Crying foul once again the California Citizens for High Speed Rail Accountability (CCHSRA) this time has pointed out the very small window of opportunity allowed state residents to respond to spending of cap and trade dollars on the high speed rail project.
he California Air Resources Board, of all places, has issued guidelines for the expenditure of cap and trade dollars being collected and the Governor has insinuated himself into the process by grabbing some of those funds to help build the rail project.
The goal of cap and trade money was to have been to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions immediately; however, the high speed rail project will not be able to do this for upwards of 30 years, according to CCHSRA.
“This is obviously an illegal use of funds and this is currently being challenged in court by our friends at TRANSDEE,” noted Aaron Fukuda of CCHSRA.
That has not stopped the goal of spending the money the way the governor wants.
And there isn’t a whole lot of discussion taking place about this expenditure of public funds. The air resources board held one workshop. That took place on June 22. The board gave just one week for comments, closing the window Monday—June 29. There are no other announced workshops scheduled.
The call has gone out to host additional workshops in the Central Valley (the one workshop held was in Sacramento) and to extend the June 29 deadline. To request a local workshop, residents can contact their air quality board member reps at http://www.arb.ca.gov/boardmembers.htm.
