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| Courtesy SFist |
For the last several years, the Obama Administration has promised more green jobs by approving $45 billion in federal funds to create what he and California high speed rail supporters say will create hundreds of thousand of jobs and green jobs, too.
But a closer look might surprise you, and some opponents are even saying the California taxpayers are being taken for a multibillion train ride.
California High Speed Rail Authority says California's electrically-powered high-speed trains will help the state meet heavy demands on its transportation infrastructure. First running speeds of 220 miles per hour from San Francisco to Los Angeles/Anaheim via the Central Valley, and later to Sacramento and San Diego. Then the bullet trains will travel between LA and San Francisco.
It all sounds great, but California needs those jobs today, not tomorrow. The government reports no new jobs were created in August, not one green job. New jobs numbers reveal layoffs doubled in September and hiring’s were also down.
And several Republican Congressmen like Devin Nunes (Visalia, CA), from the 21st District wants to put the brakes on the expensive train of so-called green jobs going nowhere fast.
“When you’re pouring concrete how can you call them green jobs?” said Nunes. The CHSR claims the project will create “as many as 100,000 construction-related jobs each year that the system is being built,” and lay the tracts down for potentially “for 450,000 permanent new jobs statewide,” from the economic growth of a high-speed rail over the next 25 years.
Different cost estimates have been circulated in the media, even one out today in the Los Angeles Times (more) pegs it at $95 billion, double the earlier estimate. But wait there's more figures, and higher, too.
Although early official reports estimate the rail project will cost around $60 billion, Congressman Nunez contends it will cost more like $145 billion dollars, when and if it's ever finished.
"My phones have been ringing off the hook from folks who live in the path where this is train will be is going to go," said Representative Nunes. "When you start looking at the homes, the business, the farms that this thing is going to cut through just here in the valley, it's going to be hugely expensive."
California High Speed Rail Authority is already planning to cut the ribbon and break ground for the rail next year, but it may only be a grounder breaker for the real debate.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) is introducing new legislation that freezes federal funding for the bullet train project for one year so that auditors can review its viability. Stay tuned for the next trainload of information and debates.
For more info about the proposed bullet train visit: FACTS ABOUT THE RAIL
(http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/)
