are 

we all paying to build high-speed rail if only the wealthy can afford 

a ticket? My constituents need more mass rail transit, safer, faster, 

and cheaper commute. This is where we should be focusing our initial investment. 

The Rail Authority has in the past, since its inception, done a 

very, very lousy job of being transparent to the cities, to my voters, 

and of course, to the California delegation. All my cities have concerns. We have held meetings with the High-Speed Rail Authority. 

And yet I don’t believe there has been any follow-up, nor has there 

been satisfaction to be able to allay some of the fears my communities have. 

The issues associated is eminent domain, being next to homes, 

businesses, demolishing of current transit centers and passenger 

rail service. They—not quite the thing that you would expect of an 

authority that is trying to get favor of passage. 

I am in favor, again, of high-speed rail, just not at the expense 

of the working-class rail transit services delivery in a county of 

over 12 million people. That is a third of the population of California, and that is just the county, again. 

I hope issues are addressed before they start building the system, and that there will be more transparency in regard to breakdown of the actual cost of the faces themselves. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I yield back. 

Mr. MICA. Thank the gentlelady and now recognize another California member of the committee, Mr. Denham. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for once 

again being willing to discuss this issue. When I was first appointed to this committee, this was one of the issues that I talked 

to you about, and asked you to come to Fresno and take a look at 

our transportation needs. You did that, as well as holding a field 

hearing. 

24 

And I also want to thank Chairman Shuster, who chairs the rail 

committee, also willing to do the same, coming to Fresno, seeing 

our local needs, seeing our farming situation, seeing the high volume of traffic that we have coming in—out of our ag community. 

So, thank you both for holding this hearing, as well as previous 

times that we have held things within my district. 

I believe in a balanced approach to transportation. We have to 

have a highway bill. We need to improve our highway, as well as 

our goods movement. We need to improve rail, as well as look towards the future of high-speed rail. 

Ms. Brown, I will correct you that there are Republicans that 

vote for high-speed rail. I was one of them. The bill went through 

the House, went through the State Assembly, came over to the 

State Senate, and had 26 votes, needed 27. 

And there are some of you in this room that reassured me time 

and time again that if I was that 27th vote to get the bond on the 

ballot, that we would have safeguards in place. No ongoing subsidies. The project would be fully funded with guaranteed funding. 

We would also have guaranteed investors, which aren’t here today. 

And lastly, and more importantly from me, the final thing was 

to make sure that farmers, our number one industry in the Central 

Valley, would be protected. 

Now we are in a situation where the LAO has come out and said 

the bonds would not be sold. And I want to make sure that that 

doesn’t happen if those reassurances aren’t met. So I would like to 

put a few things up here on the screen right now. Dealing with Prop 1A, the $9.95 billion that California voters are 

now on the hook for. Starts off with ‘‘The plan shall include.’’ Part 

A, ‘‘A usable segment.’’ The initial segment right now that we are 

talking about is north Fresno to south Fresno, $5.2 billion: $3.3 billion coming out of the stimulus package that was supposed to be 

shovel-ready projects; $1.9 billion coming from Prop 1A, which is 

yet to be sold. 

The operating segment, which is the real segment, is actually 

$30 billion without any guaranteed funding. Part C talks about 

‘‘The plan shall include full cost of constructing a useable segment,’’ 

which again is $30 billion. Last week we had Secretary LaHood 

here talking about the cost. That was one of things, was that I 

wanted to see a guaranteed funding. He was unable to not only 

present that to me, but his quote was, ‘‘The costs are today’s costs. 

The $98.5 billion that is projected today are today’s costs. And 

those costs could continue to change.’’ That is his quote. 

Next slide, the sources of all funds to be invested in the corridor 

for the usable segment. Again, we are talking about $9.95 billion, 

the $3.6 billion that came out of the stimulus package for shovelready projects 3 years ago, still no shovels in the ground. That 

leaves $83 billion missing. Where are the private investors to pick 

up that cost? 

Now, if the President is worried about the 15—is guaranteeing 

the $53 billion over this next 6 years which he has in his package, 

that has to come through Congress as an appropriation. 

‘‘H, the corridor for the usable segment thereof, would be suitable 

and ready for high-speed train operation.’’ Again, the construction 

segment would not be suitable for high speed. And, ‘‘K, the authorVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:42 May 25, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULL\12-15-~1\71740.TXT JEAN
25 

ity has completed all necessary project level environmental clearances.’’ Is the President willing to waive NEPA? Is the Governor 

ready to waive CEQA? And are there any environmental processes 

already cleared? They have not. 

And finally, prior to committing any proceeds of the bonds described, we have to have identified sources, private parties, other 

assurances received from Government agencies which haven’t yet 

arrived. 

Mr. MICA. Thank the gentleman. And I guess the last Member 

of the California delegation on our committee, Ms. Richardson. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had an interesting 

experience last night. I attended a bipartisan dinner. So I am going 

to put a little, I think, calm hopefully in this meeting today. 

First of all, I think to call the Central Valley cowpatch fruits and 

vegetables, you know, it is the largest agriculture-producing State 

in the United States. It also produces, I believe, 40 percent of the 

food for this United States country. And I think it has also produced a great Member in Mr. Denham, Mr. Cardoza, Mr. Costa, 

and my own former boss, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, 

and 4 million Americans. So let’s, first of all, keep the Central Valley in perspective. 

I had an initial briefing. I am looking forward to the presentations today. And I think many of us, instead of the hype, will find 

very good answers to the questions. 

I do want to say, though, for the record, that to claim speed as 

a question in California, when the Northeast Corridor currently 

only averages 83 miles per hour, it is really not right. So let’s tone 

down, I think, the rhetoric and really look at the fairness of the 

project in this country. 

As a member of the Railroad, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee and cochair of the Congressional Caucus on 

California High-Speed Rail, and vice chair of the Congressional Bicameral Caucus, I think right now, when we look at the fact that 

China is operating 13 high-speed railways with more than 20 

under construction, and by 2020 their network will cover nearly 

10,000 miles, we must re-evaluate our conversations. 

The United States didn’t develop a space program or a national 

highway system with the words ‘‘can’t,’’ and some of the words I 

have heard this morning. 

The recently released California High-Speed Rail Authority draft 

business plan found that without high-speed rail, it would cost in 

California $171 billion to address the needs of California’s growing 

population. To achieve the same capacity as high-speed rail of what 

it would provide, California would need to construct 2,300 new 

lanes of—2,300 new miles of highway, 115 additional gates at California airports, and 4 airport runways. Let’s talk about CEQA and 

NEPA with that. 

There have also been many concerns echoed by my colleagues 

about the cost of where the funding would come from. Well, just 

last week I didn’t hear many people talking about how we were 

going to pay for that cost with the Northeast Corridor. In fact, my 

colleague—and I won’t use any names—in July in Roll Call said 

that the Northeast Corridor is expected to cost $117 billion. So why 

is the sudden concern and attack with California? 

26 

You know, when I think we are bickering about east coast and 

west coast, it seems like we have stepped back to the 1920s. This 

committee has tried hard and has made a case for the Northeast 

Corridor, and I will support you with that. But to turn around and 

kick to the curb California is really only doing half of the tail. 

The Northeast Corridor serves the sixth largest economy in the world with a GDP of $2.5 trillion. California alone—Northeast Corridor is more than one State—California alone has the ninth highest GDP in the world of $1.9 trillion. 

So, when we talk about winners and losers, east coast, west 

coast, let’s not take a step back. We have an opportunity to leave 

this generation with a world-class high-speed rail system. And we 

should really be playing with the American people, and not politics. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit statements from my fellow California colleagues who could not 

be here today, as well as a letter from the High Speed Rail Association, and the California Assembly. 

Mr. MICA. Without objection, the—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you sir, I yield back the balance of my 

time. 

Mr. MICA [continuing]. Identified items will be made part of the 

record. 

[Please see the table of contents section entitled, ‘‘Prepared 

Statements Submitted by Members of Congress’’ for statements 

from the following Members of Congress from the State of California: Hon. Joe Baca, Hon. Anna G. Eshoo, Hon. Barbara Lee, 

Hon. Zoe Lofgren, and Hon. Adam B. Schiff, as well as Hon. Laura 

Richardson.] 

[The letters from the US High Speed Rail Association and the 

California Assembly follow:] 

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44 

Mr. MICA. Now, if we have short statements from any other 

members on the committee, we will go to the Republican side first. 

Mr. Bucshon? OK. Anyone on our side? Any quick—Mr. Boswell? 

And we are trying to get to the panel, but you are welcome. 

Mr. BOSWELL. I will be very short. I have no prepared statement, 

I just have a feeling. And I feel strong about it. And Ms. Brown 

and Mr. Shuster, I commend you both for your working to get what 

you have done. You are both capable, you are committed, and dedicated, and I thank you for it. And let’s keep working together. 

I often say—because I am from the Midwest—we are a United 

States. We are connected from New York, California, we got to go— 

you know, we got to stay together. It works all ways, it works both 

ways. 

Now, we think we are sort of the corn belt, and so—in livestock, 

and so on. I continue to say that California is the leading agriculture State, fruits and vegetables. We talk about that a lot, and 

we have got to think about those—I have a son-in-law that is an 

over-the-road trucker, and he tells me about what it is like to be 

out in California. It is tough. We all know that. So, we need to really do something. And I want to be supportive of it. I think we all 

do. 

And I am tired of the fact—and maybe you can tell us about it, 

because I don’t have any issue with anybody on our panel, none of 

you. You know, we have got to make things—jobs America. We all 

know that. We talk it to death. But we have got to put our trades, 

our steel workers, our machinists, our carpenters are available, and 

get those materials, and—you know, it needs to be made in America. So I hope you can help us in your comments about some of 

that, and why—so on. 

But you know, we have got to put our people back to work. And 

I don’t make no apology, and I don’t think any of us do, you know. 

If we are going to do projects like this, why can’t we require that? 

I am sure the Chinese do, if you are spending Federal money. In 

fact, you know they do. So let’s do the same thing. You know, fair 

is fair. And let’s do that. 

So, I yield back, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for having this 

hearing. And we need to respond to these things. These are investments with a known return. Read the facts. And let’s do the things 

that will pay us back, and let’s put Americans back to work in the 

process. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Mr. MICA. Thank the gentleman. And now, what we will do is go 

to our panel of Members who have joined us who are not on the 

committee, and have requested to testify today. And we will do it 

in order of seniority. 

And I will recognize Mr. Cardoza, who represents the 18th District first. 

Welcome, and you are recognized. 

45 

TESTIMONY OF HON. DENNIS A. CARDOZA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA’S 18TH DISTRICT; 

HON. DEVIN NUNES, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 

FROM CALIFORNIA’S 21ST DISTRICT; HON. JIM COSTA, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA’S 20TH 

DISTRICT; HON. KEVIN MCCARTHY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA’S 22ND DISTRICT, AND MAJORITY WHIP; HON. LORETTA SANCHEZ, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA’S 47TH DISTRICT; AND 

HON. DANA ROHRABACHER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA’S 46TH DISTRICT 

Mr. CARDOZA. Thank you, Chairman Mica, Ranking Member Rahall, members of the committee. I would like to thank you all for 

allowing me the opportunity to testify. I would like to thank Ms. 

Richardson for her kind words. And I would like to start off by also 

acknowledging what Mr. Rahall said about the disagreements that 

sometimes look like reality shows in California. 

Mr. Rahall, this will be my last act this year—because I have decided to end my tenure on the ‘‘reality show,’’ as you put it. But 

I will tell you that I am very proud of our cows and our crops and 

our students that we produce in our universities and the good work 

that we do. We have been devastated in our area by the home foreclosure crisis and the economy. And I would like some attention to 

those questions, as well as to some of the things for which we get 

criticized. 

You know, before I start my opening statement, I am going to 

just mention that this week I cast one of 10 votes in this House 

from the Democratic side of the aisle for a Republican bill to build 

the Keystone pipeline. I did that because I thought it was the right 

thing to do. I took a tough position against my own party because 

I thought it was the right thing to do. And I am going to tell you 

here today that I think building the high-speed rail is the right 

thing to do. Sometimes we need to get outside of our partisan comfort zones and do what is right. 

Can you imagine, ladies and gentlemen, where we would be if no 

one had had the courage to build the Transcontinental Railroad? 

We would still be riding the Pony Express. This country is bigger 

and better than not having the vision to do what is right for the 

future. It is time to step up and do what is right. And I expect the 

members of this committee to do exactly that—what I feel like I did 

this week, in taking on my own President on the pipeline, because 

we should be able to build things in America. 

We have to make this country as great as it should and can be 

again. We built the water infrastructure in the State of California, 

because we had a visionary Governor who thought outside the box. 

He built universities, he built roads, and he built a water infrastructure that our State is still relying on. 

Ladies and gentlemen, California and our Nation face challenges 

related to the economy and our quality of life. There is incredible 

congestion on California’s highways, in its airports, costing California’s economy—the ninth largest in the world; it used to be the 

fifth—over $14.5 billion each year. Travel on our interstate system 

is increasing at the rate of five times faster than the capacity it is 

being added. 

46 

California, particularly the San Joaquin Valley, where my district is located, has some of the worst air quality in the Nation. 

One in six children in Fresno have asthma. My wife is a family 

doctor. When she practiced in Merced, 40 percent of her practice 

had asthma. 

And exacerbating all these other problems are the challenges 

that are presented by our rapid growth. California is projected to 

add 20 million people by 2050, and the Central Valley is expected 

to more than double in size. 

You can’t hardly get from my part of the Central Valley to the 

rest of the State—I have to travel an extra 2 hours to get to the 

airport. Mr. Denham does, as well. Mr. Costa is lucky, he has an 

airport in Fresno, but you have to go to a different airport before 

you can really get far out of the area. Same with Mr. Nunes. 

We have transportation difficulties. We are faced with these simple facts, and it is clear that investment is needed to improve our 

mobility, our quality of life, and our economy in the State. 

In both our Nation’s and California’s history, tough times have 

led to bold, innovative solutions. The opportunity presented by 

high-speed rail today is a continuation of that legacy of visionary 

leadership. From a practical standpoint, if we don’t construct highspeed rail in order to meet our State’s needs, we would need to 

build much more expensive highways. As it was said before, new 

airports, new runways, all require CEQA and NEPA permits. 

Ladies and gentlemen, my time has expired, and I have about 

four more pages of testimony. I will submit it to the record. I just 

ask you to think about what is right. Think about the vision and 

future of our country. Are we going to move forward or are we 

going to continue to tolerate the fact that our economy is languishing and we are not investing what we should be investing in 

America? 

I think it is time to quit building roads as we have done today 

in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and start investing in patrolling our 

streets, and investing back in the United States of America. 

Mr. MICA. Thank the gentleman, recognize the Representative of 

the 21st District, Mr. Devin Nunes. 

Thank you. 

Mr. NUNES. Thank you, Chairman Mica and Ranking Member 

Rahall, for the opportunity to testify today. 

No doubt we will be hearing from each proponent that highspeed rail means jobs, thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, 

even hundreds of thousands of jobs. The reality is that these jobs 

claims are part of a fantasy. The more you investigate California 

high-speed rail, the greater you will be convinced that California’s 

bullet train is a boondoggle. 

It is ironic that the most strident high-speed rail advocates, people claiming to care about the San Joaquin Valley, are the very 

people who refuse to resolve our water crisis, as Mr. Rahall referred to earlier, refuse to help our dying timber and mining industries that continue to shed jobs, and support more rules and regulations that drive business out of the Valley and California every 

day. 

Today I would like to make three points. It is clear that highspeed rail is not about jobs. It is about political corruption, public 

47 

deception, and bureaucratic experimentation. First, let’s discuss political corruption. 

Dan Walters, a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, was one of 

many to observe that the initial phase of California’s high-speed 

rail, the segment between Merced and Bakersfield, was based on 

politics, not planning. This conclusion is justified, based on several 

factors, not the least of which was the election eve announcement 

of a $700 million stimulus grant, which was the subject of certain 

conditions. Among those conditions was a requirement that highspeed rail construction begin in the rural central California congressional district of an incumbent who was facing re-election. 

Thanks to the stimulus grant, the Golden State’s high-speed rail 

project has become nationally recognized as the Train to Nowhere. 

And since few objective observers believe it will never be completed, the probability is high that this slogan will become reality. 

Consider these basic facts. High-speed rail was originally pro- jected to be $15 billion in 1996. Today it is $118 billion. My estimation is it will be closer to $200 billion than $100 billion. In 15 

years, they have spent $800 million. Not a single inch of track has 

been laid. California is broke. The State is in a perpetual budget 

crisis. And the outlook is red ink as far as we can see. 

The second point I want to make is about public deception. Mr. 

Chairman, high-speed rail’s popularity has diminished. And, as 

stated earlier, two-thirds of Californians want this referendum 

back on the ballot to re-vote. Since 2007, no fewer than 20 PR 

firms have been hired and have spent millions of dollars on TV, 

radio, and print campaigns to convince Californians to support 

high-speed rail. 

Moreover, the High-Speed Rail Authority has bankrolled a vast 

array of political consultants to curry favor with elected officials. If 

high-speed rail were widely supported, a multimillion-dollar PR 

campaign would not be necessary. Californians are growing weary 

of the promises made by rail advocates, the elusive green jobs, the 

supposed clean air, the shorter commutes, all are part of the fantasy. 

You don’t have to take my word for it, Mr. Chairman. I would 

like to submit these reports from the State auditor and the legislative analysts who have questioned the assumptions to sell this 

project. 

Mr. MICA. Without objection, they will be made part of the 

record. 

[Please see the table of contents section entitled, ‘‘Submissions 

for the Record’’ for the documents submitted by Hon. Devin Nunes.] 

Mr. NUNES. The third and final point is taxpayer-funded bureaucratic experimentation. $800 million have been spent on studies, 

public relations, and staff salaries. 

Here is an important point. The chief of this Rail Authority 

makes $375,000 a year. By way of comparison, the president and 

CEO of Amtrak, who has the responsibility for our entire country’s 

passenger rail system, rail that actually exists today, is paid 

$350,000. 

Despite the $800 million and 15 years studying the project, they came up with an average rider fare of $162 for a round trip. Now, 

I spent zero dollars, got on the Internet, and within three clicks 

48 

found to ride the Acela train, our fastest train in the country, the 

Northeast Corridor, it costs $350. It stretches credibility to the 

breaking point to suggest that California will achieve greater efficiency and lower cost than that of the northeast system which connects Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. 

This is the busiest rail line in the country. I did a couple more clicks on the Internet. Remember, $800 million versus my study that cost zero dollars. They promote that they 

are going to get 29 to 43 million passengers on this train. Last year 

the Acela train carried 10.3 million passengers. We are being led 

to believe that the fantasy train will carry more than twice as 

many riders at half the cost of the existing system here, in the 

northeast. 

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, it has become clear that the entire 

California high-speed rail experiment is a case study in how not to 

run a government program. And with that I yield back. 

Mr. MICA. Thank the gentleman and recognize now the—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. MICA [continuing]. The California—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Nunes, with—was respectfully allowed additional time to complete his comments, and Mr. 

Cardoza, who is leaving this Congress, wrapped up. Would he be 

extended, after the other Members have an opportunity—— 

Mr. MICA. If he—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON [continuing]. To give their comments, another 

minute or two? 

Mr. MICA. If he would like and if we have time. I did—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. We will recognize now the Representative 

from California’s 20th District, Mr. Costa. 

Welcome, sir. 

Mr. COSTA. Thank you very much, Chairman Mica and Ranking 

Member Rahall, and other members of the committee. It is a pleasure to be here with you today. 

America has always attempted to be a Nation of bold, visionary 

leaders who dared to think big in times of difficulty. We are in difficult times, clearly. 

And I would like to add a positive note on this because, frankly, 

if we—it is important to be transparent. It is important to be investigative. And this is the appropriate role of this committee. However, if the attitude that I hear from some of our colleagues here 

is to prevail, we would never have put a man on the moon. Neil 

Armstrong wouldn’t have landed there. We would not have built 

the tremendous infrastructure in the 20th century that made 

America the number one Nation in the world. 

President Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower, Republicans and 

Democrats alike, faced difficult challenges when they were in office. 

But without these leaders—think about it—we wouldn’t have had 

the Transcontinental Railroad. We wouldn’t have had the Hoover 

Dam that was built. We didn’t need the water at the time, and we 

certainly didn’t need the electricity at the time. And we were in the 

midst of the Depression. We wouldn’t have had the interstate highway system, if it were not for President Eisenhower connecting the 

entire Nation, as was stated before. 

49 

But you want to know tough times? I will recommend you tough 

times. Read this book. Nothing like it in the world. By Stephen 

Ambrose. It depicts the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. You want to know difficult times? The Civil War. Our Nation 

was being torn apart. Inflation was running rampant. The first 

issuing of paper money. The President was trying to figure out how 

to finance the Civil War. And—but what did he say? ‘‘We are going 

to build a railroad across the Nation to bind the Nation.’’ That is 

vision. That is boldness. That is saying we can do things in America, not like some of you, who are saying we can’t do anything. If 

that attitude, that negativism—we can’t afford to be short-sighted. 

And so, the task at hand is this: The problem in California and 

around the Nation is investing in our infrastructure, specifically 

our transportation infrastructure, but also our water infrastructure. The negative consequences of not investing in our infrastructure, which engineers across the country estimate of over $1 trillion, is losing our status as the number one Nation in the world. 

It has been said that the busiest air corridor in the Nation is the 

Bay Area and Los Angeles, southern California. For every four 

flights, one is delayed an hour. You heard the numbers, in terms 

of what it would take to, in fact, address that: 115 new airport 

gates, 4 new runways, and 2,300 miles of new highways. That is 

at a cost of $170 billion. The cost of this, factored with inflation 

over 30 years, is $97 billion. Don’t look at this in a vacuum, look 

at the comparative analysis. 

More of the same, that is what—we have a choice here. We have 

a choice in California, we have a choice across the country. And 

that is why it is appropriate to have this debate and the discussion. 

The new draft business plan—and I say the new draft business 

plan, and other witnesses will talk about it—answers some of the 

critical questions that the chairman and others have raised, legitimately. Read the new business plan. 

Jobs. Jobs are critical. You know, Mr. Chairman, I won’t take 

umbrage to your description of the San Joaquin Valley. My family 

has farmed there for three generations. We are very proud of it. It 

is also the fastest-growing region in California, and we are proud 

of the fact that we are the number one agricultural region in the 

country. 

But we also have the same traffic congestion problems, Mr. Shuster, that you have in southern California and the Bay Area. You 

get on 99 and you stand behind those truck convoys, and you are 

in their fog in December through January and February, and the 

mass accidents, unfortunately, that occur. We have the same congestion problems in the Valley, and the air quality problems that 

they have in other parts of California. 

So, this is also a jobs effort, not just in California but around the 

country. With unemployment in my area as high as 20 percent, 

this is an opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, 

good-paying jobs, real jobs that are made in America. Because the 

California bond measure has a made-in-California provision. And 

we would insist on a made-in-America provision. 

Now, let me close by saying—some say, ‘‘Well, it is not the right 

time. It is not the right time. We have a deficit. We have economic 

problems.’’ Those are all true. But I say it is the right time, not 

50 

only in California but across the Nation, to invest in our infrastructure. When borrowing rates are at an all-time low, when construction and labor costs are at an all-time low, now is the time to be 

investing in our infrastructure. Because the dollars will go further 

today than 10 or 20 years from now. If they had not invested in 

Hoover Dam in the 1930s, think of what it would cost today. If we 

had not invested in the interstate highway system in the 1950s and 

the 1960s and the 1970s, think what it would cost today. You know 

what those projects cost in your respective congressional districts. 

Let me say that many members of this committee have said recently—as recently as last week and today—that they believe in 

high-speed rail in the United States. And then, when I hear some 

of you say, ‘‘But just not in California,’’ I don’t get that. I believe 

in the Northeast Corridor. I think some of the criticisms that were 

raised about this project and other projects are fair to debate and 

to address and to resolve. But don’t hold California’s high-speed 

rail proposal to standards that you are not holding to your own 

freeway projects or to the Northeast Corridor. There is an initial 

sum of funding, there is a State match, and you complain about not 

having a long-term revenue source, but where is the long-term revenue source for the Northeast Corridor? Where is the long-term 

revenue source for any of these projects? 

Unless you come up with a transportation plan in this committee, we are going to have no long-term source for funding any 

transportation projects. That is the bottom line. And we look to this 

committee to come up with some good decisions, well-reasoned decisions. And I look forward to working with all of you. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman. 

I recognize the California 22nd District Representative, also the 

majority whip, Mr. McCarthy. 

You are welcome. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. Well, I thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate you for holding this hearing. I have a longstanding concern 

about the viability of the California high-speed rail project. I know 

you have got a group of Members here from California, and some 

with different opinions. 

The thing I want this committee to look at is what went before 

the voters of California. Because what went before the voters of 

California for the high-speed rail is totally different than what is 

before the voters today. 

It is our responsibility and our stewardship to make the decisions 

of where our tax dollars go. Because this isn’t a one-time investment. If you look at the project more than doubling to $100 billion, 

if you analyze that people are going to take this rail, and you read 

the project that more than twice as many people who ride all of 

Amtrak is projected to ride in this by that study, and that study 

also says $11 billion will come with private money, you have to 

look to yourself and also say, ‘‘Does that measure, or is that even 

true?’’ 

An interesting thing happened, especially in listening to my good 

friend, Mr. Costa from up the road, about the need and investment. 

In my district, just yesterday it was announced for space travel 

venture Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, aerospace designer Burt 

51 

Rutan fully to go to space with private money. They are projected, 

in their plan, to be able to recoup it. They didn’t ask for Government money. They did it on their own. 

I also measure an idea that a plan says that the private sector 

will come because this will be profitable. There hasn’t been any private sector money come. The plan that done the research on this 

says that $11 billion will come after we build it. That may make 

for a very good Hollywood movie, ‘‘Build it and they will come,’’ but 

I don’t think that is what the taxpayers say when they sent us 

here. 

I believe, when you look at this project from the beginning, when 

you put the accountability to it now, it is fundamentally different. 

And if you do build it and they do not come, that means what are 

you going to give up to subsidize everyone who is on that train. 

That is a responsibility we all have to look to. 

That was one of the fundamental reasons why I introduced 3143, 

which will freeze all unspent Federal dollars through September of 

next year, while the GAO studies is done on the project viability. 

That is not extreme. That is not taking it and saying no. What that 

is doing is saying we have a responsibility to the taxpayers. There 

is not one person on this committee that can say that plan that 

started out is exactly the same. So what you are saying is stop for 

a minute. Let’s put accountability to this, and let’s actually know. 

If we are just going to put money in, it is not the idea to keep 

throwing bad money after bad money. If it is never going to be 

built, and the project of what you projected to be—that private sector money would be there, and it is not there. 

We should hold the standards to this like any other project you 

do. If they said there would be private money in and it is not, they 

shouldn’t be rewarded. If they said twice as many riders as all of 

Amtrak is going to ride this—just in our Valley, what they predict 

to ride, the millions of people, if you look at actual numbers only 

700-some-thousand people take a train or a plane right now. The 

population does not mix and match the numbers of what they say. 

That is our job every day, as a Member of Congress. That is our 

job every day to follow back through. High-speed rail is a great 

idea. But what are you going to give up for everybody that rides 

it? In a world where we live with a $15 trillion deficit and a State 

in which I come from that has a deficit each and every year, I 

think we have a different responsibility here. That is why I introduced the bill I did. Let’s stop, let’s get the actual accountability 

to it, and let’s make a decision that is viable. 

If you ask the California voter today, they want to vote on this 

again. And they want to vote on it again because they want to 

change the vote that took place before. Because they do have a 

right to do that, because the whole plan changed from what was 

before them. 

So, I appreciate having the hearing. It is the right thing to do 

to look into this, and it is right to ask the questions. And I yield 

back. 

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman. And let me recognize now the 

gentlelady from the 47th District, Ms. Sanchez. I want to rotate, 

because we just heard from a Republican. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Oh. 

52 

Mr. MICA. And Mr. Rohrabacher, being a gentleman, said to go 

to you first. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just say that 

in the beginning you said you would go by seniority. 

Mr. MICA. Well—— 

Ms. SANCHEZ. And I might remind you that if that would be the 

case, Mr. Rohrabacher would have gone first, and I would have 

gone second. So we were a little confused at the end of this table. 

Mr. MICA. Well, I did it only because we want to rotate Republican/Democrat, majority/minority. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Chairman, you and I have worked on a lot of 

transportation issues together, and I know that you do believe in 

high-speed rail. And I appreciate that your committee is taking a 

look at this project, as we should. All of us are responsible for the 

monies that we spend on behalf of the American people. 

You know, I have heard some people be very straightforward 

here today about, ‘‘Let’s take a look at this project, and let’s figure 

out how we get it done.’’ And I have heard others, quite frankly, 

throw out a lot of rhetoric, from both sides. I just would like to say 

to my good friend, Mr. Shuster, who complained that we had spent 

over $800 billion on the stimulus package, I will remind you that 

a third of that was for tax cuts, which was a requirement in order 

for us to pick up the votes here in this Congress. 

So, let’s really talk about what we need to hear today, and that 

is whether we really need a high-speed rail in California or not. I 

believe we do. 

I mean it really—last night in Los Angeles County—and I am 

not from Los Angeles County, I am from south of there, Orange 

County, I represent the Anaheim area, where we would hope the 

terminus to that, at least one of the phases of that project would 

be, Anaheim—we are preparing in Anaheim, with our multimodal 

interchange there, to receive the high-speed rail. There are some 

local communities who really want this project, and we are putting 

our own monies in to make sure that we are ready to get that 

project when it comes in. We are looking forward to the jobs in Orange County. 

The Orange County Business Council, I might add, have—somewhat Republican-leaning council, did a study of this and said that 

there would be, just in a phase between Anaheim and through Los 

Angeles, 50,000 jobs that would work on this project. They are very 

in favor of this project. 

Last night in Los Angeles County on the 60 Freeway we had a 

big rig turn over and burn to a crisp on that 60 Freeway. And it 

happened to turn over underneath an overpass bridge, which disintegrated also in that accident. Because of that—and I believe 

that it happened early in the morning, maybe about 10:00 in the 

morning—the freeways were tied up, and nobody could move, probably not even for the commuter hour today. I saw people on television saying they were trying to get their child to school in the 

morning, and at 6:00 p.m. they were still in the same spot, not on 

that freeway, on a different freeway. But one accident tied up all 

of Los Angeles County. And what every person said was that there 

was no alternative way, but to be on the freeways. 

53 

This high-speed rail is an alternative way. And that is why we 

need it. Some say, well, we have air. Well, you know, before I became a congresswoman, when I used to take my flight tests as a 

private pilot, I would fly out of Orange County Airport, the highest 

general aviation traffic airport in our Nation. And I would have to 

wait sometimes 45 minutes to be able to get in queue because of 

the planes that got to go ahead of me, the commercial ones. And 

we were all burning fuel. That is a cost nobody ever thinks about, 

unless you’re paying for it as a student pilot. And now we have increased the capacity, and it is still not enough at that airport. And 

we are projected to have a majority of the new flights for the next 

two decades to come out of South County, Orange County. And we 

will have to go up to LAX. And there is a fight, because Maxine 

Waters’s airport has to be increased, and people’s homes get taken 

away, and the whole thing goes on. 

This problem of aviation, this problem of aviation. Why are there 

so many flight delays? The weather in San Francisco. Why are 

there so many flight delays? The tule fog in Sacramento. Why is 

it that when a big rig or somebody has a crash, the whole freeway 

stops and people can’t come into the Basin? We, as Californians 

who use the system, understand we need an alternate. 

And we need to invest. It is never an easy thing to invest in the 

beginning. People get voted out of office because we decide to invest 

in a railroad, in a new airport, in a new highway, because we take 

people’s homes. But we must have the courage to say that we need 

high-speed rail. And it makes sense for the backbone of California 

to have that in place. And it will cost money. And we need to look 

at it and figure out how we make it work. 

Before I came to the Congress I worked in transportation. Before 

I came to the Congress I was an investment banker who did infrastructure projects. It is never easy to do these projects. But if you 

want to, and you have the guts to do it, you can get it done. And 

I say that California needs a high-speed rail. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would love to submit my written testimony for the record. 

Mr. SHUSTER. [presiding.] Thank you very much. I appreciate 

that. 

And with that, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. You know, when I was 

a young person, my father used to tell me that if I was going to 

get anything done I had to face reality. And I remember someone 

compared this delegation to a reality show. And I think it is much 

better to be compared to a reality show than perhaps compared to 

‘‘Fantasy Island.’’ And it is on ‘‘Fantasy Island’’ that we can keep 

spending money that we don’t have, borrowing money from China, 

and expecting that our economy is going to continue even on an acceptable level. 

If we continue with the direction we are going, we know even 

with projects that really make sense, we are having to question 

them and cut some of them. But if we continue to even seriously 

consider projects that don’t make economic sense in the long run, 

look with Lincoln—and I respect Mr. Costa, he has spent a lot of 

time on this project, and perhaps 10 years ago, when he first startVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:42 May 25, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00075 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULL\12-15-~1\71740.TXT JEAN
54 

ed, it would have been easier for us to make a decision to go ahead 

compared to the times—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. Is your microphone on? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What was that? 

Mr. SHUSTER. Your microphone, could you—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Oh, pardon me. So, let me just suggest that 

when Lincoln went forward with the railroad across the country, he 

had at his disposal enormous assets in land. And they used the 

land for the railroads to actually serve as the capital for the railroads. And when Eisenhower went forward with the interstate 

highway system, he taxed, what, the gasoline, the people who 

would then be using the interstate highway system, in order to pay 

for the project. That made sense. That was reality in those days. Our reality is we are spending $1.5 trillion a year more than we 

are taking in, and we are borrowing it from China. And for us to 

have a project that continues to go up in price—this project used 

to be—I think it was first guesstimated at $41 billion or $43 billion 

and now it is up to $100 billion. Well, one wonders how much it 

was going to be—it will be in the future. And we cannot afford to 

continue borrowing from China for projects that continue to escalate, when we have other things that are so necessary in California. 

We are a water-shortage State. Mr. Nunes and Mr. Costa both 

know that their area of the State is really suffering from a lack of 

water. Well, the whole State is going to suffer from lack of water, 

unless we invest about $30 billion more in water in California over 

the years. Well, that makes much more sense than spending $100 

billion on a train—well, as Mr. Nunes says, the Train to Nowhere. 

And let us also take a look—I have been, with Laura Richardson’s help and support, advocating that we build a container movement system from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to— 

inland to the rail heads near San Bernardino, which would take 

10,000 and 20,000 trucks a day off of our roads—Ms. Sanchez has 

detailed how crowded they are. We haven’t been able to afford that. 

And that—by the way, and that project would have paid for itself 

with a container fee. And we cannot move forward. 

Our country cannot move forward now with projects like this 

that are well intended and, yes, visionary. Some people say that if 

your eyes are on the stars, you are likely—and that is—if you keep 

your eyes in the stars, you may end up falling into a ditch. Well, 

this could put us into that situation, where we have vision in the 

future, but we have to look and solve this problem today. Or otherwise, by the time we build a train like this at the cost we are talking about, and the condition of our economy and our budget, we 

won’t call it the train from nowhere, we will call it the Orient Express, because that is the people who will own this country, if we 

do not start acting responsibly. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, I thank the gentleman, and I thank all of 

you. It is typically the custom we don’t ask other Members of Congress questions. I don’t want this to erupt into a full-fledged debate 

between our panelists and members of the committee. That is the 

debate that will occur in this committee, and then it will occur on 

the House floor. 

55 

But I would—if some folks have some questions, again, I want 

to make sure we don’t get into full-fledged debate with our panelists. We save that for the administration folks, when we are holding their feet to the fire. Again, typically, we are trying to get information and viewpoints from our panelists. 

I would like to say, for the record, though, that a couple of people 

have mentioned my name, which is fine. I do support passenger 

rail. I do support higher speed rail. But I believe we have to do it 

in a sensible way. 

At some point in time California may decide that they have the 

money to spend. I am not going to talk for Californians. I think the 

polls are clear that Californians want a re-do. I think they want 

a Mulligan on this one, because it seems that these costs are getting out of hand. And the estimates are completely off from where 

they started. 

I would also like to mention to my friend from California, Mr. 

Costa, that if you have congestion on the highways, maybe the better use of this money would be to expand I–99 in the Central Valley, and I have heard people talk—— 

Mr. COSTA. May I respond, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SHUSTER. Certainly. Just let me make—I think that is my 

final point. 

Oh, and it was also said that I said that the Northeast Corridor 

would be $117 billion. That is not my number, that is Amtrak’s 

number. My number is I have no idea what the Northeast Corridor 

is going to cost, because I—we want to bring the private sector, and 

there are people interested in investing and operating the Northeast Corridor. We want to bring them in and let them take a view 

of it and put bids out there, or requests for information, request for 

proposals as to what they think it will be, because Amtrak has 

really no idea how much it is going to cost. That is my view of it. 

But with that—— 

Mr. COSTA. Thank you. Thank you for raising important issue. 

I support the funding of Highway 99, supported a measure that 

provided $1 billion for that. The trouble is we need more funding 

for that. 

I carried legislation in 1986 and 2002 that provided billions of 

dollars to build the Fresno Clovis transportation freeway system. 

Now, that dislocated hundreds of homes and businesses. That was 

over 20 years ago. I submit today to tell you that if it had not been 

for that multibillion-dollar construction project, we wouldn’t have 

the benefits of that transportation plan. I don’t think Fresno and 

Clovis want to go back to what it was in 1986. 

But it is, I believe, a canard or a bait-and-switch to say that the 

money that we are talking about here can be transferred to Highway 99, because it can’t. We know what happened in Wisconsin, 

Ohio, and Florida when Governors attempted to take Federal highspeed rail money and spend it for road projects. It got taken away. 

And that is what will happen with this money. 

And as far as whether or not the voters approve today or would 

disapprove a bond measure, in the financial crash in 2008, 52.5 

percent voted. Now, maybe they wouldn’t support it today. You 

may be correct. But we have school bonds, we have water bonds, 

and we have other types of bond measures which the voters in 

56 

California approved. If we are going to wait 2 years, 4 years down 

the—when a water project is unpopular, say, ‘‘Well, we ought to 

put it back up there, maybe they will disapprove it,’’ that is an important policy question. 

And so, it seems to me that we—there isn’t a silver bullet here, 

in my view. We have to use all the transportation tools in our 

transportation tool box, and high-speed rail is a part of it. It is 

going to happen in this country in the 21st century. The question 

is sooner or later. But it is part of our transportation long-term solutions. 

Mr. SHUSTER. But—again, I don’t want to engage in debate, but 

I still say you have got problems in southern California. That 

money would be much better spent to improve transportation from 

San Diego to Los Angeles, where you have 20 million people. I just 

think that—and as Mr. Nunes has pointed out—this thing is going 

to be a boondoggle. California, I don’t believe, is going to be able 

to afford it. 

And again, that is going to be the debate. Again, I don’t want to 

engage in that—— 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Chairman, may I just say something? 

Mr. SHUSTER. Yes. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. At the southern tip of my district, again, in Orange County—and I have supported every transportation bill, I 

have—you know, I understand the construction of highways, believe me, from my prior work—at the southern tip of my district, 

at the ‘‘Y’’—at the El Toro ‘‘Y,’’ as we call it in Orange County— 

the freeway is 23 lanes wide. You can see it from the moon. There 

is not a lot wider we can go in a lot of areas. So we do need an 

alternative. 

Mr. SHUSTER. That is why I say spend the money in the southern 

California area, instead of—— 

Ms. SANCHEZ. I would be willing to build it from Anaheim 

through Los Angeles to begin with. 

Ms. BROWN. Mr. Chairman? 

Ms. SANCHEZ. I am all for that. Thank you. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Cardoza? 

Mr. CARDOZA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. BROWN. Mr. Chairman, I did raise my hand. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I am going to let them go through, give them all 

an opportunity to say something else. 

Mr. CARDOZA. If I could just say very briefly—I think both sides 

have made some relevant points today, and you have to acknowledge both sides’ points. 

But I would like to correct one thing that I think is misleading 

the committee, and that is that this segment, as it currently exists, 

sir, is the fifth busiest train segment in the country. And it serves 

over 6 million people a year. And, frankly, it doesn’t do it very efficiently, because it does it with a short train segment from south 

Stockton to Bakersfield. Then you have to take a bus north to Sacramento or you have to take a bus south to Los Angeles. 

If you had the kind of situation that we’re talking about and we 

would like to have in the State of California, I would tell you you 

are going to get exponential numbers of riders, because there are 

57 

no alternatives to get our people to where they want to go in the 

major metropolitan areas. 

We have populations much greater than the size of many States 

in this country, and that do not have access, ready access, to alternative transportation venues. And so you have to drive a long way 

to get to where you need to go. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Nunes, I think, is—— 

Mr. NUNES. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SHUSTER [continuing]. Eager to answer, or respond. 

Mr. NUNES. Well, I am not going to—I think you are headed in 

the right direction, as to focus the dollars where they can do the 

most good. 

However, I would encourage this committee to look at two 

projects that are rail, but not passenger rail. One is what Mr. 

Rohrabacher referred to, which is some way to get freight from the 

ports out to the larger rail lines to move products that come into 

this country east. That would be the first thing. 

The second thing, if you want to help out the San Joaquin Valley, would be to look at expanding the freight rail system along existing right-of-ways. So one of the major problems that we have in 

the San Joaquin Valley is at the southern tip—we are congested. 

You have to go out of the Valley, you have to go up the Tehachapis 

that are in Mr. McCarthy’s district. 

It has been looked at. Although it is a very expensive project— 

I think into the hundreds of millions of dollars to add another line 

along existing corridors to help alleviate that traffic—that would 

help the entire San Joaquin Valley. That would help all of California. There have been studies out here on this. But in order to 

get to that point, this committee would have to allow California to 

use that money for rail, but perhaps not high-speed rail. Yield 

back. 

Ms. BROWN. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SHUSTER. One second. And most likely it would help the Nation if you improve the movement of goods and produce and what 

you—the foodstuffs you—— 

Mr. NUNES. Absolutely. It would help out for commerce, it would 

help out for air quality. It would get trucks off the road, all the 

things that I think would improve the economy. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Yes. Yes, Ms. Brown? 

Ms. BROWN. Let me be clear. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, hold on a second. You have a question? I am 

going to—— 

Ms. BROWN. I do have a question. 

Mr. SHUSTER. OK. Well then, I will recognize you at the appropriate time. I am going to give Mr. Rohrabacher one last shot, if 

he cares to say anything else. Each panelist—— 

Ms. BROWN. A question—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. I will recognize you in due time. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would yield to the gentlelady, that is fine. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. First of all, let me just say this is the 

transportation and infrastructure committee. 

Now, freight rail is number one in the world. So we—when you 

travel around the world, they ask us about our freight rail. So the 

freights can afford to fund—if they thought it was a viable project, 

58 

they would fund it. We have a problem with passenger rail in this 

country. 

Now, for every billion dollars we spend, it generates 44,000 permanent jobs. Now I know we don’t need to confuse anybody with 

facts, but I have been on this committee for 19 years. I have been 

involved with transportation for over 30 years. Transportation is 

the engine that puts people to work. So don’t come to this committee telling us, ‘‘Well, you know, we have this problem in this 

country.’’ We didn’t create this problem in Transportation. This 

committee is the committee that puts people to work. 

Now, not one of you voted against the Bush tax cut that got us 

in this mess. Reverse Robin Hood, robbing from the poor and working class to give tax breaks to the rich. That is how we got here. 

Transportation is the engine that will regenerate this country. 

Now, let me tell you something surprising. I agree with you, that 

we need to look at this project. It is not acceptable to double the 

cost of the project. We need to look at it. We need to have a different plan. You all need to come up with a different plan. 

And don’t tell me anything about if you put it on the ballot or 

you ask the question. Listen. I know that you are going to answer 

the question based on how you asked the question. So if you change 

the way you ask the question, you can get a different answer to the 

question. I am a social scientist, I know that. 

So the question is—I have been to Anaheim—we need to look at 

whether or not we need to, you know, make sure what happened 

to California is not the same thing that happened to Ohio and Florida, where we sent billions of dollars back that would have generated 60,000 jobs in Florida. Yes, we need to look at it. 

One of the things we need to do is we need a one-stop permitting 

process. If not, in California 20 years from now we going to be talking about high-speed rail—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Rohrabacher’s time is about ready to expire. 

Ms. BROWN. So there are many things we need to do to work together to—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would—— 

Ms. BROWN [continuing]. Move people and keep freight and passenger rail separated. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I think my time has been consumed, but I 

yield it back. Thank you. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. I thank the gentleman. With that, let me go to Mr. 

Rahall, if he has a—and what I am going to do—— 

Mr. RAHALL. Just—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. One second. I am going to reduce the amount of 

time for questions to this panel to 2 minutes, so—— 

Mr. RAHALL. Just a couple of softball questions, if that is possible. 

To Mr. Nunes, we have all heard the figures—this panel has testified to them and they are common knowledge—about the expected 20 million people increase in California’s population over the 

next 30 or 40 years. My question is, what would your alternative 

to high-speed rail be, and how would you pay for it? 

Now, I know you mentioned freight rail a minute ago. But as far 

as I have been able to discern, the freight rails aren’t too—they 

59 

aren’t jumping up and down to accept passenger traffic over their 

lines. So I don’t think we can put it all on the freight lines. 

Mr. NUNES. Thank you, Mr. Rahall. Going back to the point I 

was making about freight rail, one of the problems we have with 

congestion on the freeways is that there are too many trucks. They 

go a different speed than the cars. They create a lot of the congestion problems that we have. I am not against trucks. 

The problem is when we have freight rail that gets to the southern tip of the Valley. Because you have to climb up to an elevation, 

I think, of around 3,000 or 4,000 feet, those trains are only going 

15, 20 miles an hour up the hill. And that is the problem. It creates 

a congestion that then requires us to put more trucks on the road 

that then creates congestion on the freeways. If we could alleviate—if we could just double the number of freight trains that we 

could get on that line, I think it would make a big difference. 

Now, with that said, I didn’t come here to talk about taxes, but 

I know that the gentlelady did discuss taxes. That is the committee 

that I am on. We refer to the Bush tax cuts in our committee as 

the Bush-Obama tax cuts. Because I just want to state clearly for 

the record that President Obama has supported to extend the 

Bush-era tax cut. 

Mr. RAHALL. Well, in answer to my question, it appears your sole 

solution, then, is to reduce congestion by putting more freight on 

the tracks. 

Mr. NUNES. Yes, because the tracks can handle—— 

Mr. RAHALL. Thank you. 

Mr. NUNES [continuing]. The extra freight. 

Mr. RAHALL. I yield back. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank the gentleman. With that I will recognize 

again for 2 minutes Mr. Denham. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Often times when the 

facts don’t go your way, words like ‘‘courage’’ and ‘‘guts’’ get thrown 

out there. 

Look, I just want to see this project on time, on budget, and off 

of ag land. If it is a $33 billion project that can do those things, 

absolutely. But, Mr. Costa, when you talk about a bait and switch, 

sure, switching the money to $3.6 billion—or the $3.3 billion that 

is left—switching that to Highway 99, absolutely it would be a 

switch. But sending $3.6 billion of stimulus dollars for shovel-ready 

projects and then letting it sit for 3 years is not stimulus. And I 

would consider that a bait and switch. 

I would also consider it bait and switch when you send something out to the California voters and say, ‘‘This is a $33 billion 

project, you are on the hook for $9.95 billion of it,’’ and then it goes 

to a $98.5 billion project. That is also a bait and switch. 

So, if we can get this project back under control and get it on 

time, on budget, and off of ag land, I would love to support it. I 

would like to see a balanced transportation proposal. 

And I just want to correct one thing for the record. We need to 

have big ideas. We need to have bold solutions. We need to look 

at the future and create jobs. But when you are throwing out 

projects like the Hoover Dam, that cost us $50 million in 1931, 

which by today’s numbers would be a $700 million project, or the 

Boulder Canyon project, which included the Hoover Dam, the ImVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:42 May 25, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00081 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULL\12-15-~1\71740.TXT JEAN
60 

perial Dam, the American Canal cost $165 million in 1936, which 

is roughly $2.5 billion today, that you have to have the facts and 

the numbers on your side to be able to promote those. 

So, we have exempted CEQA on projects like LA Earthquake. 

Governor Davis exempted CEQA for the jobs in the Bay Area for 

the Pac Bell Park. You know, it has been done by Republicans and 

Democrats. If you want to get this project back under control, then 

look at the environmental side of things. NEPA, the same way. The 

President has waived NEPA for important projects. If this project 

is that important, then get it back under control. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I thank the gentleman. Mrs. Napolitano is recognized for 2 minutes. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. I won’t take that long, Mr. Chair. And I am 

for mass transit, mass transit of the working class, of the people. 

We have New York, you have it in Washington, DC, you have it 

in other major cities, but not in California. That is a priority for 

me. 

In Spain and China and France, the Government owns the land 

that those transit systems are on. They control it. They determine 

who gets on it and who runs the systems. 

There has been very little mention about the railroad being able 

to allow transit on their freight lines. I understand that they are 

now willing to do that. Great. Maybe more of that can be found. 

And, Mr. Rahall, you brought up the trucks on the road. In Long 

Beach, the Alameda Corridor was supposed to take trucks off the 

road, and they are still on the highway, polluting and being able 

to not get on the Alameda Corridor itself, because it is cheaper to 

get it on the truck. And until that changes, it is going to continue. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. And with that, I will recognize Mr. 

Miller for 2 minutes. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. Some interesting things 

have been said, one about how you present the question, and I 

think that is how they got the first bond passed in California. But 

when the people of California looked at the facts, they want to vote 

it down today. 

But the comment has been made the Republicans don’t really 

care about high-speed rail. But if you had asked Chairman Young 

and then Ranking Member Oberstar, I put $75 million into the 

2005 transportation bill for Maglev, and politics has played games 

with that money, and it is still sitting there unused. So—and the 

money has tended to go from Anaheim out to the Ontario Airport. 

And we talk about lack of capacity? If we stop playing games in 

Los Angeles and utilized Ontario, Burbank, and Palmdale Airport, 

you could really carry a tremendous amount of people. What has 

happened in Ontario specifically is you have an airport that was 

half developed, and then we sucked all the gate traffic out of it and 

moved it to LA. And the airport is ready to go double capacity from 

what they used to have, so there is absolute capacity in the region. 

The other problem is we talked about freight rail. The problem 

you have in Orange County and LA County is there is no right-ofway for the high-speed rail, unless you take the right-of-way away 

from freight. So you are going to offset one with the other, and neither one of those are to our benefit. And I don’t know of any of the 

61 

rail companies that are willing to give their freight capacity on 

rails—which we should double—to passenger. And that is going to 

be another huge problem. 

Money. We talked about—and my good friend, Loretta, you 

talked about the wide freeway on the I–5. And that is a beautiful 

area. But north and south of there we stop. And we tried to go to 

the 241, which was totally funded by private sector dollars, and the 

Coastal Commission shut it down. So we had a project that was totally privately funded, and California Coastal Commission shuts it 

down, thereby putting more traffic back on the I–5 Freeway. 

If you just go downtown Los Angeles, where the 5, the 10, and 

the 101 intersect, that interchange is over 60 years old. It goes to 

two lanes. And we don’t have the money to fix that. 

So, are there things we should be doing in California? Yes. Are 

we prioritizing our dollars for the benefit of commuters? I think 

not. 

But at that, I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I thank the gentleman. Ms. Brown, are you requesting 2 minutes? 

Ms. BROWN. Yes. I have a question for Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. Sanchez, we are looking at how the State—and I know the 

next group will talk about it—how they came up with the doubling 

of the money, and how they determined where the different areas 

would go and why the decision was not made to go with LA, or that 

area where the population is, and northern California. Do you—can 

you give me some insight as to why that decision was made? 

And basically, I do want to say something about Maglev. When 

I do projects or transportation, I let the area decide on what is the 

most feasible. I don’t say that you have to spend $75 million for 

Maglev, because that cost may be more than using other systems. 

You just put it out there and let people bid on it, and see what the 

bid come back with as opposed to saying it needs to be this, that, 

or the other. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Well, Ms. Brown, let me just say that that would 

be a long conversation, and I would certainly love to sit down with 

you and sort of walk you through the history of this. I am very well 

familiar with it. As I said, I was an infrastructure investment 

banker before, and my job was to, before, sell bonds on behalf of 

a municipality or a State or a county to make sure that the project 

was actually viable. 

And there were plenty of projects that I shut down. In fact, one— 

there was a particular project where my life was threatened because I shut it down. It was such a big project, and I said it wasn’t 

financially viable. 

So more than anything else, to my good friend from California, 

I would love to sit down and—I mean I would love to head that 

agency and get this project done, because I know how to get it 

done. But that is not my job. My job is to entrust it to the panels 

that will come and talk to you, and hopefully they can, you know, 

get the reports together and we can feel more confident that our 

monies are being spent correctly. 

One of the reasons that the cost of the project has gone up is—— 

Ms. BROWN. Double. 

62 

Ms. SANCHEZ [continuing]. Is because there is no right-of-way 

that is owned by the Federal Government. So you have to pay for 

right-of-way. You have to get right-of-way. When you go through 

places, you have to buy that up. Land is expensive in California. 

People have ‘‘not in my backyard’’ mentalities, too. 

And so, when you say I need to sit down with the jurisdiction 

and discuss with them what they want, that is a long process. The 

cost has been going up because everybody has a different idea. 

Some cities don’t want it going through there, others are dying to 

have it go through their area. 

This is a give-and-take as you go through the process, and it is 

a long process. Some of it is environmental. There are a lot of 

issues behind it. But first and foremost is that you have to have 

buy-in from the agencies, the cities and the counties, where you go 

through for this line. And it is a long process, and an expensive 

process. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, thank you, Ms. Sanchez. And thank all of 

our colleagues for being here today. This is certainly an issue that 

we will continue, I am sure, to debate not only here in this committee, but maybe even on the House floor. 

You know, we do have serious transportation problems in this 

country. Funding is a huge issue. And we need to continue to explore how we are going to do it in a reasonable and responsible 

way, and make those investments that really make sense, and will 

have a big impact on not only California, but the entire Nation. 

So again, thank all of you for being here. I appreciate you spending your time. And we will let you guys leave, and our next panel 

will assemble. 

Mr. NUNES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. COSTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And clearly, all is possible 

if we can only work together, which often times is in short supply 

around here. That is how we built things in the past. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And I have read the book. It is a good read. I recommend it to anybody. 

Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. SHUSTER. Yes? 

Mr. DENHAM. While the panel is coming up, I would like to submit for the record Senator Doug LaMalfa from California has a 

statement to add. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. SHUSTER. I want to welcome our second panel here. Thank 

all of you for coming today. Some of you have testified before in 

front of us. Mr. Szabo is a regular participant in these things. So— 

but again, all of you, appreciate you making the trip, many a long 

distance, to be here today. 

Unfortunately, I am going to have to step out after I introduce 

the panel, and Mr. Denham is going to chair the hearing. And with 

that, I want to introduce all of our panelists. 

First, as mentioned, the Honorable Joseph Szabo, who is the administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration. Next, Mr. 

Roelof van Ark, CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority. 

Next, the Honorable Jerry Amante, who is the mayor of Tustin, 

California, and a member of the Orange County Transportation Authority Board of Directors. 

If I am not mistaken, you are the chairman now, is it? Vice 

chairman. Thank you. 

Mr. Greg Gatzka—I guess I got you switched up here, I am 

sorry—the Honorable Ashley Swearengin—thank you—the mayor 

of Fresno. And Mr. Gatzka is from the Kings County Community 

Development Agency. Next we have Ms. Elizabeth Alexis, co-founder of Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design. And finally, 

Mr. Kole Upton, vice president of Preserve Our Heritage. 

Again, I welcome all of you here today. And with that, I am going 

to go and pause until Mr. Denham—is he out there? He is still debating with his colleagues in the anteroom, a lot of work gets done 

in the hallways and the waiting areas of Congress. 

But with that, while he is coming, we will go ahead and get 

started. Mr. Szabo, you can proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH C. SZABO, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL 

RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION; ROELOF VAN ARK, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL AUTHORITY; HON. JERRY AMANTE, MAYOR OF TUSTIN, CALIFORNIA, 

AND MEMBER, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, ORANGE COUNTY 

TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY; HON. ASHLEY SWEARENGIN, 

MAYOR OF FRESNO, CALIFORNIA; GREGORY R. GATZKA, DIRECTOR, KINGS COUNTY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AGENCY; ELIZABETH GOLDSTEIN ALEXIS, CO-FOUNDER, CALIFORNIANS ADVOCATING RESPONSIBLE RAIL DESIGN; AND KOLE 

UPTON, VICE PRESIDENT, PRESERVE OUR HERITAGE 

Mr. SZABO. Well, thank you, Chairman Shuster and Ranking 

Member Brown, and to members of the committee. It is an honor 

to be here today to discuss the California high-speed rail project. 

The State of California, if taken on its own, would be the world’s 

ninth largest economy. And it is known across the globe for its entrepreneurial spirit, top tier educational institutions, and thriving 

communities. And California achieved this status because past generations recognized the importance of infrastructure, and invested 

accordingly in ports, in highways, water systems, railways, airports, and more. 

Today, California’s highways are amongst the most congested in 

the Nation, costing residents and businesses in Los Angeles and 

San Francisco alone nearly $13.5 billion last year. Delayed flights 

at six of California’s major airports had an economic cost of more 

68 

than $1 billion last year. Los Angeles to San Francisco is the most 

delay-prone short-haul market in the United States, with approximately one out of every four flights delayed more than an hour. 

The stress on the State’s infrastructure will become even more 

overwhelmed during the next 40 years. California’s population will 

grow by 20 million more people, ultimately reaching 60 million by 

2050. And that growth alone is larger than every State in the Nation, with the exception of Texas. But if you think highways and 

runways are crowded now, imagine what they are going to look like 

if they are 60 percent more crowded. 

Today, highways in the State can have as many as 14 or 21 or, 

as we heard earlier, 23 lanes of traffic across. So how can we possibly make them any wider? It is imperative that these problems 

are addressed, and not just for the sake of California, but for the 

sake of our Nation. 

The airports in San Francisco and Los Angeles are among the 

most important international gateways in the Nation, and the effects of delays at these airports span far across California’s borders. 

American businesses rely on these airports to sell goods and services to customers all over the world, especially across the Pacific. 

If businesses can’t reach these markets from America, they will 

look to locate their operations elsewhere. 

Many regional trips can be made more efficiently through highspeed rail, shifting valuable landing slots from short-haul flights to 

more efficient and more profitable longer journeys that connect the 

Nation to international markets. 

Now, don’t just take it from me. When asked about whether he 

sees high-speed rail as a threat or a complement to the airlines, 

JetBlue’s CEO, Dave Barger, said, ‘‘It is a complement. I don’t 

think we need hundreds of departures every day from the Bay Area 

to Los Angeles.’’ And Robert Crandall, the CEO—former CEO—of 

American Airlines said, ‘‘If I could do whatever I wanted to, I 

would upgrade the rail system. Tracks, equipment, and power. By 

doing so we would free airplanes, air space, and airport facilities 

for flights to places that cannot be conveniently reached by rail.’’ 

This summer this committee proposed a re-authorization bill that 

called on Government to better leverage its private investment. 

The California high-speed rail project is exactly that type of project. 

The system will generate net positive cash flow from its operations, 

incentivizing private investment in capital construction. And if you 

want to build it faster, if you want to build it cheaper, you can 

make it happen. The largest cause for delay on the project and escalation of cost is attributed to congressional gridlock. 

California’s approach is based on lessons learned from the international experience that existing assets can be used in the urban 

areas. The Central Valley will more than double in population over 

the next 40 years. Acquiring the right of way now, building 

through the Central Valley, is the best opportunity to save money 

during the course of this project. 

Without this high-speed rail investment the State would need to 

invest an additional $171 billion to acquire the equivalent level of 

mobility: 2,300 miles of new highways, 115 new airport gates, and 

4 new airport runways. California has a choice. High-speed rail will 

provide substantial fast, frequent, and reliable travel capacity more 

69 

effectively, at lower cost, and with fewer overall impacts to California’s natural resources than the alternatives. 

And I will be happy to answer any questions the committee has. 

Mr. DENHAM. [presiding.] Thank you. 

Mr. van Ark. 

Mr. VAN ARK. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, members of the 

committee, my name is Roelof van Ark, and I am the chief executive officer of the California High-Speed Rail Authority since 18 

months. I come from the private sector, with 35 years of rail experience, including high-speed rail, and have built and been involved 

in such systems and PPP projects around the world. I am truly appreciative of having the opportunity to come before you today to 

talk about the progress of the Nation’s first real high-speed rail 

project. 

I would like to also recognize that my chairman, Tom Umberg, 

and a board member, Dan Richards, is with me here today—they 

are with me here today. 

Mr. Chairman, we in California are at a crossroad. We can either 

continue to increase existing capacity on our highways and aviation 

systems to meet the population growth, or we can move into the 

21st-century economy by doing what 24 other countries in the 

world have done or are doing: namely, implementing an efficient 

and effective high-speed rail system. 

California stands ready to choose the latter, as witnessed in the 

passage of Proposition 1A in 2008. Currently there are 38 million 

people, 12 percent of the national population, in the State. Even 

relatively conservative estimates would have this population growing to 50 to 60 million by 2015. Explosive growth will bring with 

it increasing transportation infrastructure demands that will need 

to be accommodated. 

It is estimated that in order to accommodate such growth—you 

have heard these figures before—2,300 lane miles of freeway, 4 additional runways, and 115 airport gates are needed. While many 

even question the feasibility of such expansion in the State, the additional environmental damage that that would result, due to automotive congestion, this will all be totally unacceptable. And the 

damage to quality of life that results from time lost sitting in traffic congestion, whether from personal perspective or from an economic productivity perspective, simply does not make sense. 

So we stand at a precipice, poised to move high-speed rail from 

the planning phase to the implementation phase, and we are ready 

to start in 2012, less than a year from now, with shovels in the 

ground. 

This high-speed rail system will alleviate 3 million tons of green 

gas emission spewing from tail pipes of cars which clog our congested roads annually. 

And if that were not compelling enough, the cost and conservation in realistic terms of the California high-speed rail system pales 

in comparison with the cost of the ‘‘business as usual’’ approach. 

We will build a high-speed rail system that will provide a one-seat 

ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco by 2030, utilizing already 

existing local and regional rail services in the cities for $78 billion, 

which includes inflation. This does not take into account the contributions from the private sector which we have calculated to be 

70 

in the magnitude of $11 billion to $20 billion. Alternatively, to accommodate growing use of the ‘‘business as usual’’ approach, the alternative cost to build the alternatives would be $171 billion. 

California represents the best case for bringing high-speed rail to 

the United States. Connecting northern California with southern 

California—in the north approximately 10 million people, in the 

south 25 million people—is exactly right for a high-speed rail system. 

Starting construction in the Central Valley is correct. It is the 

backbone of the system. It is a wise and prudent decision. The Central Valley offers us the ability to start construction at a place 

where we can purchase more miles of track per dollar than elsewhere in the State. It allows us to test the first real high-speed rail 

system—in excess of 220 miles an hour—in the United States, and 

will ensure the connection between north and south. 

I would like to just make some comments on the business plan, 

because I was behind the business plan. I did the business plan. 

The 2012 business plan represents a just plan. It is predicated on 

realistic—some may say rather conservative, but robust—economic 

assumptions and the projections that provide for a transparent and 

brutally honest assessment of the costs and a realistic approach required to construct the largest public-private partnership effort in 

the USA. 

I can confirm that the costs, the ridership and revenue predictions, peer reviewed by high-caliber international experts, the 

phased implementation approach, the blended system approach, as 

well as the participation of the private sector, are all based on solid 

and realistic assumptions, and are based on real-time experiences 

of high-speed rail systems developed around the world. 

Mr. Chairman, our infrastructure needs a rail, and the demand 

of continually growing population will force us in California to meet 

these demands in one of two ways. We can build smartly, by employing lessons learned from countries around the world, or we can 

continue to stagnate while building systems that are less efficient, 

more environmentally damaging, and cost more. 

I thank you for this opportunity to testify, and I am ready to answer questions. Thank you. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mr. van Ark. And just to clear one 

issue for the record, the legislative analyst’s office in California just 

issued out their new report less than 2 weeks ago. And in that it 

says alternative cost estimate overstated the draft business plan— 

compares to the estimated $118 billion cost of constructing highspeed rail, with an estimated $170 billion cost of adding equivalent 

capacity to airports and highways. It then goes on to say this comparison is very problematic because $170 billion is not what the 

State would otherwise spend to address the growth in intercity 

transportation demand. 

Further, it says capacity to carry 116 million passengers per 

year, but their highest forecasted ridership is significantly less 

than that amount, 44 million riders per year. That came from the 

leg analyst’s office. 

Ms. BROWN. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. DENHAM. Ms. Brown. 

71 

Ms. BROWN. Usually we let them finish, and then we ask them 

questions so they can respond. So he may want to respond to what 

you said. But I think the proper protocol would be to let all of them 

make their presentations, and then we can ask questions, and he 

will get a chance to finish his statement and respond. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Ms. Brown—— 

Ms. BROWN. If you don’t mind, sir. 

Mr. DENHAM. I understand how to run a committee very well, 

but I will correct the record when I see something that is mistaken. 

We will now go to the mayor, Mayor Amante from Tustin. Welcome to the committee today. 

Mr. AMANTE. Thank you, Chairman Denham. Chairman 

Denham, Congresswoman Brown, honorable members of the committee, my name is Jerry Amante. I am here representing the 

elected board of directors of the Orange County Transportation Authority. I also sit on the LOSSAN Corridor Joint Powers Authority, 

which oversees service from San Luis Obispo through Los Angeles 

and Orange Counties into San Diego. And I am the former mayor 

of the city of Tustin, a major city along that LOSSAN corridor. 

The Orange County Transportation Authority is a unique 

multimodal agency. It represents 3 million Orange Countians and 

Californians, and provides service to them through all strata of 

transportation except aviation. And it is from that multimodal 

point of view that we address our comments to California highspeed rail project and its business plan. 

We believe that the high-speed rail should be reviewed in the 

context of investments in the LOSSAN corridor in general, and specifically with respect to that portion between Los Angeles and Anaheim, which would be part of the high-speed rail program. We own 

some 42 miles of right-of-way and jointly fund the operations of 

commuter rail through Metrolink in that corridor. Today that 

LOSSAN corridor, as Chairman Shuster alluded to, is one of the 

busiest in the Nation, second only to the Northeast Corridor. It carries 2.7 million Amtrak passengers every year, and a combined 4.5 

million commuter rail riders on Metrolink and the Coaster. 

In 2007, our agency, OCTA, invested $7 million to advance the 

environmental documentation for high-speed rail, the only public 

agency to advance money for environmental clearance of a segment 

to bring high speed. We believe that high-speed and intercity rail 

passenger investment is key to California’s transportation future, 

connecting the northern sections of California and the southern Los 

Angeles Basin, which are some of the busiest Amtrak and passenger corridors in the State, are important to a State which, as 

has already been recognized by so many members, is about to explode in population to some 50 million or more by the year 2030. 

Members like Richardson, Costa, and Sanchez have already spoken to the intense amount of investment we would have to make 

in ribbons of highway. And I live about 5 miles from that El Toro 

‘‘Y,’’ where those 23 lanes are, and the devastation to communities 

from further widening would be significant, and it needs to be acknowledged. 

We are, therefore, grateful to the Federal Government for the investment it has made, the matching investment by the State of 

California of $1.8 billion in the last 35 years, and what that has 

72 

meant to rail improvements throughout the corridor. We believe a 

strong Federal, State, and local partnership, and private funding 

partnerships through public-private partnerships to advance passenger rail are critical. 

The latest California high-speed rail plan is a marked improvement over the 2009 business plan. The plan now includes a blended 

approach of providing service in our Orange and Los Angeles Counties, as requested by my agency, OCTA, and by the Los Angeles 

Metropolitan Transit Authority. It will provide a key and critical 

link between population areas and those new areas of track to be 

built. And specifically, we would call out an important need to connect Bakersfield to Los Angeles, and not have those big gaps in 

what we are providing in terms of passenger service today. 

Notwithstanding that concern, we have grave areas of concern 

about the plan, itself. Many of them are detailed in my comments 

before the committee, and you have them before you. And some I 

am going to talk to other Members of this Congress have already 

spoken to you about. 

Most important to us is the phased delivery approach. We believe 

that the introduction of this phased approach into the business 

plan is important because it connects two major population regions, 

and makes investments where you can attract public-private partnerships, where you have ridership, and where on most days there 

is standing room only on Amtrak service between Los Angeles and 

Anaheim. There is ridership there, and you can take advantage of 

it when connecting those areas. We believe the blended approach 

is very important for that reason. 

We have already heard many people talk about project schedule, 

what it does to cost increases. We heard you, Chairman Denham, 

speak eloquently to the 1A issues of the State of California and to 

the funding of the financial plan. And we have been critical in our 

comments of the manner in which some of the Federal funding for 

high-speed rail can compete with CMAC, New Start, and other rail 

transit funding for programs that we and other transportation 

agencies have. We believe that that needs to be balanced. 

Certainly there are operational concerns and cost comparisons. 

Of all of them, though, the phasing is the most important. Yet we 

believe that these approaches need to be balanced. 

In conclusion, while our board has serious concerns about some 

of the specifics included in the business plan, we recognize the importance of investing. We believe that should include the bookends 

approach that we have recommended for the San Francisco Bay 

and Los Angeles areas. 

We are highly cognizant of the challenges this committee faces 

as you try to do work to improve the transportation system for all 

Americans. We stand ready to work with you. I would be prepared 

to answer any questions. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mayor. 

At this time I would like to recognize the mayor of Fresno, Ashley Swearengin. 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. Good morning, Mr. Chair, and members of 

the committee. My name is Ashley Swearengin, and I am the 

mayor of Fresno, California. I want to thank you for the opporVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:42 May 25, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00094 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULL\12-15-~1\71740.TXT JEAN
73 

tunity to address you this morning. And I am pleased to offer my 

comments today in support of high-speed rail as a cost-effective 

transportation mode that makes a profit and drastically reduces 

travel times between regional destinations. 

In reviewing the record of Congress, including this committee, I 

am pleased to see that there has been bipartisan support for highspeed rail dating back to the early 1990s, through Republican and 

Democrat administrations and Congresses alike. And as a Republican mayor and former economic development professional, I applaud that position and I share that view for three reasons. 

First and foremost is high-speed rail’s profitable business model. 

No other transportation mode in the world makes a profit and requires no public subsidies for operations. Yes, public dollars are required for the upfront capital costs, just as they are to construct 

highways or low-speed rail systems or airports. But once those capital costs are provided for high-speed rail, the operational costs are 

paid for by the fare box. And you cannot say that about any other 

mode of transportation. 

The second reason why I support high-speed rail is the vast reduction in travel times it offers. Today, when Fresnans need to 

travel to Los Angeles they have four choices. They can go by car, 

they can go by plane, they can go by bus, or low-speed passenger 

rail, which is pretty much just taking a bus. Of those choices, the 

fastest option is to drive. And that is going to take 4 hours if you 

do not run into traffic in the LA Basin. 

Well, what are the chances of not hitting traffic in Los Angeles? 

Well, they are pretty good, if you are willing to travel between 

11:00 at night and 5:00 in the morning. With high-speed rail, travel 

times to the LA Basin are reduced by over 60 percent to about an 

hour and 20 minutes, and the same is true when connecting to the 

Bay Area. 

I was asked recently when the last time is that I chose to take 

Amtrak. And my answer? I almost never take Amtrak, because it 

takes so much longer to arrive at my destination than if I just 

drove in my own car. I choose the fastest transportation option that 

I can afford, which is what most consumers do. Saying that Californians won’t choose high-speed rail over their cars because they are 

not currently riding Amtrak is like saying, ‘‘I didn’t like my dialup Internet service, so I am not going to like a fiber connection to 

my home.’’ It is the wrong measuring stick. And these two are completely different services. 

The last major reason I believe we need to pursue the development of high-speed rail in California is because of the affordability 

of the ticket price. The business plan indicates the fare on highspeed rail will be priced at 80 percent of what an airline ticket 

costs between LA and San Francisco, which is a tremendous cost 

savings for us, in the middle part of the State. You see, a roundtrip ticket from San Francisco to LA is between $120 and $180. But 

if you are in Fresno trying to fly to either LA or San Francisco, you 

have to be prepared to pay at least $250, and that is if you buy 

your ticket a month in advance. As much as $1,400 to $1,500 if you 

try to book a flight just a few days in advance. 

So, again, we are talking about a transportation mode that 

makes a profit, requires no public subsidy for its operations, and 

74 

can be fully commercialized and operated by the private sector. Reduces travel times by over 60 percent for regional travel, and offers 

an affordable ticket price, especially for Fresnans, who are paying 

in some cases 10 times as much for regional air service as other 

cities in our State. This is something worth pursuing. 

No city will benefit more from high-speed rail than Fresno, which 

is a city of 500,000 people—and yes, some cows and vegetables— 

situated in one of the fastest-growing regions in the country that 

already houses 4 million people. Unfortunately, Fresno’s distance 

from other major urban areas has limited our economic opportunity. Unemployment rates today range from 14 to 40 percent in 

Fresno County. Our region struggles to gain access to the economic 

networks of the LA Basin and the San Francisco Bay area. Highspeed rail changes that dynamic for a city like Fresno, which is 

why our local business organizations endorse this project. 

And with permission, I would like to submit today for the record 

letters of support from the Greater Fresno Area Chamber of Commerce, the Central California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the 

Fresno Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Fresno Metro 

Black Chamber of Commerce, and the Economic Development Corporation serving Fresno County. The membership of these organizations is comprised of literally tens of thousands of businesses 

from throughout Fresno and the central California region. 

Also with permission I would like to submit letters of support 

from the Fresno County Council of Government, the Kern Council 

of Governments and the city of Visalia, also in support of highspeed rail. 

And finally, with permission, I would like to submit today for the 

record a June 7, 2011, op-ed written by the mayors of Los Angeles, 

San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, and Fresno. Together, we 

lead cities with a combined population of 6.5 million people. And 

while there are differences between these mayors when it comes to 

partisan politics, we recognize what a smart solution high-speed 

rail can mean for one of the biggest challenges our State faces: 

transportation and mobility. 

And without solutions for California’s transportation challenges, 

our economy is hamstrung. And California’s economy being hamstrung does not bode well for the rest of the United States. 

And I would like to close now by just telling you a story about 

a business called Commercial Manufacturing that is known worldwide for the manufacturing of food processing equipment. If you 

have ever popped one of those meal-in-the-bags kind of bags into 

the microwave and eaten a meal, you know you have eaten something from Commercial Manufacturing. It is a small business that 

employs 41 people. They export their products all over the world. 

Well, their world headquarters are at 2432 Railroad Avenue, 

which is in Fresno, California, right on the path of the high-speed 

rail alignment. So, of all the people you would expect to be upset 

about this proposed train, it would be Larry Hagopian, the owner 

of this business that has been in his family for a number of years. 

But his reaction to the project? He says this. ‘‘I see this as an opportunity to upgrade our facility, which will allow us to improve 

our manufacturing techniques, increase our sales, and increase the 

number of employees that we employ. 

75 

‘‘Also, as a lifetime resident of Fresno, I see this project as a 

chance for Fresno to clean up its south and west sides, and bring 

more people back to the core of downtown, not to mention the positive economic impact on the community from the jobs associated 

with high-speed rail.’’ 

And I think his statement captures a sentiment that I wish to 

convey to the committee today. I recognize it is not without its 

challenges. Mr. Chair, you have made some very good points today 

and things I also recommend that we take a look at. But I urge 

this committee to support high-speed rail, and I urge your help in 

clearing the way for high-speed rail in our Nation. Thank you. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. 

Mr. Gatzka? 

Mr. GATZKA. Thank you and good afternoon, Chairman Denham 

and members of the committee. I am here before you today to share 

some of our experiences and/or observations on how California 

high-speed rail is failing in California, in terms of their planning. 

I represent Kings County, which is a small, rural, agricultural 

county located in the rich agricultural growing region of central 

California. 

Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Gatzka, can I ask you to pull your microphone 

a little closer? 

Mr. GATZKA. Absolutely. There we go. Is that better? OK. 

I represent Kings County, which is a small, rural, agricultural 

county in central California, also known as a region of the San Joaquin Valley. And in that region and in that county we are highly 

patriotic, as the county and our four cities are also home to the 

western strategic defense base called Naval Air Station Lemoore, 

one of the reasons we protect agriculture. 

High-speed rail plans to propose 28 miles to run through our agricultural county, and we face the greatest agricultural impacts 

along the first construction segment. As a result, that project will 

potentially devastate our local communities. But in trying to work 

with the California High-Speed Rail, we have been treated with 

disregard and silence. And this is in particular to Mr. van Ark and 

also Mr. Szabo. When it comes to our legitimate concerns, our property owners are treated with right-of-way consultant agents that 

come out and intimidate, with the threat of taking away their land 

through eminent domain. 

In terms of specific impacts that have not been addressed even 

to this day, some of those include 7,000 acres of farmland in our 

county that will potentially be disrupted; 11 dairies that will require repermitting and relocation; a critical cow rendering facility 

that we have that serves 800 dairies throughout the Valley; our 

very own Kings County Fire Station number four, that also has our 

emergency medical helipad SkyLife helicopter; also our fire search 

and rescue helicopter that serves CAL FIRE; and also our sheriff’s 

patrol helicopter. In addition, that is also our regional firefighter 

training grounds that is going to be impacted by this, and has not 

been addressed. 

Also, unanalyzed switch of Amtrak San Joaquin service has not 

been addressed by the High-Speed Rail Authority, but yet they allude to it in their business plan, which will also devastate our local 

businesses. 

76 

Why aren’t these issues and impacts being addressed by the California High-Speed Rail? It is because of their faulty 15 percent design approach that does not give us the answers for what they are 

proposing to come through our county. And how that is going to be 

integrated with our existing infrastructure and our communities. 

In addition, the expedited public processes that they have employed rushes to approve their project simply to spend Federal 

funds at the expense and sacrifice of our local communities. Their 

attitude is, ‘‘We only need to listen to the Federal Railroad Administration and we don’t have to deal with local impacted communities.’’ 

In fact, their project EIR and EIS released for only a minimum 

45-day public review comment period—then extended for a token 

15 days—included 30,000 pages that we were forced to have to review to find those answers. What we found was deferred impacts, 

in terms of their analysis and mitigation for impacts related to 

high-speed rail in relation to our communities. After project approval, they will figure out those answers. They rely on contracted 

right-of-way agents to take care of business after the project approval process. Full public disclosure has not occurred, and the impacts are not addressed in any accountable manner. 

Our county is not against enhancing transportation where it 

makes sense. But we cannot accept the manner in which the California High-Speed Rail Authority continues to carry out business. 

And we are not alone. Communities along the proposed route are 

also up in arms. Just to inform you, just even last night, the Bakersfield City Council voted six to one to oppose any high-speed 

rail coming through their community because of the same issues 

that we are dealing with which are unaddressed impacts. 

So, in closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak, 

share what we are experiencing in Kings County in relation to 

California high-speed rail, and I also wish all of you the best in 

your endeavors to make sure that you bring accountability to not 

only this project, but also the use of taxpayer funds. Thank you. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. 

Ms. Alexis? 

Ms. ALEXIS. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. My name is Elizabeth Alexis, and I am the cofounder of Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design, also 

known as CARRD. I have spent 3 years analyzing the business 

plans and ridership forecasts. 

We believe in rail. But this project is on the wrong track. It costs 

too much, it takes too long, and it delivers far, far too little. If you 

liked the Big Dig, you will love California high-speed rail. This is 

a project of the consultants, by the consultants, and for the consultants. 

For most of its existence, the California High-Speed Rail Authority had been off on its own, operating as a small, poorly funded organization disconnected from the regional transportation authorities. Impacts had been downplayed to secure support. Critical decisions about the route were made without feedback on their feasibility or consequences. 

The route was divided up into 10 different segments of about 80 

miles each. A different firm was hired to plan each section. Each 

77 

of these firms hired their own team of consultants. Another firm 

was hired to oversee these consultants. And their work was to be 

reviewed by yet another engineering firm. No consultant was to be 

left behind. Four layers of consultants overseen by seven staff 

members. You can imagine the communication difficulties, the coordination issues, and the limited flexibility. 

Planning work, top-down, heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all. Reminiscent of the worst aspects of highway-building, resulting in designs that are both expensive and bad. 

Things got worse when the project won stimulus funds. These 

had deadlines that drove decisionmaking in California, and put everything into high gear. The ridership model has flaws that render 

it not just useless, but dangerous. Plans to redo it? No time. Plans 

to reform the highly politicized governing board? No time. Despite 

voter concerns with the cost, and legislators’ fears that the project 

will be a money pit, there are pressures to continue moving forward without fixing the problems. Job claims have been hyped, and 

legislators have been told they need to act now, or there will never 

be high-speed rail in California. 

If the project moves forward as is, there is a good chance that 

the State will be forced to spend more money trying to salvage 

something useful from the initial construction. And in California, 

this means there will be little money for other infrastructure 

projects like water. Congressman Cardoza mentioned devastating 

cuts to higher education. Well, there will be more of the same. 

The current route is so destructive to cities and agriculture that 

there may not be any net jobs to show for it. Respectfully, Mayor 

Swearengin, in cities like Fresno you could not run over more businesses if you tried, and many will not survive the move. The $3 billion of Federal funds is the tail wagging the $98 billion dog. The project is now at a crossroads: 2 years ago, costs were $43 

billion, and today $98 billion. There will be no private investment. 

And California will be looking to you for another $73 billion to complete the project. Public subsidies will be almost more than $100 

for every passenger in the first 30 years of operation, which is 

higher than the ticket price. The $171 billion figure thrown around 

ignores cheaper ways of addressing congestion, like the congestion 

pricing in Los Angeles, and the airport’s plan to be more efficient. 

The stimulus money, along with California’s money, will buy 

unelectrified tracks in the Central Valley that won’t run high-speed 

rail trains until an additional $25 billion is found to extend the line 

to either the Bay Area or somewhere near LA. These cost increases 

are blamed on design changes. But most of these should have been 

anticipated, or had actually been made prior to the low-ball December 2009 estimate. There have only been excuses, not investigations. The cost per mile is two to five times what it would cost to 

build this in Europe. And the route is needlessly long, an extra 100 

miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles. 

You have to ask yourselves, ‘‘We may have only $6 billion to 

spend, and this is what we choose to spend it on?’’ There is no more 

funding on the horizon, and there may not be any more, given the 

challenges the Authority has had in executing. There are so many 

other urgent transportation needs, like we have heard about in Los 

Angeles, that could also help advance high-speed rail. 

78 

The project needs flexibility from the Federal Government so it 

can take a time-out. It needs to get an independent ridership 

study. The current one predicts ridership from San Jose to Bakersfield will be as high as the entire Northeast Corridor. It is broken. 

The current relationship between the Authority and its consultants 

is unhealthy. If the private sector is driving planning, it needs to 

have skin in the game. 

Mr. Chairman, supporters like to compare this project to the 

Golden Gate Bridge. But this is fool’s gold. Do we need high-speed 

rail in our State? Absolutely. But the train we are on is in the 

wrong place, it costs too much, and it delivers too little. Thank you. 

Mr. DENHAM. At this time the chair recognizes Mr. Kole Upton, 

vice president of the Preserve Our Heritage, as well as a local Valley farmer. 

Mr. UPTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee members. I do 

represent Preserve Our Heritage. It is a group of citizens, farmers, 

about 200 to 300 of us in Merced and Madeira Counties that have 

concerns about this project. 

We first received word that our land was impacted in November 

2009, with a letter from the Authority. What we did, we went to 

the next Authority board meeting and expressed our concerns that 

the route was not following the guidelines of minimizing the impact 

of ag land and using existing corridors. The chairman at that time 

was Mr. Pringle. He urged us to roll up our sleeves and participate 

in the process. We thought that was a good idea, so we have done 

that for 2 years. 

In March of 2010 the route that we were complaining about, A3, 

was taken off the table. I then got on some technical committees 

as an elected official, two water districts. Prior to that it was just 

city and county officials, but we got some rural members on there. 

In June of 2010 I made the question, ‘‘Do you support any ‘Y’ 

north of the Chowchilla’’—that is the ‘‘Y’’ section. Unanimous opposition by every public agency. Yet, in July of 2010, the High-Speed 

Authority comes out with a route called ‘‘The West Chowchilla Design Option.’’ Yes, you guessed it: north of Chowchilla. So I asked 

the question, ‘‘Why would you choose something that was unanimously opposed by everybody, if this input process has integrity?’’ 

‘‘Well, the city of Chowchilla wanted it.’’ Well, the city of 

Chowchilla immediately said, ‘‘No, it wasn’t us. We don’t want it,’’ 

and they are still actively opposed today. 

So then they said FRA wanted it. So we did a Freedom of Information request to the FRA December 3, 2010. Despite the best efforts of Mr. Denham and Mr. Cardoza, we have received nothing 

from the FRA. So, unless Mr. Szabo brought it with him today, we 

still don’t have any answer as to why FRA would demand this particular route, which is the most abominable one possible. It does 

not follow an existing corridor. Not even the local wildlife use it as 

a corridor. 

The impact to farmland. The problem is when it goes through it 

impacts facilities that we have had in place for decades. And Mrs. 

Napolitano is aware of this, because she has helped us with the 

water district facilities that kind of thing. It takes out an entire 

canal in my district, the pumps, the deep wells, the transfer facilities. And it has taken decades for this to develop. We are some of 

79 

the most water-efficient farmers in the world, but this is going to 

hurt us. 

If you are going to do this project, it ought to be integrated in 

with the infrastructure that exists now. And in order to do that, 

we have to work together. 

Now, these construction workers, there is a lot of them at the 

meetings we go to. When we talk to them, they don’t tell you, ‘‘We 

want a job, but it only can be high-speed rail.’’ They just want a 

job. And there is plenty that can be done in the Central Valley. One, we can build Temperance Flat. Cost them about $3 billion, 

which would give us a much better water supply and ensure that 

we could supply food and fiber for the people of the United States. 

We are one of the only five Mediterranean growing regions in the 

world. 

Now, one place that it did create jobs was in the EIRs. When the 

draft EIRs—as Mr. Gatzka pointed out—came out, we had to hire 

EIR specialists and lawyers in order to get through it. I personally 

went through the one through my area as we divided it up with 

Preserve Our Heritage. The problem, one, the roads were 

misidentified, the counties were misidentified, and the rivers were 

wrong. In order to comment on it, I had to rewrite it. 

So we are going to challenge that EIR. And in so doing, we want 

to make it clear that we support Kings County, because Kings 

County is first up on this thing. And we know if they get thrown 

under the train, we are next. So, it is important that they start 

treating ag right, and they start going by the guidelines that are 

in place. 

We want to support our legacy and our heritage. My father started my farm when he got back from World War II. He started with 

100 acres. He had spent 3 years in Europe. And I live on my farm, 

my son lives on my farm, and my brother lives on my farm. It is 

not something that we are going to give up easily. So—I think 

Kings County is in the same position. 

I assume you brought me here for my opinion. If the opinion is 

of a taxpayer where to spend the money, you ought to do it like 

Willie Sutton said. He robbed banks, because that is where the 

money was. For goodness’ sake, put this high-speed rail where the 

people are. If it is the northeastern corridor, if it is Anaheim to San 

Diego, if you insist on doing it in the San Joaquin Valley, like the 

FRA apparently wants, then do it on the west side. They don’t have 

any water over there anyway, there is not a lot of impacts, and it 

would be a straight shot from San Francisco to LA. 

But if you insist on doing it in the central part, on the east side 

of the San Joaquin Valley, I am reminded of a story back in the 

last century of an old farmer that took his mule to town every day. 

And a salesman approached him and said he could really improve 

on that situation, and convinced the farmer to buy some roller 

skates for the mule. OK. The mule, yes, he could get to town a lot 

faster, but it wrecked havoc all along the way. That is like this 

high-speed rail. OK? If they don’t do it right, they are going to 

wreck havoc all along the way. 

So, we are looking for you folks to help us with that, to do it— 

if it is done right, let’s do it and do not impact the farmland. Thank 

you. 

80 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mr. Upton. I would just inform the 

committee that Mr. Szabo, the administrator for the Federal Rail 

Administration, does have an engagement at 1:00. And so you may 

want to direct your first round of questioning with that in mind. 

And that is exactly what I plan on doing first. 

So, first of all, we had a hearing last week with Secretary 

LaHood testifying regarding the California high-speed rail project, 

that—‘‘We won’t be dissuaded by the naysayers and the critics,’’ 

was his quote. The critics here, however, are not simply just individual citizens, but also the non-partisan legislative analyst’s office 

in California, the same as GAO, which has said, ‘‘It is increasingly 

likely that the ICS may be all that is ever built,’’ and also the peer 

review group, who has also said, ‘‘The Central Valley portion would 

yield an asset of very little value.’’ 

So, the question is, if that is the likely outcome, why wouldn’t 

the department of transportation re-evaluate whether the project is 

worth more than $3 billion in Federal funding? 

Mr. SZABO. Well, we continue to support the California HighSpeed Rail Authority in the efforts of Governor Brown. We continue to believe that the need for the project is indisputable. And 

we also believe—— 

Mr. DENHAM. Do you disagree with the findings—— 

Mr. SZABO. And we also believe that the work that has been done 

with this most recent business study, which has gone through a 

very, very thorough international peer review, is a very, very conservative document that begins to address many of the legitimate 

concerns that folks have had. But we continue to believe that it 

is—from all analysis, continues to be a very strong and very doable 

project. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Mr. Szabo, you said, ‘‘from all analysis.’’ I would just remind you that California has a—almost a 

super-majority of Democrats in the Assembly, almost a super-majority of Democrats in the Senate, and has a Democrat Governor. 

You would not say that the non-partisan legislative analyst’s office 

is a conservative estimate by any means, would you? 

Mr. SZABO. What I would say is we find it interesting that they 

have had no dialogue with us—none, not one conversation. And, 

frankly, we believe that we can provide a lot of professional technical analysis and assistance that is based on our experience from 

looking at projects around the world from decades of experience 

and, quite frankly, could probably clarify a lot, an awful lot of the 

misconceptions that they have. 

Mr. DENHAM. So State and Federal Government are just not 

communicating? 

Mr. SZABO. The State government and our office is communicating very effectively. California High-Speed Rail, we are communicating very effectively. My point is that for some reason the 

LAO has not chosen to engage us at all in any discussion, not one, 

to better understand some of the issues and some of the concerns 

that they raise. 

Mr. DENHAM. Have you reached out to them? 

Mr. SZABO. I can find that out for you. I don’t know. I have not, 

personally. 

81 

But again, if they are doing research and want to be unbiased 

and accurate, isn’t it incumbent on them, as they do their research, 

to make sure they talk to everybody that is appropriate? 

Mr. DENHAM. I—— 

Mr. SZABO. I mean you don’t limit your research to just those 

sources that you want to hear from. 

Mr. DENHAM. No, I would absolutely agree. But the California taxpayers are on the hook for $9.95 billion. And in that bond it was 

written in that the legislature could call that back at any time with 

a majority vote. 

So, before the Federal Government comes to this committee and 

says, ‘‘We need $50 billion for high-speed rail, all of that going to 

California,’’ I would assume that California’s commitment of $9.95 

billion, at the minimum, would—there would be a conversation 

there. I mean that would only seem likely. And if California is not 

communicating with you, well, I don’t know why you would obligate 

the rest of the taxpayers across the Nation on anything further. So 

my recommendation would be to—I will recommend to them as 

well—but obviously, we need to start some better communication. 

Second question I have is you note in your testimony that Amtrak’s San Joaquin’s service could be routed over the IC’s infrastructure. What is the likelihood that service would ultimately be 

routed over the ICS, assuming that it stops right there, which is 

what is covered under the current legislation. If it stops there, 

what is the likelihood that Amtrak would actually use—— 

Mr. SZABO. A couple of points. A couple of important points. I 

mean first off, should there be a delay in constructing the first operable segment, we very easily could use this completed segment 

for operation in the San Joaquin’s. 

And it is important to note that that is the fifth largest—fifth 

most utilized, most heavily used route on the Amtrak system. That 

region is home to almost 6 million people. The Central Valley, you 

know, people are calling it nowhere. If taken alone, it would be 

larger than two-thirds of the States in our Nation. So this isn’t nowhere. It is an area that has significant population. And that segment most assuredly would be used. 

Mr. DENHAM. And just to be clear, the construction segment is the $5.2 billion segment, which is covered under the $3.6 billion 

from the stimulus dollars, with additional funds coming from the 

State. 

Mr. SZABO. Right. 

Mr. DENHAM. The operating segment—so the construction segment that we are talking about Amtrak using would be from just 

north of Fresno to just south of Fresno. So—— 

Mr. SZABO. Yes. Again, assuming—— 

Mr. DENHAM [continuing]. That would actually—— 

Mr. SZABO. Assuming that there were some delay in completing 

the first operable segment, the construction segment could be put 

into use very, very quickly, very, very easily. And that would provide immediate utility for that segment. 

Mr. DENHAM. It is my understanding—and, Mr. van Ark, you can clarify me, if you would—but the construction segment, the $5.2 

billion, does not connect with Amtrak. But the operational segment 

which goes from Fresno to Bakersfield does connect, the difference 

82 

being about $25 billion, one is $30 billion, the other is $5.2 billion. 

So we are going to have to come up with not only the State obligation, but another $30 billion on top of that. 

Mr. VAN ARK. Mr. Chairman, the initial construction section 

starts close to the ‘‘Y.’’ That means north of Fresno. It is approximately 130 miles, and it stops just south of Bakersfield. So it is a 

130-mile section. 

The initial operating section goes either to San Jose in the north, 

or alternatively—that would mean from Bakersfield all the way to 

San Jose, or from Merced all the way down to the San Fernando 

Valley. That would be the first initial operating section. 

Mr. DENHAM. So the construction segment of—the $5.2 billion 

definitely would—— 

Mr. SZABO. Can easily—— 

Mr. DENHAM [continuing]. Would be usable for Amtrak. 

Mr. SZABO. Can easily be usable. 

Mr. VAN ARK. Correct, correct. 

Mr. SZABO. Yes, yes. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. And what happens to Federal funds if 

voters of California rescind the State bond, either through going 

back to the ballot, or if the State legislature, on a majority vote, 

decides to pull back the funds? What happens to the Federal funds, 

Mr. Szabo? 

Mr. SZABO. Well, I don’t think I want to speculate on what California voters may or may not do. We have made a commitment to 

the California High-Speed Rail Authority and to the people of California on this project. We are going to deal with the facts that are 

at hand. 

And, you know, we are committed to completing the first construction segment. We believe that if the first operating segment 

is completed, it will in fact turn a profit day one and be the catalyst that we need to bring in the private investment. 

I think that is the most important thing to remember here. We 

are truly talking about a public-private partnership. And the worst 

thing that we can do is show uncertainty. Because if you are showing uncertainty you are actually generating risk for the private sector that is going to minimize their willingness to come forward. 

And right now there is very, very strong interest from the private 

sector in this project. 

And so, we need to be taking all the steps that we can to ensure 

the project’s viability, and to present that foundation for the private sector investment. 

Mr. DENHAM. My question is, the same way that if I were going 

to invest in something as a private investor, I would make sure 

that there was certainty, as well. I would make sure that if funds 

were not available, if the other side did not do what they said they 

were going to do, that I would have an ability to pull out of my 

obligation. 

Now, I know that there is no obligated private investor out there. 

But, from a Federal perspective, you are obligating Federal taxpayer dollars. So there must be some type of contingency to say if 

California does not come up with their fair share, the Federal Government is able to rescind theirs. 

83 

Mr. SZABO. We are committed to the project. We have made the 

obligation, and we stand behind our commitment. 

Mr. DENHAM. So if there is no private investor and there is—just 

want to be clear—no private investor, California doesn’t come up 

with their money, which they have not done to date—which the attorney general or the Governor has not come up with the money, 

neither has the State legislature—if that money does not exist, you 

are still willing to put more Federal dollars out there than what 

we currently have? That is the Administration’s—— 

Mr. SZABO. We are not talking about more Federal dollars at this 

point. I am talking about the commitment that we have made in 

this initial obligation. We have made it, we are committed to the 

first construction segment, and we are not going to flinch on that 

support. 

Mr. DENHAM. OK, but there is no—— 

Mr. VAN ARK. And, Mr. Chairman—— 

Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Szabo, there is an important aspect here. The 

initial segment is $5.2 billion. You can correct my math if it is off 

anywhere. I believe it is $5.2 billion. Of that we have $3.3 billion 

left in stimulus dollars. 

So, are you saying we are going to go ahead and obligate the $3.3 

billion to this first part of the project, regardless of whether or not 

the State ever comes up with their matching dollars? 

Mr. SZABO. That obligation has already been made. We have legally obligated those dollars already, and we are prepared to move 

into construction in spring. 

Mr. DENHAM. You have obligated them with the $2 billion of 

State dollars. 

Mr. SZABO. They are obligated based on all of the appropriate 

contingencies, of course, you know, to make sure that California 

High-Speed Rail meets all their obligations. So, you know, of course 

there is a list of contingencies that ensure that that first construction segment goes forward in accordance with the cooperative 

agreement That we have signed with them. 

But provided that all of those contingencies are met, you know, 

we stand behind—the worst thing we could do is make obligations 

to folks, and then start to renege on our word. 

Mr. DENHAM. OK. Let me ask the question a different way. 

We start obligating dollars, the money starts getting spent. Shovels start getting put into the ground. If the State government reneges, if the State government does not put their money out there, 

do you continue to spend the $3.3 billion? 

Mr. SZABO. Well, here. Again—— 

Mr. DENHAM. If there is a contingency in place, there has to at 

some point be—— 

Mr. SZABO. Yes. 

Mr. DENHAM. The money is not there today. 

Mr. SZABO. I am not going to speculate on what the State may 

or may not do. But certainly all conditions of the cooperative agreement have to be met before we expend dollars. 

Mr. DENHAM. Sir, I am not asking you to speculate. I am just 

making sure that you have a safeguard to taxpayer dollars. 

Mr. SZABO. Of course, through the cooperative agreement. So all 

of the conditions—we sign an agreement. We sign a cooperative 

84 

agreement with the California High-Speed Rail. It outlines all of 

the requirements for that agreement to be satisfied, and allow for 

the expenditure of the dollars. 

So, you bet there are significant safeguards built into each and 

every one of these agreements we sign with the State. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. This committee would request a copy 

of those documents. 

And, by the way, we are still waiting for the documents that Secretary LaHood had promised that we would have before this committee started. So just as an FYI. 

I am way over my time. I will certainly be very lenient with the 

time of other Members. And at this time I would like to recognize 

Member Napolitano. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Chairman Denham. It is interesting. As you know, most of you have already had conversations 

with me at one point or another about how I feel, and how I have 

questions. Not only have people stated that they have to appease 

me—it is not me, it is the cities that I represent who have concerns 

about the issues on the high-speed rail moving forward. 

Mr. Szabo, there is a couple questions. Well, first of all, let me 

say to Mr. Denham that I am—and I did mention it to him—that 

I am disappointed that nobody from the LA County—only about 13 

million people—are represented here. It is a major community that 

is supposed to be a player, and it is not. And again I go back to 

the fact that we have not had a continuing dialogue with the HighSpeed Rail Authority for almost two—a year-and-a-half. And that 

is the last time that I know that we have been asked to sit at the 

table to talk about what is happening. And I hope that changes. 

Otherwise, you will be hearing from me again. 

There are assertions about the ridership of—that is going to pay 

for itself, that is going to be a boost to the Central Valley, the hardest hit on unemployment, that it is going to create all these—and 

those facts, those figures, are coming from somewhere. But we 

don’t know whether they are viable or not. Who is making those 

figures up? 

And I agree with the gentleman from the Valley on the water 

issue, because that is one of the biggest things that we try to protect, is the delivery of the water for the farms to continue to 

produce—the breadbasket of the United States and for the rest of 

the world in many areas. Is that growth viable? 

And then the other question that comes up—and this is to anybody—who owns the major country high-speed rail abroad? Who 

owns it? Who controls it, so that you don’t have to pay for the land, 

which—it is part of the biggest cost of this high-speed rail issue. 

And you talked, Ms. Swearengin, about public rail paying for 

itself. Not even Amtrak pays for itself. So it is always subsidized. 

This will continue to be subsidized. 

Mr. VAN ARK. No. 

Mr. SZABO. No. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Well, that is only assumptions. Again, you are 

saying don’t use assumptions, but we are allowing you to make assumptions. So unless you can really corner them and State where 

those assumptions are made from, it is not usable. 

85 

Then there was an issue not too long ago of where analysts were 

saying that the cost to build—the guesstimate cost to build the 

high-speed rail would have been less than what is now projected. 

Number one, because there was high unemployment, and people 

were hungry to get to work. There was a lack of being able to get 

materials, et cetera, but that became a non-issue. Yet I have heard 

from others that this is—would have been less, but the figures that 

are being used are blown up, they are more than they should be. 

So, I mean, it brings a lot to the—to—back into this fray. 

And to Mr. Szabo, the monitoring and oversight, does that also 

include the ability for High-Speed Rail Authority to work with the 

communities, and ensure that they have not only the right-of-way, 

the past resolutions—as you heard, many cities have already 

passed resolutions banning it going from city—because I was told 

by High-Speed Rail Authority in a meeting with my three COGs— 

77 percent of the cities in LA County—that there was no option for 

them, that it was going to, whether they liked it or not. And I 

raised my hand and I said, ‘‘Yes, you do. You go to court.’’ 

Mr. SZABO. Congresswoman, you have had so many questions in 

there, it is hard to—— 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. And I can keep going, too, Mr. Szabo. 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. Work through them all. And I think 

there are good answers to every one of them. 

First off, let’s talk about working through the communities. And, 

you know, it comes back to something that Congressman Denham 

said earlier, you know, Congressman, your frustration with the 

NEPA and the CEQA process. But unfortunately, that is the process that ensures that the communities get a voice, a very, very necessary voice. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Just for a second, Mr. Szabo—— 

Mr. SZABO. And that is why we have to work through that process. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Yes. But—— 

Mr. SZABO. If I can—— 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO [continuing]. Let me clarify NEPA/CEQA. We 

are trying to clarify that for California here in this committee, trying to make sure that it is acceptable to use NEPA and CEQA—— 

Mr. SZABO. Yes, yes. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO [continuing]. Without having to go through—— 

Mr. SZABO. But I would like to come back, you know, to the frustrations and the concerns of the—that Kings County raised. You 

know, it is one of the reasons why, you know, in October we announced that we were going to do a supplemental environmental 

study for them, you know, re-open the record. And it was a matter 

of listening to the concerns that they have, and trying to find a way 

through the process, to make sure that the community has an opportunity to engage. 

So, absolutely. You know, we monitor and work with the California High-Speed Rail Authority through that environmental process. It is a requirement of law and, you know, is an important tool 

to make sure that a lot of these important issues and frustrations, 

concerns that communities have, have a process to get flushed 

through, and to make sure that there is a good record from which 

the final determination is based. 

86 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Have you been in contact with my COGs, my 

councils of government in LA County? 

Mr. SZABO. Certainly they have been a part of the environmental 

process, yes. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. When? I am sorry, but I have not heard from 

them, so I can’t say that truthfully. I am sorry, go ahead. 

Mr. SZABO. No, but certainly I can allow, in a minute, Roelof to 

comment on what their outreach efforts have been through the environmental process. But I would really like to come back to the 

ridership, because I think there is a couple of very important points 

to be made there. 

First off, if you take a look at the ridership analysis that California High-Speed Rail did in their business plan—and I will let 

Roelof drill down a little deeper on this in a minute—but it is actually very conservative. 

When it went through the international peer review—again, by 

those that have built and operated high-speed rail around the 

world for decades—it was found to be very, very conservative and 

used as a ratio that is actually less than one-to-one, population 

versus projected ridership. And if you take a look at most of the 

systems around the world, it is substantially higher, usually a 

three-to-one ratio, or—you can correct the record if I am wrong— 

in France is it almost a four-to-one ratio. 

The comparison to the Northeast Corridor is a very, very false 

comparison. It is not even apples to oranges. It is an apples to bananas comparison, for a couple of reasons. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. OK, Mr. Szabo, we are running out of time. 

Would you mind wrapping it up? 

Mr. SZABO. OK. The biggest reason you can’t compare the two is, 

first off, the Northeast Corridor is capacity constrained today. Ridership is stunted because virtually every train is selling out. So we 

are not even measuring what the ridership potential is there if 

there was sufficient capital to make additional investments there. 

Secondly, the type of service that California High-Speed Rail is 

talking about is much different and far superior to the existing 

Acela service that exists today. Acela would be considered more 

what we call regional service under the new high-speed rail vision. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. OK, thank you. And I have been to—with Ms. 

Brown. She invited me to a CODEL to all these foreign countries. 

I rode on them. We talked to the boards. We asked questions. So 

I am aware of how they operate and where they operate. 

So—and you talk about apples to oranges. They travel at almost—what, 225 miles per hour, Corrine? 

What is the highest speed we are going to be able to achieve 

here? Because the stretches are so small, in terms of some of the— 

not the inner cities, but some of those areas. I know my topography, too, a little bit. Not that well, but—— 

Mr. SZABO. No, the vision for the California project is 220 miles 

per hour. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. In some areas. But in my area—— 

Mr. SZABO. Substantial—— 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO [continuing]. When they were looking at going 

from LA to San Diego, they were going to destroy a built transportation center because it had a curve in it, and build a new one. And 

87 

I think, ‘‘Well, wait a minute. What—how sense does this make— 

how much sense does this make?’’ And to build a curve over into 

Santa Ana area, to the Orange County instead of all the way down 

to San Diego, doesn’t make quite sense by curving it or coming 

back and making two rail heads. 

There is a lot of explanations that have not been clarified. And 

we need to be able to say—if this is a second phase and we are in 

it, then we want to be sure that the Authority is working on the 

same—— 

Mr. SZABO. Right, right. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO [continuing]. From the same plan that we 

need, not that the Authority wants, but that the people who represent those areas are able to determine that this is the best for 

them, and that the ridership is there, and that they can afford to 

be on it. 

Am I correct? Anybody? Please answer real quickly, because I got 

to get off. 

Mr. AMANTE. Congresswoman, I will just venture out and say 

you are right. We will take my area in Orange County, where we 

own the right-of-way, and that would be part of the track that 

would be shared track for high speed in those segments. It is certainly not going to travel 220 miles an hour there. It won’t through 

most urban areas. But it is an area dense with riders, it is an area 

that can provide ridership. 

It is an area where it will attract private-public partnerships, because the private sector has an opportunity for the two things they 

need. One is the opportunity for profitability so they would invest, 

and the second is the certainty of ridership and the certainty of investment from both the public and the private sector. 

Where those areas exist, yes, you can have a profitable system 

that operates and operates well. It won’t operate in the same way 

you have it in foreign countries. It won’t be on strictly straight 

tracks. And it won’t move at speeds of 225 miles throughout the 

system. It can’t. It may get you where you want to go. Maybe not 

in 2 hours and 40 minutes. But when you have connected all the 

segments over time, it will get you to the places you want to go. 

In urban areas it will move at greater speeds. 

What is most important to the rider is that they have an opportunity to have another option other than the car. In our area in Orange County, people who ride public transit, buses, rubber tire applications, generally are the working poor and students, $25,000 a 

year and under. 

Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Amante, thank you. 

Mr. AMANTE. People who ride the trains choose to do it—— 

Mr. DENHAM. I have got to interrupt you. I know Mr. Szabo is 

very close to leaving—— 

Mr. SZABO. Mr. Chairman, I have got my deputy here, and Karen 

Hedlund is prepared to slide in. So don’t worry, we will continue 

to have representation here. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. And we will come back to a second 

round of questioning. 

But at this time I would like to recognize Mr. Harris for 5 minutes. 

88 

Dr. HARRIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

And I will direct my questions, earliest questions, to Mr. Szabo. 

But Mr. Upton, I just wanted to lead up to that. I read your testimony and it says that you have sent an FIOA—FOIA request to 

the Railroad Administration on December 2, 2010. 

Mr. UPTON. Yes, sir. 

Dr. HARRIS. You still have not received a—— 

Mr. UPTON. We have not received. We asked for Mr. Denham’s 

help and also Mr. Cardoza. 

Dr. HARRIS. Now, Mr. Szabo, that is your shop, isn’t it? 

Mr. SZABO. You bet it is. 

Dr. HARRIS. OK. Now, the chairman—you know, you had suggested that, you know, when someone wants to do their due diligence they ought to come to you and ask for information. That was 

your testimony just 10 minutes ago, wasn’t it? 

Mr. SZABO. It is. 

Dr. HARRIS. OK. 

Mr. SZABO. It absolutely is. And if I may say—— 

Dr. HARRIS. Now, Mr. Upton’s group came to you—— 

Mr. SZABO. Sir, if I may say for the record—— 

Dr. HARRIS. Sir, sir, it is my turn to ask the question. Your turn 

to answer. 

Mr. SZABO. OK, please ask it. I really want to—— 

Dr. HARRIS. I haven’t asked the question yet. Is it true that Mr. 

Upton’s group sent a request 1 year and 12 days ago, and your Administration has been unresponsive to that request? That is a yes 

or no. You either responded—— 

Mr. SZABO. The answer to that is—— 

Dr. HARRIS [continuing]. Or you didn’t. 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. No, we immediately—— 

Dr. HARRIS. Thank you. Now, let me keep on going. 

Mr. SZABO. We immediately made—— 

Dr. HARRIS. Sir, sir, sir—— 

Mr. SZABO. We immediately—and, in fact, the documents—— 

Dr. HARRIS. Sir—— 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. Are publicly available on the Web site. 

Dr. HARRIS. Sir, I ask the questions, you answer. You answered 

no. That is very disturbing, because you are asking the people in 

the First Congressional District of Maryland to pay for this. 

Mr. SZABO. My answer no was that we made the records available. 

Dr. HARRIS. Sir, I am still asking the questions. That is disturbing to me, because the citizens in my district are being asked 

to pay—in fact, what is interesting is you or I are the only ones 

between this panel and all the Members here who actually don’t 

come from California. But we are being asked to pay for it. 

Now, let me just ask a couple of things. A couple of pieces of your 

testimony. You said this was going to turn a profit day one. Sir, 

that is only in the way a person who works for the Government can 

say ‘‘turn a profit.’’ Because, you know, if this were a private enterprise, the capital expense would be included in whether or not you 

turn a profit. 

This is a yes or no question. When you say it turns it a profit, 

does that include paying back the interest to China for the stimVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:42 May 25, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00110 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULL\12-15-~1\71740.TXT JEAN
89 

ulus money borrowing that is going to go to that—to the segments 

of that rail? 

Mr. SZABO. That is not an accurate question, sir. 

Dr. HARRIS. Which part is inaccurate? Sir, is that—the capital 

expense you are talking about—— 

Mr. SZABO. This system—— 

Dr. HARRIS [continuing]. Is stimulus funding capital expense. 

Mr. SZABO. This system will turn an operating profit from day 

one based on—— 

Dr. HARRIS. Ah, but sir, I will go back—— 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. Based on the way that these types of 

systems are judged across the world, which is the above-rail cost. 

And, as comparable to everything in Europe and Asia, it will generate an operating profit. 

Dr. HARRIS. Thank you. But your testimony before was ‘‘turn a 

profit.’’ You didn’t say turn an operating—I just want to make sure 

that the people—you see, because you are asking my citizens in my 

district to pay for that capital expense. So don’t you think they 

ought to—you ought to be more specific and say it is the operating 

profit? Because the people in my district are going to have to pay 

part of the capital expense—— 

Mr. SZABO. You talking about the value of the capital investment? 

Dr. HARRIS. Yes, sir, that is right. 

Mr. SZABO. But there is value to the people of the Nation. Again, 

take it back to the delays—— 

Dr. HARRIS. Well, sir—— 

Mr. SZABO. Take it back to the delays at the LA Airport and the 

San Francisco airport. 

Dr. HARRIS. Let me tell you something, sir. 

Mr. SZABO. And right now it’s—— 

Dr. HARRIS. The people in the First Congressional District in 

Maryland very rarely travel through the San Francisco Airport or 

the LA Airport. 

Mr. SZABO. But it affects the economy. 

Dr. HARRIS. They kind of stay near Salisbury and Baltimore, to 

be honest with you. 

Mr. SZABO. Congressman, it affects the—— 

Dr. HARRIS. Now, let me keep on going. 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. Economy of our Nation. It is very important. 

Dr. HARRIS. You said—to get to the chair’s—you said you are not 

going to flinch on the support. Now, we have evidence that the 

California voters kind of indicating they might be flinching on the 

support. In fact, I have got a polling—and I know it is just a poll, 

it is not an election—that suggests by a two-to-one margin they actually might want to go back on that little $9 billion deal. 

If they flinch—let me just confirm this—if they flinch—because 

this was your answer to the chairman—you said that that means 

that maybe we could retain some of that $3 billion that we have 

to borrow. 

Mr. SZABO. The $3 billion are fully obligated today. There is a 

cooperative agreement. And based on the terms of that cooperative 

90 

agreement being met, we have a legal and binding obligation to 

continue to move forward. 

You know, the worst thing you can do is try and lead by polls. 

There is no denying what the need of this project is for the people 

of California and how it affects the economy of our Nation. 

Dr. HARRIS. Well, sir, I am going to suggest—— 

Mr. SZABO. And capacity constraints—— 

Dr. HARRIS. I only have a few seconds left. I am going to suggest 

that, again, I only—you know, I am sent here to speak for the people of the First Congressional District in Maryland. The cost of this 

project ultimately could be $70 billion transferred to the people of 

the United States. That is $300 for every man, woman, and child 

in my district. I bet if I take a poll—even though you don’t believe 

polls—the average person in my district says, ‘‘Over my dead body 

do I want to pay $300 in Federal taxes and borrow that money to 

build a railroad to nowhere,’’ because that is the testimony. 

This first segment is truly—I mean this is almost—this is stunning. Only the Federal Government could plan to build this railroad, and start it in the least populated area of the State. Furthermore, going back and saying, ‘‘You know what? We are not only 

going to build it where we have existing infrastructure, we are 

going to build it somewhere else, where apparently the local community doesn’t want it.’’ And the FRA, a branch of this Government, doesn’t even want to give the information to that local jurisdiction. 

Mr. SZABO. First off, sir, we made it available—— 

Dr. HARRIS. Sir, it is—— 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. It is publicly posted on the Internet. 

Dr. HARRIS. There is no question, no question standing. 

Mr. DENHAM. All time has expired. 

Dr. HARRIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SZABO. It is publicly available—— 

Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Szabo, all time has—— 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. Information posted on the Internet. 

Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Szabo, all time has expired. The chair now recognizes Ms. Richardson. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Ms. Brown, if that is OK? 

Ms. BROWN. Yes. I would like it if the administrator could answer—maybe another 10 minutes so she can ask her questions and 

I can ask mine. And we won’t be rude. 

Mr. SZABO. I have got to meet with the Iraqi transportation minister, but I will—until about 1:05 and then I will leave. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Well—— 

Mr. SZABO. Karen Hedlund here—— 

Ms. BROWN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. Who is very, very capable of handling—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Well, Mr. Szabo, though—— 

Ms. BROWN. No, I need you, though—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON [continuing]. With all due respect, we have sat 

here since 10:00 this morning—— 

Mr. SZABO. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. RICHARDSON [continuing]. Waiting for an opportunity to ask 

you these questions. 

91 

Mr. SZABO. Yes, sure. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. And I think our domestic policy far exceeds 

anyone in Iraq. 

So, we are asking for 10 minutes to ask you questions, please. 

Mr. DENHAM. Ms. Richardson, proceed. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you. 

Mr. SZABO. Please. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Mr. Szabo, can you tell me what is the projected funding for the Northeast Corridor needed for their project? 

Mr. SZABO. The estimates that came from Amtrak right now are 

$117 million in order to bring it to, you know, world-class, 220- 

miles-per-hour speeds, which we think is a worthy project. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. OK. And is that project fully funded at this 

time? 

Mr. SZABO. It is not. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. OK. So I think, for the record, we just—you 

know, I understand the passion of everyone. But in all fairness, the 

Northeast Corridor, you just heard for the record, is not fully funded at this point, either, and taxpayers may be on the hook for assisting in that process. 

Number three, has the cost projections of the NEC included inflation, et cetera, as the California plan before us? 

Mr. SZABO. No. That is a key difference between the NEC proposal at this time and in California. The California project has already calculated in 3-percent inflation each and every year. And so 

these are inflated dollars, where the NEC project is in today’s dollars. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. OK. So would you supply to this committee— 

so, since everyone wants to compare apples to apples, let’s compare 

the inflation, all of the costs that we have included in the California plan, if you could, supply to this committee the same for the 

Northeast Corridor, so we can compare apples to apples. OK? 

Mr. SZABO. Absolutely. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Last question, sir, and so I am going to far exceed my time, and I think we can get you out, but we need—— 

Mr. SZABO. OK. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. We need your help and you on the record for 

these issues. 

I asked Secretary LaHood last week when he was here if for 

some reason there was a need or a request for a change other than 

starting in the Central Valley, was that possible on the Federal 

end. Because I was told that no changes could be made. Is—— 

Mr. SZABO. And, Congresswoman, it is not. And this comes back 

to the congressional mandates under PRIIA and ARRA. It is not a 

matter of where we have been granted flexibility. There is very, 

very clear criteria that this committee and Congress set up by law 

that has to guide where the grants go, what are required in order 

to be eligible. And the ability to shift the dollars is—it is not there. 

It is not there. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. In ARRA was it noted funding generally for 

high-speed rail, or was it specifically for the Central Valley corridor? 

Mr. SZABO. No, it was the requirements for high-speed rail. 

92 

And see, you know, it is important that the committee understand that FRA doesn’t just get to pick wherever we want to invest 

the dollars. We have to sort through the applications that the State 

makes. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Sir, reclaiming—— 

Mr. SZABO. And only then can we make our decision. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Reclaiming my time, because I am trying to 

help you, and I hope you see that—— 

Mr. SZABO. OK, sure. 

Ms. RICHARDSON [continuing]. Through the questions that I am 

asking. 

My question is, it is my understanding, with what we voted 

through with ARRA, I voted for funding for high-speed rail. I didn’t 

specifically say $700 million can go to the Central Valley. So I am 

going to come back to my question. You said that it is congressional 

authority that would have to allow a change of a particular line. 

See, to me, if I didn’t originally vote for the line, I don’t see how 

that is congressional authority. 

Mr. SZABO. Yes, it is the—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON. I see that as being yours. 

Mr. SZABO. It is the criteria that was established relative to 

project readiness and, again, the process that we had to follow in 

order to select the recipients of the grants, the criteria that had to 

be met for the grant to be eligible, you know, and there are several 

things. 

And it is important to note that a key part of it was, in fact— 

since this was part of recovery—unemployment was a key part of 

it. You know, and the fact that the unemployment rate in the Central Valley exceeds that in the other areas of California was just 

one of those criterias. 

But it also came back to project readiness, you know, how advanced the engineering was, where they were at in the environmental process—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON. OK, sir. So if—and I am supporting the project 

as it is, but I am trying to get at some of these questions that have 

been out there—if it is found, for example, given the more recent 

investment that was done in San Francisco, for example, I believe 

a quarter of a—— 

Mr. SZABO. Yes. 

Ms. RICHARDSON [continuing]. A billion dollars, if it were found 

that starting from the north would be appropriate, and that was 

urged from this Congress, would that be considered? Or if it was 

from the south? 

Mr. SZABO. Well, here. Those projects that were ready we did, in 

fact, make investments under ARRA in both the north and 

south—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON. No, I am speaking specifically regarding highspeed rail. If it was determined that the initial segment would be 

in a different place in California—— 

Mr. SZABO. Yes. We don’t have the ability to shift these dollars 

now and meet the requirements of the law. It just simply is impossible. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. OK—— 

93 

Mr. SZABO. What is helpful is the fact that they are going with 

the blended approach now, and that California High-Speed Rail is, 

in fact, prepared to start making some investments in the LA and 

San Francisco regions. But this initial $3.5 billion that we have invested, there is no 

ability to shift it. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. OK, sir, so I would just—— 

Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Szabo, thank you. The chair now recognizes 

Mr. Miller. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Mr. Chair, I think—— 

Mr. DENHAM. Time has expired. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you very much. 

Mr. DENHAM. We are happy to come back around for a second 

round, but Ms. Brown still wants to get some time in, too. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Could I ask for information for the record? 

Mr. DENHAM. For the record. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you, sir. Mr. Szabo, if you could please 

submit for the record to this committee, since it has been of much 

discussion, whether it can, whether it cannot, and under what conditions it could. 

Mr. SZABO. Very good. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SZABO. Thank you, Congresswoman. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Mr. Miller. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Yes, thank you. I appreciate that we 

look at the applications we have received from the State for funding levels. But the facts of California keep getting in the way of 

what we are talking about today, whether we like it or not. 

Mr. Amante, I think a good question for you—it is not my numbers, but the California Transportation Commission. A recent report said there is a $340 billion shortfall in highway maintenance 

over the next 10 years, just in that alone. And given the cost of 

project backlogs, how can we justify even a discussion of this type 

of project, based on the reality of California’s bonding limits is at 

a questionable level. I mean for them to sell more bonds, they are 

going to be junk rated, because they are just far beyond the legal 

capacity they should have. 

How do we justify the discussion, based on the acknowledged 

shortfall by CTC? 

Mr. AMANTE. Congressman, I can’t answer that any better than 

you can. We come from the same State. We both recognize where 

we are, in terms of the economy in California and, frankly, nationally. So, you are right. We have an enormous amount of deferred 

maintenance. And I will tell you that that is true across the country, not just in its most populous State. 

There are issues in transportation about the color of money. If 

the Federal Government is going to invest in high-speed rail, I suggest that its investment ought to be in corridors where you have 

got perhaps demonstrated ridership and the ability to—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. OK, let me expand on that. Because 

Mr. Harris brought up a very good comment. And I happen to 

agree with where we are starting the project makes no sense. 

And the—my good colleagues and friends on the other side of the 

aisle had said we don’t support high-speed rail. And based on the 

94 

record, that is not true. In 2005 I put an earmark in for Maglev, 

which basically started in the Anaheim Convention Center to the 

most under-served airport in California: Ontario. And the goal was 

north Orange County absolutely needed an airport, there had been 

much debate, and people had been thrown out of office because we 

didn’t have that. And at least the first phase of that would have 

paid for itself in ridership, because it was a huge benefit in doing 

that. 

Mr. AMANTE. And, Congressman, that was visionary, and still is. 

Ontario Airport has lots of room for expansion and gates, they just 

don’t want the ground transportation and the impacts of their communities, nor do the communities along that corridor. We all know 

what that means, when we—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. But Ontario welcomes it. 

Mr. AMANTE. They would welcome it if they had a rail connection 

that brought passengers there—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. And that is what they want. 

Mr. AMANTE [continuing]. The plan that you had—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. They are totally behind that project. 

But, Mr. van Ark, I guess the question I have—and it is on the 

funding mechanism, because I think I was the only Republican to 

chair the budget committee in California in the last 70 years—I am 

an oxymoron to begin with—but you talk about TRIP bonds. And 

I think that is probably the Federal qualified tax credit bonds discussed in the Senate on S. 1436. And you were relying on about 

$12.6 billion on a bill that is a bill, not a law, I guess, is my first 

concern. 

And you know, both last year’s and the present Federal fiscal 

year, we have zeroed out high-speed rail, so there is nothing there 

to fall back on. So—and even if you could say 1436 was a reality, 

if—it is for $30 billion, not $50 billion, but let’s use the $50 billion 

level. You can only use 2 percent of that per State. So, based on 

2 percent, that is $1 billion. And even the California State treasurer testified a week ago that $1 billion can be leveraged into $1.5 

billion. I am trying to figure out how to leverage my dollar into 

1.50. But let’s say it can happen. What do you do with the other 

$11.9 billion you are short, based on your estimate given on that 

specific fact alone? 

Mr. VAN ARK. [No response.] 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. I mean it is a hypothetical funding 

source—— 

Mr. VAN ARK. Congressman, it is a calculation that has been 

done, that has been put into the business plan—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. No, I understand—— 

Mr. VAN ARK [continuing]. As an example. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. No, I understand it is a calculation. 

But the reality is it is not a law, it is a bill. If it were a law based 

on the bill, you couldn’t count on more than $1 billion of it by the 

bill’s language in and of itself. 

So, if you take the language within the bill, and it gives you $1 

billion, not $12.9 billion, you are—and I am not trying to argue 

with you, I am just saying I am having trouble making these numbers add up, based on the reality of what the bill says. 

95 

Mr. VAN ARK. Again, the example in there is an example of how 

the mechanism could work, rather than that being the funding—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. I didn’t understand that. I am trying 

hard. 

Mr. VAN ARK. The calculation in the business plan is an example 

of how that could work. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. It is an example of how it could 

work—— 

Mr. VAN ARK. An example. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA [continuing]. If the bill were law, and 

if the bill did allow that, correct? 

Mr. VAN ARK. Correct, yes. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. But it is not law, and it doesn’t allow 

it. So why would you use something that is not law, that is not allowed under the proposed law, as an example of how you are going 

to fund it is my biggest concern. 

There is $11.9 billion—the reason the people of California have 

turned against this project—and when it passed originally, I 

thought, ‘‘How can you continue to bond California at the level we 

are?’’ And I know from the Federal perspective on the rail side, 

that is none of our business. But I live in California, so it is not 

a hit on the Federal Government, but we are creating a disaster 

in California, and we have done it for the last 10 years. We have 

a bonding disaster. 

But you are using funds in here that are not even a pipe dream, 

because there is no way in the world. But—can I conclude with one 

last question on here? 

I guess it is the per-passenger mile cost that you have come up 

with. You have $.20 per passenger mile, based on 520 miles from 

LA to San Francisco. But in 2007 we had another hearing on highspeed rails, and we brought the best in: France, Germany, Spain, 

and Japan. And we have patterned a lot of our Maglev and other 

things after that whole concept. But at their best, they found out 

that Government had to fund it, which—it is not allowed under the 

California High-Speed Train Act that was authorized. To begin 

with, we can’t do that, but we are doing it. 

But at that, they are paying $.45 a mile for a very efficient program. How in the world, in these countries who really utilized 

high-speed rail, can we say we are going to do it for $.20, when everybody else in the world—that is like how can you cook grits for 

3 minutes when everybody else in the world takes 15? How do you 

do it for $.20 when everybody else spends 45? 

Mr. DENHAM. And, Mr. van Ark, I would ask you to hold your 

response and I would gladly give you my time as it comes back 

around to me to respond. But right now I want to make sure I am 

respectful to Mr. Szabo’s time. And I would just remind the committee that if you have on-the-record questions that you would like 

to submit for Mr. Szabo, we will compile those and submit those 

after the hearing. 

At this time the chair recognizes Ms. Brown for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Szabo. A couple of quick questions. 

I think you cleared up part of my question. Does the—do you, the 

Federal Government, put in the application, or does the State put 

in the application? Because some of my colleagues seem to be conVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:42 May 25, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00117 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULL\12-15-~1\71740.TXT JEAN
96 

fused. They think that we actually go to them, fill out the applications, do the studies, and then we make the decision. Is this a partnership, or what? 

Mr. SZABO. No. You are correct, Chairwoman. It is the States 

that apply, and then we review those applications. And then, based 

on the criteria that is established both in law and in our guidance, 

we make decisions on what should be—— 

Ms. BROWN. OK. There was a question. San Diego to Los Angeles. Did the State apply or—they did not? 

Mr. SZABO. No, there was never an application for that. You 

know, and obviously it is something that may have some merit. 

And if the State would, in fact, apply for it, it would be something 

that, of course, we could consider. 

Ms. BROWN. There was also plenty of discussion—you know, as 

I said often we are number one with freight in the world. I don’t 

care where you go, whether you go into Russia, China. Everybody 

asks us about our freight rail. But we are the caboose when it 

comes to passenger rail, and they don’t even use cabooses any 

more. 

So, can you explain to us about if the project that the Members 

want, freight rail, they are perfectly—they can—I mean do they 

need anything from us? They have the money, they have the employees. They are doing well. I mean I am—you know, the rail is 

rolling in this country. 

Mr. SZABO. Well, I think two things. I think, first off, it is important to note that under our TIGER grant program, freight rail has 

done exceptionally well. This Administration has done more to support and advance freight rail as any Administration in recent history. 

But to your specific question on whether these dollars could be 

used for a freight purpose, no. Again, under the Federal law, the 

statute, and the criteria, the grant criteria—— 

Ms. BROWN. It says high-speed and intercity, is that correct? 

Mr. SZABO. Yes, it is. That is right. 

Ms. BROWN. OK, right. But can the freights do these projects 

that we have been talking about, if they want to, if they see it is 

a financial—— 

Mr. SZABO. Yes. Again, if you take a look at our vision, you 

know, the program that has been put forward, shared with this 

committee, it is three-tiered, you know, that you have the core express high-speed rail, which is those speeds up to 220 miles an 

hour, like they are doing in California, like the Northeast Corridor 

is doing. And then there is that regional express service, which is 

similar to what the Acela is today, that runs from speeds, you 

know, from 90 to 125 miles per hour. That is what is going forward 

in the Midwest. And then you have your feeder services, which—— 

Ms. BROWN. Right. But when I travel around the world, in the 

cities it doesn’t go 200-some miles or 300 miles. In no city. It slows 

down as it goes into the cities, and it is intermodal. Can you just 

give us a quick—— 

Mr. SZABO. Yes. I think it is really important to note that the 

blended approach the California High-Speed Rail is talking about 

is very, very similar to what the TGV, you know, utilizes in France, 

to where out in the countryside, you know, you can go open throtVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:42 May 25, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00118 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULL\12-15-~1\71740.TXT JEAN
97 

tle. They are doing 186 miles an hour there. But they choose to 

use—for a lot of reasons, they choose to use shared right-of-way in 

the urban corridors. It gets them to the center of downtown, which 

is important. It saves tremendous cost. And it saves an awful lot 

of these environmental concerns that communities have. 

Ms. BROWN. And we can use existing tracks, and all of that. 

But there has been some discussion about Maglev. And, you 

know, I am looking in the audience at some of my people who have 

supported Maglev in the past. One of the problems with Maglev 

is—can you just tell us about the cost in comparison with some of 

the other systems? 

Mr. SZABO. Well, I would say this. Our program is actually technologically neutral. 

Ms. BROWN. Right. 

Mr. SZABO. And Maglev certainly is eligible. But one of the challenges for those types of projects is, in fact, the significant upfront 

capital cost. 

Ms. BROWN. All right. Is there anything else you want to say in 

my 48 seconds? 

Mr. SZABO. Just that, relative to the Freedom of Information request, we did immediately make virtually all those documents publicly available. They are available on the Web site today. It is my 

understanding that there were one or two pieces of paper that we 

need some clearance from both the Army Corps of Engineers and 

the EPA, you know, so we have to work through the sister agencies 

to get those, you know, from them and make them available and 

go through their clearance process. 

But 99 percent of what was requested back in 2010 or the date 

that was quoted was immediately made available, is public record 

available on the Internet today. 

Ms. BROWN. I want to thank you for your service. And I have to 

tell you, working with this Administration and with the Secretary 

is a bright spot. Thank you. 

Mr. SZABO. Thank you so much, Ranking Member. 

Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Szabo, I would like to thank you for your indulgence this morning. If you will have Ms. Hedlund continue to 

stay and—— 

Mr. SZABO. And she is highly capable of handling just as tough 

of questions as I am. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. 

Mr. SZABO. Thank you. 

Mr. DENHAM. And again, for the record, we will be submitting 

you a list of questions. One of those questions, as well, we will be 

resubmitting—Mr. Upton had a question that has still not been— 

or the Heritage have not received an answer from a year ago. 

This—we will be submitting that, as well. Thank you. 

At this time I would like to utilize some of my time to allow Mr. 

van Ark the opportunity to respond to Mr. Miller. And I thank you 

for your indulge, as well. 

Mr. VAN ARK. Mr. Chairman, Members, the costs that we have 

got in our business plan have been crossed-checked and are based 

on international costs. All the infrastructure costs, including the 

operationals, are—operations and maintenance costs, including the 

ticket pricing, obviously based on the different economic levels of 

98 

the different countries, but cross-referencing and cross-checking to 

all the systems in the world has been done, including the Acela 

system on the Northeast Corridor that the administrator has already referred to. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. And I did want to clarify one other 

issue. Mr. Gatzka, the issue came up about the first segment of the 

ICS about San Joaquin’s service, and how that would affect, actually, Kings County. I understand you have two stations within 

Kings County, Hanford and Corcoran. If the ICS was connected 

back into Amtrak, if the—you know, going back on the assumption 

that only one phase of this gets done, what does that do to the two 

stations that would be within your county? 

Mr. GATZKA. Well, the high-speed rail alignment if Amtrak was 

switched over and shifted outside of those two stations, which is 

the city of Corcoran and the city of Hanford, those stations basically go away. One of our local groups, actually, is the Hanford 

Business Association, which now has realized that that may potentially be a major impact to them. They are saying that is about an 

$11 million annual hit to their economy by losing Amtrak service 

coming into their downtown Hanford area. That is—those are probably the two key ones. 

In the city of Corcoran, we also have one of the State’s major 

prisons there. Amtrak service going to that smaller city and smaller community is a means of affordable transportation to get families, residents, and other people back and forth, and also to serve 

that prison facility, as well. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. And, Mr. Swearengin, I know you have 

another comment. But with that I wanted to ask you, the initial 

construction segment, if it is all built, what are the benefits that 

that provides to the city of Fresno? And is it worth the $6 billion 

that is currently projected? 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. You bet. And I appreciate the opportunity 

to respond and then make a final comment. 

Just want to relay a story of another business person that just 

a few weeks ago—again, this is a property owner whose property 

is impacted by the alignment, he is a major food producer in the 

Fresno area. And I asked him, ‘‘Are you concerned what’s happening with your property? What’s going on?’’ 

And he said, ‘‘I cannot believe that we will potentially shoot ourselves in the foot and try to stop this train. I am sending jobs to 

LA right now, because I can’t get people to and from Fresno in an 

affordable, fast manner. We have got to have this train.’’ He says, 

‘‘I am the one who is driving to LA every week and San Francisco 

every week.’’ And this is a very conservative business operator in 

Fresno. If I said his name, you would know him well. 

So, I think that is just an example of—you know, obviously, the 

construction jobs are a terrific impact for Fresno and the entire 

San Joaquin Valley. But, frankly, I look at this as the long-term 

connectivity of our subregion in Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley 

to the mega-regions of California. The economy operates when people and ideas and goods connect. And right now, we are significantly hampered in our ability to connect to the other mega-regions. It means our businesses, our graphic designers, our lawyers, 

our creative people are not eligible, and they are not seen as viable 

99 

business partners from the LA area or the San Francisco area, because there is just not the proximity and the ability to connect. So 

I think there is tremendous benefit. 

And I want to just say, in the defense of the Valley, because I 

think it is fair to say, we would not be here right now if the dollars 

had gone somewhere else in California. All of this started, based 

on what we have heard from the Members today and some of the 

panelists, all of this started when the dollars went to the Central 

Valley. Why the Valley? Why the Valley? 

So, let me just put a fine point on this. I believe, as I think you 

have very eloquently put, as did Mr. McCarthy, we have got to invest where we get the fastest path to private investment. We could 

put $31 billion in southern California and, yes, there is ridership 

and there is a vast need for mobility. I understand that. But you 

would not attract private investment with $31 billion going into the 

congested LA Basin. The only point at which you attract private investment is when you can connect two different regions. 

So, while it is difficult for some in other parts of the State to believe that there is value in putting dollars into the backbone, it is 

the fastest path to private investment. I support you continuing to 

focus on that point. Really, the focus here is how do we get to $31 billion. We have got $12 billion right now. So the gap is much smaller, and then we 

trigger private investment. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mayor. And I would agree with your points. Again, my concern continues to be if we have gone from $33 

billion to $100 billion, where does that money come from. I want 

to make sure that we don’t just start building something without 

having the Federal obligation that is there, as well. 

With that I recognize Ms. Brown for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. I guess you answered part of my question, because—and I want to ask this for also Mr. van Ark. How 

did we decide not to start in southern California or northern California, where the ridership is there? In all of the hearings I have 

heard in the past, if you have the ridership, then if the people in 

the area can see the benefits, then they will—you know, it would 

encourage people that want to use the system. They need to see 

some success. 

And I was in California when we announced that we almost doubled the amount. And it was really upsetting to a lot of people. And 

basically, they talked about the study. But I do know that, you 

know, it is how you frame the question. 

So, Mr. van Ark, can you first answer? Then I—yes. 

Mr. VAN ARK. Member Brown, yes, I can. And that is I mentioned 

in my introduction I built these systems around the world. This is 

my background. 

Ms. BROWN. What systems were you involved in building? 

Mr. VAN ARK. For instance, the Hamburg to Frankfurt highspeed rail system, the Holland high-speed rail, the high-speed rail 

system—so I have been involved in high-speed rail and rail systems, including public-private partnerships around the world. 

The thing about high-speed rail is it is about the 

interconnectivity of people, of metropolitan areas, over long distances. I know that people live in those extremities, they live at the 

100 

ends. But the high-speed rail system has lesser value in those 

ends. It is expensive to build in the bookends. But that is not 

where you really operate a high-speed rail system. A high-speed 

rail system is that part, that backbone, that is going to connect 

those cities with each other. 

It is important that we, as Californians, understand that we 

want to connect northern California—the 10 million-plus people 

there—with southern California, through the Central Valley, with 

their 4 million-plus growing population. That is what high-speed 

rail is about. It is—so that is why it is so important to build that 

backbone in the Central Valley, because that is really how—you 

can—I can give you many references in the world, whether it be 

Paris—they built the central portion first—in Japan, they built the 

central portions first. The portions in the cities, which we call this 

blended system, you use the existing infrastructure, and you share 

the existing infrastructure. But without the backbone you will 

never get a high-speed rail system going. 

So, if we want high-speed rail, which I have heard often today, 

if we want high-speed rail in California, we are going to have to 

build the backbone, because that is what high-speed rail is about. 

Ms. BROWN. Yes, sir. You know, we are complaining about $8 billion, all of which did not go into high-speed rail, but the Chinese 

are putting $350 billion. They understand the importance of moving their people, goods, and services. And the fact is you can live 

there and work anywhere. And you know, downtown Brussels to 

downtown Paris, 200 miles, 1 hour and 15 minutes. I mean that 

is the future of this country. It is how we get through it. 

And Ms. Swearengin, can you tell us how many jobs do you think 

the project will create? 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. Well, the estimate for the construction 

phase is 20,000 jobs a year for 5 years. And, as I mentioned, I believe the benefit is well beyond just the construction. I think the 

value is that the permanent connectivity between a major region 

of this country—by California’s standards, you know, the Valley is 

still very small, but when you compare the Valley to virtually every 

other part of the country, it is a big region—but connecting us to 

the LA Basin and to the San Francisco Bay area, that is where the 

real value and benefits comes. 

And, you know, this is a 100-year asset. This changes the way 

our local economy and our local dynamics operate forevermore, in 

my opinion. So, we are certainly looking forward to the immediate 

injection of jobs from the design professionals, the construction 

jobs. But I am looking beyond that, and I am seeing that our manufacturers, our producers, our creative people, now we are eligible 

to compete for work in other parts of the State, because they can 

finally get access to us, and we can get access to them. 

Ms. BROWN. What about the problem that we are experiencing, 

as far as the farmers are concerned? I mean do they not use freight 

rail? Because—— 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. No, they do. In fact, we will—I personally 

will be meeting in just a couple hours with members of the FRA, 

and talking to them about another rail project, upgrading our 

short-haul rail in the Valley, which would have a tremendous impact for the growers in our area. 

101 

So, you know, I think this is an all-of-the-above kind of analysis 

that has to be done. There are freight rail challenges in the Valley. 

The reality is our region has significantly been left behind, in 

terms of infrastructure investment. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Mr. Harris? 

Dr. HARRIS. Thank you very, very much. And I am just going 

to—I am sorry, I had to—from the FRA, I am sorry—oh, yes, and 

Ms.—OK, they switched your name tag, OK. 

I will give the FRA a little help on this, because I am reading 

the initial FOIA request. And maybe it wasn’t specific enough. I 

mean what I am going to ask—and I will ask the committee to submit it, you know, as a question that you can answer later, because 

you may not have the answer—you won’t have the answer—is the 

documents that would describe whether or not this decision was a 

decision made by the FRA to use that route, the—and I am going 

to use the exact term here, the one that goes north, the WCBO, or 

the—now called the West Chowchilla Design Option, or the hybrid 

route, because there is some confusion about whether the FRA insisted on that routing. And that is—I think that goes specifically 

to the point of the FOIA requests. So that is why my question will 

be. It should be a very simple yes or no answer. I mean, and if it 

is an answer that kind of evades that, we will go in a little further, 

then. 

Now, let me just—and again, look. My concern is—because, 

again, I am still the only person here on this side of that table who 

is from outside of California. And the thing is I am reading here, 

‘‘America is going to be asked’’—— 

Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Harris, just for the record, Ms. Brown is from 

Florida. 

Dr. HARRIS. I am sorry, Ms. Brown. Sorry—— 

Ms. BROWN. Not only am I from Florida, I am from the disadvantaged Florida. Eighteen other States received 3 billion of our dollars. 

Dr. HARRIS. Ma’am, this time of year we think Florida has advantages. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. BROWN. I am here supporting high-speed rail in the country. 

Dr. HARRIS. OK, thank you. 

Ms. BROWN. But I am not a participant. 

Dr. HARRIS. Thank you very much. I am concerned because the 

cost is going to be over $50 billion that is going to be asked of the— 

and that is by the new draft report, is $50 billion. So we already 

have a cost escalation. We are already asking our citizens to pay 

well over—if that is all, the amount is over $150 for every man, 

woman, and child in the United States. 

But I have got to ask a couple things. First of all, Mayor 

Swearengin, you know, we had some skepticism. And I wasn’t here 

when the stimulus bill was passed, but I was kind of out in the 

real world. And there was some skepticism that this, you know, 

$787 billion really was just kind of this little pot of money that was 

going to be sprinkled around before the 2010 election, perhaps 

maybe to influence the outcome. 

102 

And because of an article in, I guess the Sacramento Bee, it has 

been brought to my attention there is some speculation that this— 

the $700 million—was sprinkled around to effect an election. 

Is it true that the timing of that announcement was just before 

the 2010 election of that award? 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. That is true. 

Dr. HARRIS. OK. 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. And if I could—— 

Dr. HARRIS. People can draw their own conclusions. 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. Precisely. And—— 

Dr. HARRIS. They can draw their own conclusions from that. But 

that is exactly why people in my district are so worried about 

projects like this. Because that is more than coincidental. You 

know, that has the Solyndra ring about it. It is a use of hundreds 

of millions of dollars of taxpayer money for what appears to be raw 

politics. 

Now, the two mayors here. You run governments. Do you really 

believe that this is going to make a profit? Do you really—because 

I tell you, I just rode the train to New York. It is true. The Acela 

ticket is $350, and it gets you there 15 minutes faster, $350 round 

trip from Baltimore—I am sorry, from Washington to New York, it 

is about the same from Baltimore. The regular train is $162. 

We also in Maryland claim that, you know, all we have—if we 

just supply the capital, don’t worry, all the mass transit is going 

to be paid out of the fare box. So we actually put a 50 percent rule 

in law that was lowered to 40 percent, to 35 percent, and now $.30 

on every dollar is paid for out of the fare box because, I have got 

to tell you, my impression, that is just the way Governments work 

with public transportation. And this is public transportation by any 

other name, because the public has funded the capital. 

Do you really believe it is—in your heart of hearts —I am not 

talking about the other benefits—this is going to really turn a profit, based on ticket sales? 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. Yes, sir, I do, based on the operating model 

of every other high-speed rail system in the world. 

And again, you—high-speed rail is inter-regional connectivity, 

very different from commuter rail. 

Dr. HARRIS. So, Mayor, you believe that the ticket price is really 

going to be—that we are going to have that many riders and that 

is going to be the ticket price, and we are going to turn a profit, 

even though the Acela train—— 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. Right, which is a different—— 

Dr. HARRIS [continuing]. In an established corridor, with lower 

priced capital expenses, lower priced equipment expenses, charges 

$350 round trip and loses money every day, as the Secretary testified, with full ridership? 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. I couldn’t pay $350 to ride it. So—— 

Dr. HARRIS. You are darn right. 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. So the—I think the difference—— 

Dr. HARRIS. And a lot of people won’t be able to—— 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. It is a fundamentally different service and 

a different operating model. And based on the data, yes sir, I do 

believe that. 

103 

Dr. HARRIS. OK, thank you. My time has expired. I thank you, 

Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence. 

Mr. DENHAM. Ms. Brown for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BROWN. Yes. You know, we keep talking about the Northeast 

Corridor. But the key problem is that we have tunnels that are 100 

years old. We have bridges that need to be fixed. And once we do 

that, once we improve the infrastructure, then it will go. 

But I can tell you that the mayor of Jacksonville, we had a meeting in New York. He took the train and I took the plane, and he 

beat me there to the meeting, because there are many things involved in catching that plane, when you look at from LA to San 

Francisco, how long you have to—the congestion, the—you know, 

it is wasted time. So it is not apples to apples, it is apples to bananas, as the Secretary said. 

Would you further expand on—Mr. van Ark—how you all made 

the decision to go to the mid-Valley, as opposed to the areas that 

everybody feel you would have the ridership right away? 

Mr. VAN ARK. So when you build a high-speed rail system, you 

have to build the system where you are going to be interconnecting 

the cities. And that is exactly what the Central Valley is. 

Central Valley also will offer the United States the first place in 

the United States where we will be able to do an integrated highspeed rail 250 miles an hour—you have to overspeed—testing of 

the integrated system. This cannot be done anywhere else in the 

United States. 

So, unless you build that system first, and get that system up 

and running while you are completing the initial operating section, 

you will never get to a high-speed rail system in the United States. 

I think we have learned—and I was involved in the Acela system—I think we have learned from the Acela system. You must remember the Acela system has an average speed of around about 70 

miles an hour. Our trains have an average speed of about 170 

miles an hour. It is very different. The Acela service takes 71⁄2

hours to travel from Boston to DC. And I have used it. I have lived 

my last 5 years in New York. It takes 71⁄2 hours. 

Ms. BROWN. And there are many factors why it takes so long. I 

mean there is a lot we need to do to upgrade it. But it doesn’t take 

that long from New York to Washington, DC. But that Boston area 

is what we need to invest in. 

Mr. VAN ARK. It is—— 

Ms. BROWN. I mean we understand we got to invest in the system. 

Mr. VAN ARK. Exactly. And investing in a system that is operating is very much more complicated—— 

Ms. BROWN. It is more complicated. The cities are already 

there—— 

Mr. VAN ARK [continuing]. Than any system—— 

Ms. BROWN. I mean I understand all of the factors. You need to 

educate everybody else. 

But your system, tell me how it is going to make a difference. 

Mr. VAN ARK. Our system is based on a competitive market advantage. That is why it is so important that we have to be able to 

get from northern California to southern California in that 3-hour 

timeframe—2 hours, 40 minutes. Because, as you correctly stated, 

104 

it is the time for you to get to an airport to check in to an airport, 

to check—all the flights that—about a quarter of the flights in 

California between northern and southern California are delayed, 

apart from the problem that we cannot build more runways and 

gates. 

But it is the convenient time to transport people from one place 

to another. That is why it is so important that we cannot drop the 

speed. We have to stay at this high speed. We cannot compromise 

the system. Because, otherwise, we will not have a competitive system which will cost $82 a ticket, not $300 a ticket—$82 one direction—and it can make a profit, and the ridership will be a completely different level to the ridership in the Northeast Corridor, 

which is throttled because the system is compromised. 

And I don’t want to blame the operator, it is not their problem—— 

Ms. BROWN. Right. 

Mr. VAN ARK. It is just that the infrastructure is—— 

Ms. BROWN. Absolutely. Let me just ask you one quick question. 

Is there any system in the world that pays for itself completely? 

Mr. VAN ARK. Madam, all the high-speed rail systems in the 

world, all of them, make an operating profit. Operating profit. All 

of them. 

Ms. BROWN. But the infrastructure. 

Mr. VAN ARK. So the operating profit covers all operating costs, 

and it, in general terms, covers also the rolling stock amortization 

and the depots. So ‘‘everything above rail’’ they refer to sometimes, 

whereas there are also other PPPs that add further private participation into the infrastructure. The two lines in the world where 

they have done the calculation, that is the Paris Lyon and the 

Tokyo Osaka lines, that they have done the calculations that, incorporating the infrastructure, the whole system has paid for itself. 

But they do take environmental advantages as benefits to the 

calculation. Generally, State—generally, the State owns the infrastructure, and the operations are done by private sector. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mr. van Ark. One area that we have 

failed to address significantly at all today, the biggest issue for the 

Central Valley, our agriculture industry, number one industry in 

California, the largest ag industry in the world. I would like to get 

a few questions in on that. 

Mr. Upton, your testimony raised some concerns with a proposed 

diagonal alignment through agriculture land. Why is diagonal 

alignment problematic? 

Mr. UPTON. Well, one of the reasons is the impacts that it has 

on ag. 

For instance, so we have to use pesticides and herbicides very 

carefully, and—because they could affect other crops, they can affect people. HSR’s own document says the indirect biological impact 

when going through an ag area is a quarter mile on each side of 

the track. When I showed that to the ag commissioner and said, 

‘‘OK, am I going to be able to spray my almonds or my corn,’’ or 

whatever, he just laughed. 

He said, ‘‘There is no way that I am going to allow spraying with 

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105 

dise if anything happened.’’ So we have to look at that, and—when 

you are trying to farm. 

The other thing is it puts a cloud on your land, as far as your 

financing. The farm credit people said as long as these proposed 

routes show up on your land, they are not going to loan you the 

amount of money that they would, because they feel the land has 

been considerably devalued from what it was before. 

So, if you take a half-a-mile as a route, that is about 300 acres 

a mile. That is a huge hit on a farmer’s land. Also, when you are 

going through the land at an angle, and there is only a crossing 

maybe every 2 miles or 3 miles, as you know we have huge equipment that it takes to go, and you would have to go all the way 

around, clogging up the roads, increasing the number of hours that 

you are using those engines, causing air pollution. 

And lastly I will point out on dairies, dairies require a certain 

amount of acres to get rid of the effluent. That is how they are— 

get a permit to do that. When these trains go through there, some 

of these dairies are rendered inoperable. So you lose the whole operation. 

So there is a devastating impact on our culture, and it has not 

been adequately addressed. 

Mr. DENHAM. And the location for the Central Valley segment of 

it, the location for the Merced to Fresno’s westward turn and the 

alignment to get from the Central Valley to San Jose has not been 

determined, because it is dependant on additional analysis of the 

San Jose to Merced section. 

Is there a consensus among the Preserve Our Heritage members 

about what would constitute the least disruptive route for that 

westward turn? 

Mr. UPTON. Yes, there is. You make a good point. The Merced 

to Fresno route, as you know, was just approved by the Authority. 

But some of us in the 25-mile zone there are in the Twilight Zone, 

because it is not considered. It will be considered during the 

Merced to San Jose group. 

And what we have been doing—and we have had some cooperative meetings with the Authority, and I credit Mr. van Ark and his 

staff for that, that somewhere along the 152 and 99 would be the 

preferred route, because that is an existing corridor, if we could do 

that. 

Our concern is the process. If, in fact, the FRA or EPA or the 

Army Corps is demanding that a particular route has to be done, 

then it really doesn’t matter what I say, or what Preserve Our Heritage says, and so we need to know who is calling the shots, whether this input process is a sham, or if they are really listening to 

us. 

Mr. DENHAM. And has your organization provided documentation 

to the Authority on the negative impact, negative economic impacts 

of the project to the agriculture community in Madeira County? 

Mr. UPTON. We have had more meetings than I care to remember, and submitted more documents, appeared at high-speed rail 

meetings. I am sure they are tired of seeing us, as we are in going 

there. 

Mr. DENHAM. Are you getting a response from the agency? 

Mr. UPTON. In—— 

106 

Mr. DENHAM. Maybe the same thing we had with FRA earlier, 

apparently you submitted questions to them over a year ago, but 

it seems like you are, on many levels of Government, getting ignored. 

Mr. UPTON. FRA, no response whatsoever. But with the local 

people with the high-speed rail, yes. They have been meeting with 

us. And with Mr. van Ark, yes, he has been meeting with us. 

Again, our concern is whether this will amount to anything. Because we are not convinced on who is calling the shots on this 

thing. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. And I yield back, Ms. Brown. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. Mr. van Ark, some witnesses and Members, my colleagues, have raised concerns regarding communications and working with the Authority. What are you all doing to 

address those concerns? And I guess it is the same concern that the 

gentleman just raised. 

Mr. VAN ARK. Congresswoman, we are doing more every day, but 

it is a mammoth task. It is a big State. It is an 800-mile section. 

And in many areas of the State, there is more than one alignment, 

because—the alternatives to meet the CEQA and NEPA process. 

So, of course, we have hundreds and hundreds—thousands and 

thousands—of stakeholders. We have an organization in place. We 

are just at the stage investigating how we can further improve the 

organization. 

I do believe certain improvements have happened. I think Mr. 

Upton just mentioned, you know, we have been having meetings 

with them. But not just there. We had a board meeting on Tuesday 

of this week in Merced. And I must say there were many, many 

organizations that came back and thanked us for the outreach and 

communications that we had been doing with them. 

So, there is still a way to go, I am not disagreeing with that. It 

is a big task when you interface with that many people in a big 

State like we have. 

Ms. BROWN. There has been a lot of discussion about the funding 

source. How are you planning to get investors or investment in the 

bonds, or the additional costs? Is this a phased building? Can you 

explain that to me? 

Mr. VAN ARK. So I think what we—when you look at the business 

plan, you must consider that we should be targeting, and are targeting, at the first operable segment. It is the way that they built 

the systems in France or in Spain. 

For instance, the Madrid to Seville line was the first segment. It 

is their IOS. The line from Paris to Lyon was their IOS. So we 

need to concentrate on the first segment for funding—— 

Ms. BROWN. Yes, I drove that segment from Paris to Lyon. 

Mr. VAN ARK. Yes. I traveled it too, and I traveled it with Chairman Mica as well. And I know he was very proud, and used to say, 

‘‘This is what we need in the United States.’’ Although that was in 

my previous function in the private sector. 

Ms. BROWN. So we are going to be able, after we get the first segment, to get those private investors? 

Mr. VAN ARK. You see, when you cannot prove to a private investor, firstly, the stability of a project—— 

Ms. BROWN. The—that is right. 

107 

Mr. VAN ARK. The second thing is that there is going to be a revenue stream that is going to come up. The private investors will 

not be willing to come. They talk to us, they have given us in writing they will participate. That happens. 

But do not forget, you know, they are still hesitant because we 

are hesitant. And we have to get over that. But private investors 

will participate in this project, as I have had private investors investing in projects around the world. 

Ms. BROWN. Would anyone else like to respond to that? Yes, sir? 

Mr. AMANTE. Congresswoman, I want to address this whole issue 

of where we spend the dollars and how we attract the private partnership. 

It is clear; all of us know that—the chairman asked a question 

of the two mayors. He said, ‘‘All of you govern.’’ We know we have 

to make tough decisions, we know there are scarce Federal and 

State resources, and that there is an increasing demand in infrastructure in this country. But we are the most populous State. I 

happen to live in the most populous region of that most populous 

State. And as we go, goes the economy of this Nation. If we do not 

invest in the movement of goods and people in some fashion, we 

will choke in congestion. We will no longer be competitive. 

In my view—and I tell young people—there are only three legitimate purposes for Government: to provide for the public defense— 

at the national level the army, at the local level police, and everywhere in between whatever is required of that level of Government; 

the second is to invest in things that people can’t do for themselves, 

roads, bridges, aqueducts, railroads, the kinds of things they can’t 

build; and the third is to jealously guard their liberties. Everything 

else we do is whipped cream and sprinkles. That is the cake. And 

what we need to do is wisely invest, guard the liberties of our people, and spend their money wisely. That is why we have criticisms 

of the business plan. 

But we are not prepared to throw the baby out with the bath 

water. In my region, we would like to fill the bath tub from both 

ends, but we want to have the ability to move people and goods, 

and to bring economic integrity back to this country. And that is 

why the mayors fight for jobs, because they matter to the people 

we see in the grocery stores. Thank you, ma’am. 

Ms. BROWN. Yes, ma’am. 

Mayor SWEARENGIN. And I would just like to go back to the question from Mr. Harris, and just tell you that the dollars came out 

a few days before the election. But what I didn’t have a chance to 

tell you is that 2 years leading up to that, coalitions of business 

leaders and local government leaders worked so hard to make the 

case to the High-Speed Rail Authority and to the Federal Government to draw attention to our region that it is the lowest cost place 

to build, and it is the fastest-paced path to private investment. 

We were getting bombarded by the interests of northern and 

southern California indicating we wouldn’t see any of those dollars. 

Yet we fought hard, with local business in the lead, and ultimately 

made the case. So there is merit behind that decision. The political 

speculation I will leave to the editorial newspaper writers. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Mr. Harris? 

108 

Dr. HARRIS. Thank you very much. And you are right, we will 

leave that to speculation. You make exactly my point. Here a process goes along 2 years, and just coincidentally, a few days before 

an election hundreds of millions of dollars. 

And I don’t mind, you know, if California wants to build it. God 

bless them. I know you all are sixth largest economy in the world— 

what is it, I forget the statistic. But you know, California says, 

‘‘Oh, if we were a country, we would’’—well, that is exactly the 

issue here. And, Mr. van Ark, that is exactly the issue. 

Because, you know, California’s economy probably is bigger than 

France’s, isn’t it? It probably is bigger than all those countries you 

named, with the perhaps exception of Japan, all the countries you 

named. But California is coming to the rest of the United States 

and asking to fund a project that starts as a train to nowhere— 

and Mr. van Ark, I am going to ask you, because the business plan, 

to be successful, does really depend on an ultimate build-out, 

doesn’t it? 

It does. The business plan depends on an ultimate build-out to 

be ultimately profitable, as a system. Is that right, or can we stop 

3 years into it and everything we built up to then is profitable? 

Mr. VAN ARK. The business plan is built up in phases, and each 

one of the phases has got an added value and a benefit to the State 

and to the Nation. 

Dr. HARRIS. I am not sure that answered my question. Is it profitable if it is not built out? 

Mr. VAN ARK. The initial operating section would be profitable. 

Dr. HARRIS. Oh, OK. Once you get past the initial operating section, is it profitable—now there is a reason my—let me just skip 

to the—the total cost is now projected to be 90-something. Let me 

see what it—$98.5 billion. 

I am a doctor, I am not a mathematician. But if you take the $9 

billion in California bonds, and then you add the $52 billion in Federal spending, that comes to $61 billion; $98 billion from $61 billion 

is $37 billion. California just announced that they were cutting 

their budget, what, $900 million because of a shortfall. I don’t 

project California to have a whole lot of money flowing around for 

the next few years. Leaves a $31 billion gap. Call me skeptical— 

maybe that is why the private partnerships that you are looking 

for are a little skeptical—because the build-out is $98.5 billion, and 

on a good day you have accounted for $61 billion. And you are hoping that some private people are going to come out of the woodwork. 

And I have got to ask you, because you said—because I think all 

the testimony is the operating profit, there is an operating profit, 

but there is $30 billion of unaccounted-for capital. Is that right? 

Are we assuming that that capital is going to come at no cost to 

this build-out, ultimately? That it is either funded by taxpayers of 

the United States or taxpayers with California, with no realistic 

reason to believe that they get a return on that? 

Mr. VAN ARK. If I could just refer back to the initial operating 

section, we are talking about just over $30 billion. So, the $30 billion would be the—— 

Dr. HARRIS. I am—— 

109 

Mr. VAN ARK [continuing]. Period where you would already attract the private investment. 

Dr. HARRIS. You hope you will attract the private investment. 

Mr. VAN ARK. You—— 

Dr. HARRIS. Because there is no private investor out there who 

said they will do this. 

Mr. VAN ARK. There are private investors that have indicated 

their willingness to participate. But obviously, there is no project 

well enough developed to be able to attract and sign a contract on 

that basis. 

Dr. HARRIS. So they are willing to participate. Do you believe 

their understanding—will they be willing to provide $30 billion toward the ultimate build-out of capital expense? 

Mr. VAN ARK. The business plan indicates that the amount of private investment would be—depending on how far we go, the first 

phase would be $11 billion, and then we would go up to about— 

just over $20 billion, private—— 

Dr. HARRIS. So $20 billion of private investment. 

Mr. VAN ARK. That—— 

Dr. HARRIS. What happens if that private investment doesn’t materialize? What happens to my—my citizens in the First Congressional District, what happens to their investment 2,400 miles 

away? 

And look, believe me, I feel for your congestion at the airports 

in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Flew through there a few 

months ago. It is absolutely congested. But what happens to my 

citizens’ investment in that project if you don’t get that private investment? 

Mr. VAN ARK. As I mentioned, the project is built up in phases. 

And at every phase you can actually not continue beyond that 

phase. But when you get to the IOS you will have an operating section. So that means you will be able to operate the system, but you 

may not necessarily then decide to expand the system beyond that. 

Personally, coming from where I am, I believe it will be profitable. The market and the world says so. But—— 

Dr. HARRIS. But—— 

Mr. VAN ARK [continuing]. You can stop. That is why we have the 

phases, where you can actually only build one IOS and stop there. 

Dr. HARRIS. But—— 

Mr. VAN ARK. And you are not expending—— 

Dr. HARRIS. But you do understand the situation is different 

from European countries, where this exists in one section of the 

country that is far away from other sections. 

One could argue it is much more easy to derive a benefit of every 

citizen in France from the French high-speed rail, because everybody lives pretty close to that rail, by U.S. standards, pretty close. 

Again, I just have to go justify it to the people in my district, because we are coming to ask them to participate in a $52 billion 

buy-in. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DENHAM. Mr. van Ark, I will allow a very brief response, if 

you have one. 

Mr. VAN ARK. I think that response becomes more political than 

my position, Mr. Chairman. I think you understand that. 

110 

Mr. DENHAM. At this time I will remind Members that votes 

have been called. We have less than 10 minutes—actually, we have 

9 minutes left—on the first vote. 

Before I close down the committee hearing, I would like to allow 

Ms. Alexis, who sat very patiently, 1 minute before we close. 

Ms. ALEXIS. Yes, I mean I think we do need to really look at the 

details of this plan. And we keep talking about initial operating 

segment, and that should be understood, that that is one of the— 

there is only two proposals. One is from San Jose to Bakersfield. 

There is no other system in the world which would have an initial 

starter line. You cannot say that Lyon to Paris is Bakersfield to 

San Jose, where there are exactly zero—zero—flights. 

If you cannot attract those business travelers, the people who 

like to pay for air flights, you are not going to have a successful 

high-speed rail system. And so, to compare this $30 billion investment for Bakersfield to San Jose to the systems around the world 

is just very faulty logic. And we really need to step back and 

rethink this. 

I mean there are things that make sense. There is a price tag 

that would make sense for this project. There is a routing that 

would make sense for this project. But we are really far away from 

there. And we are getting ready to build. We are nowhere close to 

that stage. Thank you. 

Mr. DENHAM. And Ms. Brown? 

Ms. BROWN. I just want to say that the argument goes both ways 

for Mr. Harris. The people of California have been asked to foot the 

bill for Amtrak service to upgrade Maryland, including tunnels and 

the Chesapeake Bay. And so, I mean, we could argue this back and 

forth. This is the United States of America. This committee is the 

infrastructure and transportation committee. This committee is the 

committee that actually put people to work. Jobs. We keep the 

goods separated from the people, and we make it safe. 

And so, what we need to do is to work with the people in California and the rest of the United States to move us forward. As I 

said all along, Florida—I mean you got our money, you got $3 billion, 18 States got it. And so, I mean, 60,000 jobs. So the point is 

I want to make sure that we utilize that, and that we put people 

to work with our money. Because it is the United States. So, you 

know—of America. 

And so, therefore, I am not—we are not competing with Georgia 

and Alabama. And it is very important that we do what we can to 

help you, so you can be competitive. Then we all do well. Thank 

you very much. 

Mr. DENHAM. Well, that sounds like a perfect note to end on. We 

would like to thank the Floridians for their help in this project. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. DENHAM. I would like to thank each of the witnesses here 

today that have been very gracious with their time. 

The hearing record will remain open for 2 weeks to receive materials for the record submitted by unanimous consent, and to submit 

questions for the record to the witnesses. 

The hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure 

Committee is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:54 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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Æ 


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