Friday, June 12, 2009

Harry Reid Abandons His High-Speed Rail Plans   [Mark Hemingway]

I have a story up on the homepage today about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's sudden about face on one of his pet projects — a high speed rail line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. (I've previously written about it here, here, here and here.)

I strongly encourage you to read the full story but, in a nutshell, Reid has been championing a 300 mph, magnetic levitation train between the two cities for years. In June of 2008, Reid got a $45 million earmark for the project. And then during closed-door, last-minute "stimulus" bill negotiations, Reid succeeded in quadrupling the amount of money allocated in the bill for high speed rail to $8 billion. His office then issued a press release crowing that the maglev train project between Los Angeles and Las Vegas would get a "big chunk" of that money, according to the AP.

From the beginning, Reid's critics said the maglev project was a total boondoggle. Maglev trains are enormously expensive and the technology isn't very reliable. What's more, a privately funded group known as DesertXpress, was already trying to build a high-speed — but not maglev — train between the two cities. Why publicly fund something the private sector is already poised to do?

In a very surprising move, Reid is now throwing his weight behind the privately-funded DesertXpress. “We’ve gotten nowhere. Maglev projects have been abandoned around the world. It’s time to stop talking and start doing something,” Reid told the Los Angeles Times. The most charitable spin on this is that after billions of tax dollars and years spent championing a publicly-funded maglev project, Reid is acknowledging that the main arguments of those critical of his pet maglev project were right all along.

As for the least charitable way to view Reid's admission... Reid is facing a very tough reelection bid. In late February, Sig Rogich, a very big player in Nevada GOP circles surprised everyone by publicly endorsing Reid and is now actively campaigning for the Democratic senator. But Rogich also happens to be one one of the major backers of the DesertXpress project. Now that endorsement doesn't seem quite so surprising. Whether or not there's any quid pro quo here is far from certrain, but Reid's political integrity certainly looks suspect. And perhaps not surprisingly, the Rogich angle has been dutifully reported in the Las Vegas papers, but I haven't seen a single national news outlet pick-up on this story.

06/12 02:28 PMShare