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GOP Calls To Move High Speed Rail Funds To Other Projects

Ben Adler
/
Capital Public Radio

The Assembly Republican caucus says billions of dollars in California high-speed rail bonds and gas tax revenues would be better spent on infrastructure projects.  Ben Adler has more from Sacramento.

GOP lawmakers want to take money from several different sources and spend it on road, highway, bridge and port projects.  What they don’t want to spend it on is high-speed rail.

Conway: “We’re done with that.  We’re over that.”

Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway’s proposal would ask voters to scrap high-speed rail and put the money towards infrastructure instead.

Conway:  “The taxpayers are now stuck with a huge bill, the governor’s folks even keep raising up the estimation of what that’s gonna cost, and here we are today and nothing’s been done.”

The proposal would set aside $11 billion in one-time funds – mostly from voter-approved high-speed rail bonds – and $2.4 billion each year in Proposition 42 gas tax revenues.  Republicans say their plan would create more than 100,000 jobs.

The Brown administration says canceling the high-speed rail project would cost the state three billion dollars in federal funds – and cost the Central Valley thousands of jobs.