[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 144 (Tuesday, September 17, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H5311-H5312]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL PROJECT

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, California's high-speed rail project has 
been a boondoggle of epic proportions, funded mostly by California 
State taxpayers but also some $3 billion plus in so-called shovel-ready 
stimulus money from 2009.

[[Page H5312]]

  After 15 years and a $9 billion bond plus Federal money, what do we 
actually have? We have a project that has ballooned to over $120 
billion with zero miles of track laid and a completion date pushed back 
another decade into the future.
  This is all ostensibly to save carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, but 
I point out to you here that CO2 is actually .04 percent of 
our atmosphere.
  This is a bottomless money pit, and continuing to throw State and 
Federal dollars at it is a terrible waste when we need to be doing so 
many other things for our people, including agriculture and water 
supply. Revolving doors of CEOs of the California High-Speed Rail 
Authority aren't going to fix this anytime soon.
  California faces a great need for water supply, infrastructure, and 
forest management that could provide a whole lot of benefit that the 
high-speed rail project never will do.
  American taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for California's 
boondoggle, so let's instead focus on things that will help the 
American people such as building more water supply and growing those 
needed crops that somewhere between 90 and 98 percent only grow in 
California that help the American people.

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