Jim Costa’s high-speed rail bill will never pass. Behind the rhetoric is pure politics

Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, recently proposed legislation to direct $32 billion in federal money to assist in the completion of the California high-speed-rail project. This legislation is a bald attempt to give the congressman some good PR in an election year, to fund a failing public work project that, if ever completed, would chiefly benefit Bay Area elites rather than Costa’s own constituents.

Costa’s bill, The High Speed Rail Corridor Development Act of 2020, would direct $32 billion of federal money into the faltering high-speed rail to help it achieve its original goal: a functional bullet train connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco, via the San Joaquin Valley.

The first problem with this bill is simple: It will not pass, and is not intended to. As long as Donald Trump is in the White House and Mitch McConnell runs the Senate, this legislation is DOA. So why would the congressman who authors fewer original bills than almost any Democrat introduce something so quixotic?

Costa is scoring PR points with labor unions, wooing Democrat voters mere days prior to a leftward primary challenge from Fresno City Council member Esmeralda Soria. Labor unions supported the bullet train from its inception in 2008, and the 3,500 jobs the project has created were a central talking point for Costa’s rollout of the bill.

Secondly, this is an irresponsible use of federal money. Even California’s most ardent remaining supporters of high speed rail have to admit its near-crippling problems. The plan’s estimated costs have ballooned from $40 billion to almost $98 billion, its expected completion date has been pushed back a decade, and 12 years after the project’s go-ahead from California voters, not an inch of track is operational.

Gov. Newsom’s truncated goal of demonstrating the project’s viability by first finishing a Bakersfield to Merced corridor — roughly 165 miles, crossing no mountains or fault lines, and traveling mostly through sparsely-populated farmland with less challenging eminent domain issues — will still cost $12.4 billion, a cool $75 million per mile and over $14,000 per foot. Even Newsom’s Democrat allies, like Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, have questioned how a segment of rail through the least-populous corridor of the proposed system can demonstrate the viability of the full-blown, Los Angeles-to-San Francisco vision.

Ignoring those concerns utterly, Costa purports to push move ahead with a four-year, $32 billion infusion of federal money from 2021-24. This is grossly irresponsible. Even Californians are ambivalent about high-speed rail, with only 46% of likely voters still in support once they understand the project’s cost overruns. How much less eager will taxpayers from Texas, Ohio, or Maine be to pay for a project they did not vote for, and which will never conceivably benefit them? The rest of the country should not be burdened with California’s mistakes, particularly for a project whose long-term viability remains in considerable doubt.

Costa also massively overhypes the project’s job creation aspect; $12.4 billion to create 3,500 jobs is monumentally inefficient, even as compared to other governmental public works and job-creation programs from the Obama era, and will still be inefficient even if that jobs figure doubles or triples with new construction. This shortsighted thinking also glosses over the possible employment burdens of California’s high tax rates, which are necessary to pay for such elaborate public works.

Lastly, the rail system, if ever completed, chiefly will benefit the Bay Area, not Mr. Costa’s constituents in the Valley. The Bay Area’s housing unaffordability crisis forces its workers to live farther and farther away from the relatively condensed, less car-friendly hubs of San Francisco and San Jose, commuting ever-longer distances in a vicious cycle of ever-rising costs. For these reasons, the Bay Area remains consistently supportive of high speed rail, more than either Central or Southern California.

High-speed rail will be an escape valve, allowing San Francisco and San Jose not to address their massive problems with unaffordable housing. It will provide an efficient way for relatively wealthy tech workers (the only ones who can afford expensive rail commutes) to live build big homes in Merced or Madera and still make it to their Silicon Valley jobs. This will simply export their housing unaffordability crisis farther and farther south to Mr. Costa’s own district.

Mr. Costa’s legislation is the cynical product of a career politician trying to secure re-election. It deserves an eyeroll, not commendation.