Jason Plautz, E&E reporter
The chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee today called on the White House to reconsider the entire way it has implemented its high-speed rail program in light of the rejected funds from Florida's scuttled rail project.
There's a "credibility" problem with the Obama administration's rail-expansion plans, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) said, given the fact that Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) returned $2.4 billion in rail grants just months after Republican governors in Ohio and Wisconsin sent back their funds.
"I consider myself one of the strongest supporters of bringing true high-speed rail to the United States and also expanding passenger rail service where it makes sense for the taxpayers," he said at a hearing of the Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee. "But the launch has been an absolute disaster."
Mica also leveled criticism at California's planned high-speed rail project, saying that the first leg of construction in the Central Valley would have "marginal" ridership and would require heavy subsidization.
Mica suggested that the administration should have given out a greater share of the money to projects in the Northeast Corridor. A longtime critic of the Amtrak system, Mica also urged the government to allow private companies to take on rail lines with government help.
Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), who fought alongside Mica to urge Scott to keep the funding in-state, rejected the chairman's claims that the White House was at fault for high-speed rail's troubles.
"It's not that there's a lack of credibility in this program, it's a lack of leadership in the state of Florida from one person," Brown said. "I know they try to put everything on the administration, but the administration had nothing to do with this. The fact is that we have a governor that killed this program."
Brown used her time at this morning's hearing to blast Scott's decision, saying it was driven by politics and that the governor had squandered an opportunity to put the state's tax dollars back to work. At one point, she asked Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo if the administration had explored ways to bypass the statehouses to build the lines, either through public-private partnerships or municipalities.
"While there is a way for the state to hand [the money] off, there is no way to erase entirely the involvement with the state," Szabo said, adding that existing rail laws require projects to be run by states or state-approved entities.
Brown was part of a congressional delegation that unsuccessfully tried to persuade Scott to transfer Florida's high-speed rail grants to a coalition of local governments.
Mica and other committee Republicans pushed federal officials to focus more on privatizing the rail lines and involving businesses. While the Florida line would have accepted private bids to cover remaining costs and maintenance and the California line will be bringing on private companies, there has been little partnership to date. Mica pointed to the rail networks in Japan and Europe as successful instances of private partnership.
"Not that I'm unwilling to have the federal government underwrite some of the construction costs or the infrastructure ... but from an operational standpoint, I know we can attract private-sector capital if they have the opportunity to not only help develop or help finance and help construct, but also give us help to operate," Mica said.
Mica said his committee's upcoming transportation reauthorization bill would include provisions to involve the private sector.
Szabo said that he was encouraged to see states already thinking of bringing on private-sector involvement for their projects and said that his agency was working hard to implement a pilot program that would bring private companies on board for two existing Amtrak routes.
However, Stephen Gardner, the vice president of policy and development for Amtrak, warned that privatization was "not a silver bullet" and that Amtrak had in fact been created to smooth over problems from private businesses operating passenger rail lines in the 1960s.
"The main issue here is stable, dedicated funding," Gardner said, adding that all international models had robust public investments. "Without stable funding [from the federal government], you won't bring in private-sector interest."
