◼ The Los Angeles Times reports today: After encountering criticism from environmental groups, Gov. Jerry Brown signaled Wednesday that he plans to withdraw his controversial proposal to protect the California bullet train project from injunctions sought by environmental lawsuits. - Conn Carroll/Washington Examiner
The Los Angeles Times does not fully report this out, but Brown’s decision not to bypass CEQA essentially kills California’s high speed rail project.
President Obama’s stimulus allocated $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, including, eventually, up to $3.5 billion for California’s project. However, according to the stimulus law, California must begin construction on the project before December 31, 2012 or they will not be eligible for any more high speed rail stimulus dollars. Obama’s Transportation Department reaffirmed this time limit last year when they admitted they had “no administrative authority to change this deadline.”
Fast forward to this June when the city of Chowchilla filed suit to stop construction of the project alleging that the High Speed Rail Authority failed to conduct a proper Environmental Impact Statement pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).
Studies show that the average time to complete the NEPA process is 6.1 years.
◼ Gov. Jerry Brown to scrap environmental exception for bullet train - Ralph Vartabedian and Chris Megerian/LA Times
