[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6754]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL AUTHORITY

  (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, yesterday the California High-Speed Rail 
Authority admitted that it needs an additional 4 years to build its 
first segment of track.
  Despite claiming that the project was shovel ready back in 2010 in 
order to receive Federal funds, the Rail Authority has only recently 
started minor construction. Now the Obama administration has extended 
the lifeline 4 more years to use up the so-called stimulus dollars.
  The project's costs are now more than double what the Rail Authority 
had claimed in the beginning. It has a funding gap of over $55 billion, 
has changed its route repeatedly and still hasn't settled on a route, 
has failed to attract a single private investment, and fails to comply 
with State and Federal law on the prescription of its construction.
  Mr. Speaker, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has broken 
every promise it has made to the people of California. It is time to 
pull the plug on a project that will not only never be completed, but 
is diverting billions of dollars from other infrastructure needs that 
people actually want, such as for our highways and needed water storage 
for California.

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