On the recordJune 10, 2014
I thank the gentleman from Arizona. I just wanted to make a couple of quick points. First, it is easy to be a critic and it is hard to be a builder. The high-speed rail project is a big project, it is difficult to do, but we are going to get it done. Sometimes I wonder, when people say don't do high-speed rail, how they plan to deal with the millions of additional Californians that are anticipated to clog our roads and need transportation infrastructure. It has been suggested by dispassionate engineers that we would need at least two or three additional airports in California. We would need several, as many as five, additional lanes, north-south, in the middle of California to match the capacity of high-speed rail. How are we going to do that? Do we think that that is not going to be expensive? The alternative to high-speed rail is not nothing. That is impossible for a State as vibrant as California, with an economy as booming as it is, and a future as bright as we have. I would note also that the idea that it is inappropriate to use cap- and-trade funds, I just simply disagree with. California is among the first in the Nation, I would say, and it has got wide approval in the State, to do this cap-and-trade system, to bring down carbon emissions. Funds will be generated through that project. Some of those funds will go to this very worthy project. So I disagree very much with this amendment.…
