High-Speed Refund Act

I 116TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. R. 1515 To direct the Secretary of Transportation to require that any discretionary grant funds provided by the Department of Transportation for high- speed rail development in California be reimbursed to the Federal Gov- ernment and to authorize additional funds for nationally significant freight and highway projects. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MARCH 5, 2019 Mr. LAMALFA introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure A BILL To direct the Secretary of Transportation to require that any discretionary grant funds provided by the Depart- ment of Transportation for high-speed rail development in California be reimbursed to the Federal Government and to authorize additional funds for nationally signifi- cant freight and highway projects. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘High-Speed Refund 4 Act’’. 5 VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:58 Mar 19, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1515.IH H1515 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 2 •HR 1515 IH SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 1 Congress finds the following: 2 (1) When presented to voters in 2008, Califor- 3 nia’s high-speed rail system was projected to cost 4 $33.6 billion for a line from San Francisco to Ana- 5 heim, increasing $40 billion to add lines to Sac- 6 ramento and San Diego. 7 (2) The expanded project’s cost swelled to more 8 than $100 billion, with the San Francisco to Ana- 9 heim line costing more than $77 billion, and now the 10 State of California’s high-speed rail plan no longer 11 includes any stops in Sacramento, San Francisco, 12 Los Angeles, Anaheim, or San Diego. 13 (3) When presented to voters in 2008, Cali- 14 fornia claimed the Federal Government would pay 15 between a quarter and a third of the cost of the rail 16 system. 17 (4) The Federal Government had no such grant 18 program at the time, and the $4 billion invested in 19 the project represents less than 5 percent of the up- 20 dated cost projections. 21 (5) At the current level of project employment 22 it would take nearly 400 years to accomplish the 23 1,000,000 job-years promised by the California 24 High-Speed Rail Authority. 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:58 Mar 19, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1515.IH H1515 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 3 •HR 1515 IH (6) No significant private companies have in- 1 vested in the California high-speed rail project. 2 (7) The grant creation and award process for 3 the California high-speed rail project did not incor- 4 porate the best practices of Government funding. 5 (8) The grant agreement between the Federal 6 Government and California did not require a feasible 7 funding package to be prepared before awarding 8 funds, which similar mass transit programs require. 9 (9) The grant agreement between the Federal 10 Government and California did not require a min- 11 imum operable segment before awarding funds, 12 which similar mass transit programs require. 13 (10) The grant agreement between the Federal 14 Government and California did not require new 15 high-speed trains to run on the new high-speed rail 16 system. 17 (11) The Department of Transportation inap- 18 propriately allowed the State of California to spend 19 Federal money without a required State funding 20 match. 21 (12) The California High-Speed Rail Authority 22 repeatedly failed to meet deadlines and underesti- 23 mated costs. 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:58 Mar 19, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1515.IH H1515 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 4 •HR 1515 IH (13) On March 5, 2019, the Federal Rail Ad- 1 ministration, having recognized the failure of Cali- 2 fornia to build even a small fraction of the originally 3 approved high-speed rail system, deobligated nearly 4 $1 billion in Federal funding. 5 (14) No passenger rail system in the world has 6 ever been fully self-sufficient. 7 (15) There are dozens of worthy infrastructure 8 projects that would improve the quality of life for 9 every day Americans and could easily have been de- 10 signed, approved, built, and have benefitted local 11 economies in the time it took for California’s high- 12 speed rail proposal to fail. 13 SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 14 It is the Sense of Congress that any future high- 15 speed rail grant programs that are awarded funds by the 16 Federal Government should have similar or higher re- 17 quirements than existing mass transit programs. 18 SEC. 4. TREATMENT OF FUNDS PROVIDED FOR HIGH- 19 SPEED RAIL DEVELOPMENT IN CALIFORNIA. 20 (a) REIMBURSEMENT OF FUNDS.—The Secretary of 21 Transportation shall take such action as is necessary to 22 require that any discretionary grant funds provided to the 23 State of California by the Department of Transportation 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:58 Mar 19, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1515.IH H1515 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 5 •HR 1515 IH for high-speed rail corridor development be reimbursed to 1 the general fund of the Treasury. 2 (b) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS FOR NA- 3 TIONALLY SIGNIFICANT FREIGHT AND HIGHWAY 4 PROJECTS.—Section 1101(a)(5)(E) of the FAST Act (23 5 U.S.C. 101 note) is amended by striking ‘‘$1,000,000,000 6 for fiscal year 2020’’ and inserting ‘‘$4,500,000,000 for 7 fiscal year 2020’’. 8 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:58 Mar 19, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\H1515.IH H1515 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS