Bullet-train fiasco: Gov. Brown, heed the judge

The state government has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a $68 billion statewide bullet-train project that’s highly unlikely to ever get built. As the cliché goes, when you’re in a hole, stop digging. But even after two brutal court defeats on Monday, such common sense is still AWOL within Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration.In one decision, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny ruled that the California High-Speed Rail Authority could not proceed with using billions of dollars in bond funds to begin construction because it had not credibly identified funding sources for the entire $31 billion it will take to finish the 300-mile initial segment, nor had it completed necessary environmental reviews for the segment. These requirements were among the taxpayer protections written into law by California voters in November 2008,deep groove ball bearing when they voted narrowly for Proposition 1A to allow the state to issue $9.95 billion in bonds as seed money for the project. Kenny said the state must develop a plan that comports with these requirements.In a second ruling, Kenny refused to validate a state committee’s decision to allow the issuance of $8.6 billion in bonds for bullet-train construction because it had offered no evidence of any kind that such a move was “reasonable or necessary.Marble tiles” “The court cannot conclude that this [approval of bonds without review] is the result the voters intended,” he wrote.Kenny did not order all work stopped.

The rail authority has been given more than $3 billion in unencumbered federal funds for the project by the Obama administration. But he rejected arguments made by the Attorney General’s Office that the Legislature — and not state law — had final say on how state bonds were used.As a practical matter, this means construction can’t start unless the state finds $25 billion or more in solid financing — which is highly unlikely given a ban on revenue guarantees to investors. Nor can it start until the state completes all environmental reviews for the initial 300-mile segment — which could take years.These are immense obstacles. Yet instead of acknowledging their seriousness, rail authority board Chairman Dan Richard depicted them as predictable “challenges,” and a spokeswoman said the authority would proceed with its plans to seize land for the project in the Central Valley via eminent domain.This is in keeping with Richard's full-speed-ahead bravado. But is also unconscionable — disrupting the lives and livelihoods of Central Valley residents for a project that is now an extreme long shot solely to create an apparition of progress.Before this happens, it’s time for a “have you no shame?” intervention in Sacramento. If Jerry Brown won’t take Richard to the woodshed, then it’s time for some senior Democratic leader to take Brown to the woodshed.ntn bearingA decade ago, when he was attorney general, Treasurer Bill Lockyer ripped the “puke politics” of Gov. Gray Davis. Taking away folks’ homes and farms for political theater is politics at its pukiest. In coming days and weeks, we hope Lockyer, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein or some Democrat of stature has the decency to make this point.