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Posted Feb 17, 2011, 1:35 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Posts: 3,867
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Scott's decision is taking a lot of heat here. The next few days should be interesting.
Quote:
Can high-speed rail backers bypass Gov. Rick Scott?
Florida's congressional delegation, state officials and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer are pushing back against Gov. Rick Scott's decision Wednesday to reject $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money to build a high-speed train between Orlando and Tampa.
"This is a century-type decision that needs to be vetted," Dyer said. "I don't think it was given a fair hearing."
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood intends to meet either in person or by phone Friday with Florida elected officials, likely including Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Reps. John Mica, R-Winter Park, and Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, to discuss ways of keeping the project alive even as California, New York and Washington state offered to take some of the money.
And some officials were bitterly critical of Scott for pulling the plug even before bids had gone out to build the 84-mile system. Eight consortia of companies from 11 countries had indicated they would be willing to put up some or all of the state's $280 million share of the project, while the bid terms would have required them to absorb cost overruns and any operating losses for 20 years.
In a brief news conference Wednesday — at which he denounced President Barack Obama's budget — Scott went into little detail about his decision, referring only generally to the current and future cost of the train. The state has spent about $27 million in federal money on preliminary engineering and design and was about to issue contracts for an additional $170 million.
"My concern with this is if you look at ridership studies, I don't see any way anyone is going to get a return. And so I'm very concerned about the Florida taxpayers," Scott said.
Scott said it is projected that up to 3.07 million people a year would take the train, which was set to run at speeds up to 168 mph between Orlando International Airport and Tampa.
Officials said the ridership number came from a new study being conducted by two private companies for FDOT. That study has not been released, but Scott has been briefed on it, sources said.
Scott implied that the ridership projection he cited were inflated because Amtrak's Acela fast train between Washington and Boston carried only 3.2 million passengers in 2010, even though far more people live in the Northeast Corridor. However, PolitiFact Florida noted that an additional 7.15 million people rode regional rail lines in the Northeast last year and rated Scott's comparison "half true."
Scott also said Wednesday that he was worried that Florida would be on the hook for $3 billion or more if a business built the train and walked away because it was running a big deficit, an assertion based on a report critical of high-speed rail that was released in January by the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank.
Robert Poole, a co-author, had warned that Florida taxpayers could lose billions because many train projects have gone over budget and drawn fewer riders than projected. And Poole said Wednesday that he was skeptical a business would be willing to cover possible construction overruns or operating deficits, meaning the state could have been forced to bear those expenses.
"I think this is a responsible decision," Poole said.
However, a senior aide to LaHood said that concern about long-term deficits had never been voiced by Scott: "We could have negotiated this issue in a final agreement with Florida if they had continued with negotiations. Governor Scott never raised this issue, and the DOT never intended to put the state on the hook for decades to come."
Scott also said he was still reviewing the SunRail commuter-train project linking downtown Orlando with Seminole, Volusia and Osceola counties later this decade, even though money has been set aside in the state budget he proposed last week.
Scott's decision drew applause from tea-party groups who had worked for his election last year and cheered him last week when he introduced his $65.8 billion budget at a rally in Eustis.
"We met with the Governor on HSR this past week and we are even more encouraged today that he has again stood strong against the politics as usual played by the Beltway crowd," said Sharon Calvert, co-founder of the Tampa Tea Party, in a statement.
If the decision holds, it would end yet another attempt to bring high-speed rail to Florida, a quest begun under former Gov. Bob Graham during the 1980s. Several efforts came close, including one scuttled in 2004 by former Gov. Jeb Bush.
Nelson said he talked Wednesday with LaHood about pursuing a plan that would create another Florida entity that could serve as proxy to accept the federal money, rather than the state. This might involve a team of cities such as Orlando, Lakeland and Tampa, maybe even with private partners.
"We can't afford to allow this opportunity to pass us by," Nelson said.
State legislators questioned why the governor would turn down the estimated 23,000 construction jobs the train could create after he campaigned on a "jobs agenda."
Without letting the private sector come to the table, we really don't know how viable it is," said Sen. Thad Altman, R-Viera. "There's no rational reason at all not to allow that to happen — unless you're afraid of what you might hear. We might hear that this thing will work."
Lawmakers appropriated $300 million for the project last year, and Scott cannot constitutionally scuttle that spending without legislative authority, said Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander. Lawmakers first approved the project at a special session in late 2009 that also authorized construction of SunRail.
But Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said lawmakers had mixed feelings about it given the tea-party-fueled outrage over federal spending. An attempt to continue funding would likely meet with a Scott veto, he said, and "I don't believe there'd be the support to override the veto."
But Scott's seeming disregard for the Legislature's appropriating power — whether it's selling a state plane or killing rail projects — alarmed some lawmakers.
Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland, said he planned to lobby legislators to fight the governor's move and did not think Scott could unilaterally kill the project.
I disagree with what the governor has said, and I do hope this is not an irrevocable situation," Simmons said.
Among the most dismayed was C.C. "Doc" Dockery, the retired Lakeland insurance magnate who has spent 30 years trying to get a high-speed train in Florida.
He congratulated California because he figures LaHood eventually will move much of the money there, just as he previously sent additional funds to Florida after Republican governors in Wisconsin and Ohio pulled out of high-speed endeavors. California wants to build a train that eventually would link Los Angeles with San Francisco.
The aide to LaHood said the money would not be sent elsewhere while Scott's opponents try to figure out a way to save the train.
Dockery, a longtime Republican fundraiser and husband of state Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, also questioned whether Scott really understood how high-speed rail was supposed to operate in Florida.
"The governor is saying to these teams that they must be lying when they agree to accept cost overruns and ridership risks," Dockery said.
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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...7.story?page=2
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