building the entire system. we have seen a lot of creative phony numbers on costs, on benefit and even some of the ridership numbers as well. so, congressman denham what does that mean in what the jobs would translate out to and what are some of the impacts on the property as well? . . mr. denham: these were stimulus dollars that were supposed to be ready for shovel-ready projects five years ago. five years ago and still not one shovel is in the ground, not one job is created. now, unlike texas and florida, that are creating jobs, that are putting the infrastructure in, certainly in california they could come up with a better plan. they could go along the i-5 corridor, they could use existing rail corridor that has been abandoned. there are other opportunities if they truly want to cut costs. but if they don't want to change don't want to revise

their budget and they have no private investor, the question still remains, what obligation do you have to go back to the california taxpayer? you're obligating the california taxpayer for nearly $10 billion and you are not fulfilling the prop 1-a guarantee that they voted on. so at a certain point, i believe that we have to force the california high speed rail authority to go back to the voters and seek approval. change your plan, go back to the voters and let the voters decide. mr. lamalfa: indeed. in 2012 there was legislation at the time in california to place that back in front of the voters. give people the option now that they have more information, to say do they really want to go through this, with california's other issues. you mentioned, mr. denham, the challenges we've had with water supply. even our governor has seen that huge s huge priority, a problem for california in 2014.

and yet we have a very difficult time allocating a few billion dollars to enhance our water storage in california. instead are faced with this. what would that mean for jobs in the valley if we're able to turn the water -- turn the tap back on? to agriculture? at a fraction of the price of high speed rail. i yield to my friend. mr. denham: it would be a fraction of the price. tens of thousands of jobs that will be lost by seeing farm land that goes by without being planted this year. we have a huge drought. there are huge issues. and what everybody is trying to say is a high speed rail, keep in mind, this initial segment, this initial operating segment which has ads 20 billion funding gap -- which has a $20 billion funding gap is not going to be electrified. it will will not be -- it will not be high speed. by their numbers and plan, this is another set of track that will not be electrified, that will run as is being run today. with a $20 billion gap.

so even if you came up with the entire $32 billion of this initially segment, we are still -- initial segment, we are still stuck in the same situation we are, we're just that much further in the hole. i know some of my colleagues would say, well, just spend the money as quick as you can. let's just spend some of it and like other projects, once you've started it, some day the money will come. i don't think we can deal with that type of pie in the sky rhetoric. i believe week of got to have a full funding plan that makes sense. one that has a private investor that was promised to us. you know, we've heard several times that if you just write the legislation, we'll have a private investor. if you just put it on the ballot and approve it by the legislature, before it actually goes to the voters, we will have private investors that will sign onto this. then it was right after the ballot passed, we have nearly $10 billion committed to by the taxpayers, for sure we're going to have a private investor now. five years later, after the

federal government has come up with several billion dollars, after the voters are now on the hook for $10 billion, and still today there is no private investor. you'd be a fool to invest in this. this isn't florida's project. this isn't texas' project. this is a project with a huge funding gap that's still not going to be electrified. by their plan. i yield back. mr. lamalfa: indeed. when we looked at the project in totality here, what ended up being $100 billion to be legal under proposition 1-a, to have a true high speed rail, which is required to go from san francisco to l.a. at a high speed, two hours and 40 minutes, $100 billion project was revised now down to a $68 billion project which does not include high speed all the way to san francisco and the north. it would stop at san jose area and then you're required to use local transportation, local light rail, what have you, to get all the way up to san

francisco. at the southern end you have, in l.a. county, it doesn't go to downtown los angeles under the new plan, it would stop somewhere on the north remote l.a. county portion. so it isn't truly high speed rail anymore. as you mentioned too, on that, if they fake the -- take the palmdale route, they probably can't even sustain the speeds. it's illegal in that count. it can't make the two hour and 40-minute ride. you have three different segments. if you have to buy three different tickets, i don't know how the customers are being suited by three different stops like that as well. we were told back in the day that the price of the ticket would somehow be tied to 85% of what an airline ticket was. to go from north to south or south to north. nd a real estimate, if this is self-sustaining, would be triple of that. the impacts of that, again, california agricultureally, with water supply, is struggling this

year. and so for the fraction of the amount money it would take to bolster california's storage, we're going to spend perhaps what would have been $100 billion and the revised number, $68 billion, to do an illegal prop 1-a version from south san jose to north los angeles. that's a $55 billion gap on the entire project right there. we can only point to $13 billion worth of funding. the $9.9 billion from the bond, which bonds have consequences. they have to be paid back, an already financially strapped state. as well the $3.5 billion or so that's promised from the federal government under the 2009 stimulus has strings too. it has an expiration period. please embellish on that a little bit, because we know there's some very important deadlines coming on that as well if we can. mr. denham: there are important

deadlines and again this is part of the antideficiency act that says that the 50/50 match now is coming due for the state. so april 1, $180 million is due. the question is for the governor, where is that money going to come from? we can't just continue to change the deadline. and the question to the administration is, are you going to continue to allow california not to guarantee its matching funds? i mean, it is going against the antideficiency act, the reason that is put into law. mr. lamalfa: california just passed a recent tax known as prop 30 last year, of 2012, that was going to pay for a whole lot of things. go for a lot of different measures, with perhaps schools, other infrastructure, we had talked about cap and trade. we've also -- we can even point to truck fees. they're all now trying to be shifted toward high speed rail,

instead of other priorities. i wonder if that's what the voters' intentions were on prop 30 or on their truck fees or weight fees, etc. so, i think there's been a lot of deception around this again on the cost, on ridership. as i mentioned a minute ago, if it's been revised down to a $68 billion plan, we can only point to, for sure, approximately $13 billion from fed stimulus and the state bond, where does the other $55 billion go to build what is really an illegal plan? where's it going to come from? mr. denham, you mentioned we haven't seen the private sector money. from anyone. yet you can point to recently a proposal came out for an east coast plan to build a magnetic levitation train that would link east coast urban centers and there's already interested investors from japan on that. with much more modern technology. you can say that rail, this

really isn't new technology because it's wheels still running on a steel rail. and in california, which was supposed to lead the way in technology and innovation, we're really not leading on this at all. what do you see as far as the problems with that bigger funding gap and then bringing it back to what's that going to do for our economy? mr. denham: well, certainly we're falling way behind the rest of the world. other technologies are starting to flourish in other parts of the world. yet here this project will take at least 30 years, but more likely 50 years to 60 years based on where they're currently standing on the project. so something that will be far outdated technology if it ever gets completed. but the real question is, where is the commitment? this president certainly could look for or come up with other money. he could propose other money to fulfill this project.

not even democrats will support that. that's not a republican issue. this is an issue across the nation saying, why would we come up with money when we're starved across the nation to throw at a project in california that is being mismanaged? and i think that there are real questions there. not only for the administration but private investors, that are not willing to sink money into a failing project. they don't know what they're on the hook for. they don't know how long of a commute this will be or what the ridership numbers will ever be. even by this entire plan, there are too many stops, whether you talk to the rail authority or whether you talk to investors around the world, with that many stops and those locations, will you never get to the 220-mile-per-hour speed, you'll never get to two hours and 40 minutes. this thing is full of holes. makes no sense for voters. an voters should have a say so on whether or not they're going to commit any money, initial money, or any further money as we move forward. this is about our future. not yours and mine, but our kids, our grandkids and the type

of debt that we saddle them with. and at a certain point i think that not only californians but american it's need to wake up -- americans needs to wake up and say whether or not this is a project that deserves an investment. and can we do things smarter? can we do things like florida and texas? and i don't think florida and texas are going to be alone. i think there will be other states that step up and find ways to do high speed rail. find ways to make a commonsense solution in their states. but in this state, this project is flawed. it's initially flawed by $20 billion, but certainly by more than $55 billion if we decide to move forward. at a certain point you have to ask, how much is enough? i would say that now is enough. mr. lamalfa: thank you. indeed, when the stimulus money first started coming available, there were other states that applied for high speed rail money, such as florida, ohio and wisconsin, i believe, that had -- after they looked air at their numbers, ran -- after they

looked at their numbers, ran the figures on projects that were available for that stimulus money. they turned that money back and went back into this pool. of course california said it wants it, but interesting, it would have been a much smaller portion had california been sharing with those other states, of what federal money would have come to the states. so the other ones said, we've looked at the numbers and we're turning that money back in. so i think we ought to apply some of the same logic as the other states looked at when they had federal money available, eligible funds that they indeed turned back. so i really appreciate your leadership on this, congressman denham, on this, and we will be doing a lot more to make sure that this is held accountable to the public here and look forward to your hearing tomorrow on this matter. so thank you. mr. denham: thank you. i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. lamalfa: we're also joined by a colleague from the lower

san what queen valley area of the -- joaquin valley area of the state, this issue is very important, very key to his issue as well, on the impact of the rail route, as well as the economy, as well as what it means for the taxpayers of the state and of the entire country. indeed this has an effect on national taxpayers in the budget as well. there are people in the other 49 states looking at what's going on here saying, why is our federal money going into something that can't possibly work out? and so i know we're all willing to help people in other states with sensible infrastructure projects, that's the way it works in this country, with our interstate system that president ines hour had the vision for back -- eisenhower had the vision for back in the day. you can actually point to positive results and something that works long-term. and other infrastructure projects that were invested in. but this one here, the numbers

just don't run. so my colleague from the valley, he's got very great concerns, has been very strong in leading in his area too as well on what are the impacts going to be, what are the costs, and so i'd like to recognize the congressman. thank you. mr. valadao: i thank the gentleman from northern california for the opportunity to speak here today. where do you start with something like this? i grew up a dairy farmer in kings county and continue to be a dairy farmer in kings county to this day. i've spent my first two years in elected office in the california state legislature on a budget committee and watched as this project moved along. and right before election, when this was passed back in 2008 and up until my election in 2010, the project didn't seem that bad. it seemed like something that was just voted on and put on the shelf and they would continue to

build on it. then at the last minute, some money showed up and it basically put this project in high gear. and the project wasn't ready for it. and like the congressman from the northern part of the valley mentioned earlier, there's no real plan. when you show up at the last minute and say, here, here's some money, start building right away, as if it's shovel-ready, you set this project up for a really, really tough time. what we're facing today, we see a train system being built, high speed light rail. 40 years ago, rail with wheels was the technology. now it's not. to see a project starting today with technology that's already 40 years old that probably won't be running for another 30 years, i think we're setting ourselves up for failure. when you look at what else has been going on with this project as far as what the opportunities are, when you look at my district specifically, california's district 21, you've got

communities that rely on a system we've got today, amtrak, which amtrak doesn't pay its bills but it gets people from a to b and serves its purpose. you've got a system there where people who live in though communities are able to get to the doctor in fresno or in bakersfield or get to work. but a small commuter train that gets them where they need to be for a relatively small cost, but what we've got there, a track that will pass from hanniford, if it ever gets built, but for sure from fresno to bakersfield. it leaves the people in california 21 out to dry. when you see a project that was supposed to help those less fortunate and those who need the most, you've got a project that's going to hurt them and put potentially at risk the amtrak they've got today, their mode of transportation. because this project lacks so much money, that's why it puts

us in that position. we've got a system in place that's built on someone else's train tracks, on burlington northern's tracks in my area, i'm sure on other companies' tracks in other parts of the state, but if it moves forward and runs out of money, part of the plan is to move amtrak over there. what happens to the stations in my district? that's one issue i see. in california 21, like mentioned earlier and a good portion of the valley, we face a water shortage, a drought. some of that is natural but a lot of that is regulatory. and we've also got a severe lack of infrastructure to deliver water. e've got temperance flat and other infrastructure that needs to be built. it would benefit not just california but the whole state in general. when you look at a project like the high speed rail, if it was going to go forward, you'd have a high speed rail most people couldn't afford to ride. if you build water

infrastructure you've got water to grow a product, water to feed families, water for our communities. once you have that, you start to grow crops york start to produce products, you start to improve an economy and produce a product you can sell and bring dollars back to the community. that in my opinion makes more sense. in education, california struggled with funding for education for years. we've seen plenty of programs that were cut out, cut back, just flat out gotten rid of. if you've got a project like high speed rail spending money when they're not prepared for it, when you should be invested in the future, making sure our kids have the best opportunity, the best foundation, bring -- to improve our economy, to be good, productive members of our society and to make a real difference, i think education should be our first priority. you look at everything that we could be spending money on, right now in california, we've been letting prisoners out of prison because we don't have money to build facilities for

them, we don't have enough money to keep some of the community correctional facilities open. there's a lot going on there and we have to be spending money on a project like this when we should be focusing on something to keep our community safe. those are all things we should be paying attention to that we're not because of this project. they're in haurry to build this project right now because they say it creates jobs but like was alluded earlier, those numbers were all bogus. they were pushed up. they weren't honest numbers. we're starting to see this project that will put our children and grandchildren into debt for a long time for a small amount of jobs that we really account account for. can't assure are going to be our own community joshes will come from our own district. this is something that's had me concerned my whole time in the legislature. it's something i talked about for a long time and it's something that i'm going to continue to fight. it needs to be talked about and pushed out there. the more people that get

involved, you take groups like my kings county group of residents who have sthide state and sthide federal government over this project. when they first got involved, they looked at this project and said this is going to affect our families and our homes, let's fight it. once they started getting into the details to see where the funding was coming from or lack of funding or how the plan was being pushed forward and the am of deceit that go into the project to get it rammed down our throats, they decided to keep fighting it no matter what. even though it was moved off their property to another part of town they thought, or the high speed rail authority thought people would back off because it doesn't affect them personally but once they knew what was in this project, there's no way we can let this fight go. so the group actually group. -- the group actually grew. now that the group was affected by the new alignment, the old guys came network new guys joined together, and the group

grew. now they moved the alignment back. the first group is continuing to fight and the second group is as well. it's just amazing how the more you get to know about this project, and how it's being pushed and how it's being run, the more you want to fight it. the more you want to shut this thing down. and so just to close, california high speed rail comes at a tremendous cost to taxpayers while delivering no benefit to my constituents. this project will destroy homes an businesses throughout california's 21st congressional district and dwirt precious tax dollars away from water infrastuckture, public safety and education. i will continue to uphold my promise to my constituents and do whatever i have in my power to stop this project as fast as possible. yield back. >> thank you, mr. valadao.

i have one comment, one question, a commission, a board in california recently moved, a three-person board, to authorize the rail authority to start condemning property under eminent domain and of course there's going to be a lot of resistance. kings county san area that's like a hotbed of resist toons this project here. the eminent do main procedures are not always easy or cheap to get through a court process. so they've already moved to condemn two pieces of property, i believe, in fresno county and i believe there's 380 that may have to go through this process. how do your constituents feel about the forced taking of land and an alignment that doesn't make a lot of sense and some of the infrastructure that may be lost in the communities? mr. valadao: over the years, there's been a lot of things built in the valley, freeways and other things that need to be built for the goofed the state.

farmers and constituents in general, if they understand why it's being taken and it makes sense for the state, usually it's an easy deal. but once they get involved in the details of this project and start to see how they're being treated themselves, how the project is going to end up looking, because it's pretty apparent what the lack of funding and with the rest of the federal government looking at this project and understanding this it's pretty much ruined buzz of the management, they're not happy. they're fighting this thing tooth and nail. when it comes down to their own personal property, they're offended with some of the prices and some of the numbers they've been seeing. if they own the property or their families owned it, if it's a generational thing or just in general as an eyesore that will be running alongside their homes, affecting how they drive to work or how they move around the district in general. but it's just offensive to many of them, depending on the different route or how you want to approach it. >> indeed, let me ask you too, how easy is it to relocate a

rendering plant? the endering plant is a facility -- mr. lamalfa: a rendering plant is a facility that processes dead animals. one of those is in your district. mr. valadao: we've got a rendering plant that's rite in the middle of the alignment. the alignment move ops a weekly basis so you're never realy sure but the alignment plant has been in the alignment twice now, the first time and we're back in again. as far as permitting for a new rendering plant, back in 2006 in the heat wave, we struggled in the central valley to handle all the amount of animals that were needing to be processed at that time and permitting for a new facility was nearly impossible and we were never able to upgrade or expand the facilities. so to build a new one today is nearly impossible.

mr. lamalfa: is the high speed rail authority out there guaranteing to help or see through as part of the environmental documents to help make sure this is replaced or other infrastructure -- there's dairies in line there, again new york california, securing permit for a new dairy has become nearly an impossibility as my colleague in the dairy business would probably report, and so there's a lot of people weighing in on that, relocating the dairy, these are facilities, lands, that have been in generations of families. so is anything being taken into account on the authority helping with these processes as part of their impact they're having? mr. valadao: we've gotten no guarantee on that. some of the things that might be affected, someone with a restaurant, that the high speed rail is going to come through, they pay them a value but don't

take into account loss. or a home. prices have come down. it's a chance to come in and offer market price which would leave that person homeless and in debt. there's a lot of situations. we have farmers with long-term leases on property who do not own the property but own the permanent crop on top of that high speed rail hasn't taken into account the voofl the crop on top. people will invest $1,000 -- will invest $10,000 or $15,000 an acher to put trees on it and if they're only considering the land and not what's on the land that will be a bad deal. one of the biggest economic drivers in the valley and in california, we export a lot of ag products that brings dollars in. that will have an impact on our economy as well. mr. lamalfa: we're both from longtime farming families, and when you are a farmer, anybody in a small business that might

be multigenerational, but especially on the land, you develop a bond, a love of the land, that you don't really put a price on. i think most farmers, they'll farm until they can't farm anymore either due to age or regulations taking it away from them, whatever. how do you put a price on, in my family, we're raising the fifth generation, you and your neighbors have multigenerations as well. how do you put a market price on your legacy? you know. somebody coming in from sacramento or washington or whatever saying we think it's worth that. it might be worth infinitely more amount to you, your family and the generations behind you. how do you quantify that? mr. valadao: you can't. when it's a project necessary for the benefit of the country, benefit of the state, one that makes sense with a good plan behind it, it's a little easier to swallow but when you see this project in general and how big a disaster it's been and how little information has been given out to the public, how

they plan on moving forward, if people will be able to afford to ride this thing it makes it that much worse because this is important. when you look at how hard some people have worked to build their homes, to build their farms, to build their companies, we've got restaurants, we've got a little bit of everything being affected by this you see their blood, sweat, an tears and can't put a price on that mr. lamalfa: eminent domain is something the government should use only reluctantly, only when there's no other option available. my farm has been affected by that as well, with the large towers, the power line, that move from hydroelectric projects in the northeast of the state down to san francisco bay area. so you know, it's something that affects our fields. but it's part of the greater good, our tractors have to drive around those now and figure out how to keep straight

lines when you have those towers, and you have ag aircraft trying to drop seed or fertilizer, things like that we get some strange streaks in our fields because of that infrastructure but it's porn. we want folks in the bay area to have that. and so -- eminent domain isn't always very fair. what i'm seeing here is that the promises made by -- there isn't any promises made by the high speed rail authority to truly keep people whole on this and give them options. as you mentioned, the alignment changes frequently. we're not even sure if they have a full 520-mile alignment decided yet. they could have gone for a more low-impact route, perhaps putting it down the middle of interstate 5 or next to it, using parts of 99 perhaps. mr. valadao: or fill in gaps where amtrak doesn't serve. if you want to go from

bakersfield to l.a., you get on a bus, there's no connection there. that would have been a great place to start the project. that's one of the arguments we have. when off project this size and such a small percentage of the money that is needed to build the project, you can see the failure coming. but you have to make sure that whatever resources are spent, are spent in a way that benefits the overall majority of the people and right now, if you're riding amtrak from fresno to l.a. and get off at bakersfield and get on that grey hound bus and ride over the hill, i'm sure grey hound does a great job, to build a rail and build it up to today's standards and put something in place to build on in the future. that makes sense. mr. lamalfa: you can make an argument that the first places you should look are the urban areas where you could have potential ridership on the east coast, a lot of ridership between washington, d.c. and up to boston. i don't know about the

financial viability of that but at least you can make a case there. here, you know, as was reported just a couple of years ago, they wanted to start in the valley because as was coded, they had the least amount of resistance to the rail starting in the rural valley as opposed to the south bay area, palo alto and other places that people were feverishly opposed to what that would do, what that infrastructure tends to bring to high value communities like that as well. . the promise lies in the central valley for us in what we do well already. my portion in northern sacramento valuey, san qua queen valley, these are -- with a queen valuey, these are strong -- joaquin valuey, these are strong agricultural areas. how far could we go to do one or

two water storage projects and what would that mean for especially communities like you have down there that have seen huge economic impact with the cutoff of water due to the delta smelt and those other problems? what would that mean in real jobs for the people that have the skills and the education level that likely aren't going to be working on a high-speed rail project that are -- have a strong background in agriculture? mr. denham: -- mr. valadao: what we look at a company that wants to invest in the valley, if they're in agriculture, obviously they're attractive to the area for those reasons. but if they're looking for an affordable place that makes sense between l.a. and san francisco because of access to larger population, they look at the central valley. but they also want to make sure that they're secure there. if you want to build a company, you want to make sure it's in a great place for your employees and the focus should be right now making sure that people have affordable energy to live there, because obviously it gets hot in the summer. and the water situation, are you going to move your family into an area where the water isn't safe to drink? which is commonplace in some of

those communities that we've been fighting for funding for some of the water treatment facilities that are so necessary. and then when you get into the infrastructure itself, if you're going to build a plant or anything or a processing facility for the type of commodities we grow, water is a necessariesity. it starts from growing the crop to cleaning the crop to making sure that the facilities are up to code and that we've got some treatment in place, that we have the product that we can sell and bring dollars to you are communities and that's how you -- to our communities and that's how you create jobs. that's what we should be focusing on and investing our limited resources on today. obviously we've been making tough decisions in the last few months over spending and budgets and everything else we've got going on, not just on the national level but at the state level there's going to be tough decisions as well. those decisions should be based on priorities and those priorities should be making sure that we have the resources and resources today mean water. water is the number one priority and that's where it should be focused at. mr. lamalfa: i think everybody in california in the midst of this drought would probably find

agreement with. that our own governor was underlining that in a speech the other day. yet still wedded to this high-speed rail project which the fund something highly questionable. indeed a judge handed down a decision the other day ordering california not to spend any of the state bond money because it wouldn't be legal to do so under the lack of a plan they have. so, we both served in the state legislature and is california's financial situation such that it can get out there on its own somehow with new funding, if the federal money falls short or no private investment comes out, where will it come from? mr. valadao: we've got a lot of priorities here in washington, d.c. and the different members from different parts of the state are not looking at california's high-speed rail project the way it's being rolled out today and thinking that's a good place to invest the resources that the taxpayers in their district want to see them spend the money on. so it's not going to be an easy lift. and as this project seems to move forward, and the press gets

worse and worse and when you've got judges involved saying they're not following the letter of the law, what was asked of the voters where they voted for it, it just makes it that much harder to come up with the rest of the money they're going to need to finish this project. to get it started, just to build a big burm with some metal on top to hopefully throw some older-style amtrak tiles on top, doesn't make a lot of sense, especially when you're going to cut off communities that need what we have in place today and not put that in jeopardy. mr. lamalfa: what doesn't get talked about much are different impacts like the high-speed rail in order to sustain a high speed. you've got to build it very long, elliptical form in order to make turns with a train going 220 miles per hour. and so that doesn't -- it's kind of like the angled towers running at angled lines on my property that we farm. it doesn't fit in real well with the grid that's set up on straight lines and squares like that. so when an elliptical-shaped

rail comes through your community, through agricultural zones, as well as high speed -- high-speed rail, having to cut off all the crossings, can you build enough overpasses to not have -- stop the flow of traffic, whether it's cars or trucks or even a farmer on a tractor who now may have to drive his tractor instead of just across, six miles down the road and back up to get around? i mean, there's a lot of impacts that are really not meeting the eye here, when you line them out. mr. valadao: like i mentioned earlier, when this project was started, it was started as a long-term project. but then $3 billion showed up from the federal government and the project managers basically said, put this thing in high gear, start breaking ground. if you've got a project of this size that affects so many people in so many different community, how they travel around their homes to work, around their farms, around their businesses, transporting products between warehouses and processing

facilities, there's so much going on and you've got this project now that's going to disrupt all of that, just because they've got a time line that they've got to spend. and the time line is really on a small portion of it would. err talking a -- we're talking a couple per -- couple percentage of the total cost of the total project. that's probably one of the worst things that's happened in this project since its inception. it could have been something great. it could have been a project -- could have made a big difference, if it was given the time to be designed and planned in a way that benefited the state, didn't burden the state with debt forever, and actually helped the constituents of that state. so it's too bad that this project has gone down the path it has. but again we're going to try to stop this thing so that this doesn't happen and doesn't affect our communities. mr. lamalfa: indeed it does appear that they're hell-bent on spending that approximately $3.5 billion that has federal

deadlines on it in order to get the project started and then at that point, well, we're invested in the project, we can't stop now. even though the judge ruled it's illegal to spend the state dollars because it's not fulfilling the plan. so, indeed, big impact on the valley and on taxpayers. so, mr. valadao, really appreciate your time and your leadership on this here tonight and let's keep putting the message out that there's better ways, most anything might be better, than investing in this at this point. so i thank you for your help here tonight. mr. valadao: thank you and i yield back. mr. lamalfa: so indeed, the investors that were supposed to come in, private investments for what had been billed to voters as a $33 billion project, up to $45 billion if you built the san diego and sacramento link, they've not materialized. and when you see that the price

for a time went up to $98.5 billion, hence why i ran in california senate bill 985, it scared everybody away from this. you see, in a baltimore to washington proposal, to do a maglev project here locally, that has outside investors that want to come in on it, nobody's touching california's high-speed rail. so, in the absence of this outside investment, california has moved in many different ways to try and find other pots of money. the governor plans on diverting truck weight fees that are collected from commercial truckers away from repairing california's aging roads. just try and drive in the right-hand lane of any freeway. i get to enjoy interstate 5 a lot. and see what the condition of that road is.

some areas have been repaired, trans had a pretty good year last year, other areas are still pretty rough. boy, the pot holes in sacramento are pretty bad. yet we're seeing the effort by the state to shift funding away from repairing roads that everybody uses, versus a project that maybe few can afford to actually use. my colleagues from the valley here would probably tell you that's not going to be a lot of people who jump on high-speed rail to ride from bakersfield to fresno because it doesn't make any sense for them. the promise of a low-cost ticket being 85% initially of an airline ticket from l.a. to san francisco or vice versa, how can that be met without having the tickets subsidized at these costs? $85 we were told, $90? it was revised later, maybe $120 when we had a hearing about it. try $300, if it's not going to

be underwritten by the taxpayers. for ridership on this. how many people are going to spend $300 on that trip? other than those who might do it for the novelty of the train ride from north to south or south to north. we saw pie in the sky numbers on what the amount of ridership would be. numbers at one time were greater than the entirety of amtrak across the 48 continental states. they've had to revise them down to some other vague number. there's not a lot of trust in anything that's been put forward by the california high-speed rail authority on costs, on ridership, on impact, promises made or not made to those that are impacted in the line of many different proposals of where the route is. yet they're still trying to move forward and start condemning people's property at who knows what price of reimbursements. in order to spend as quickly as

they can this $3-plus-billion of federal stimulus money. put in place almost five years ago. it's really looking more like a fraudulent enterprise from what the voters saw in 2008 to now. indeed, polling out there shows that now that people have heard about in the last couple of years, of what it really means, and the other choices they have to make, on schools, water, on their actual highways, they have a whole lot different opinion on it. a lot of editorial pages around the state are saying at the very least, if you're not going to stop it, you should put it back on the ballot. i attempted that in 2012. the mood wasn't there in the state legislature to do that. my colleague, former colleague there that i served with, assemblyman jeff garell from the santa barbara area, he's putting forward legislation to put it back on the ballot and revote

the rail. so i hope that catches fire and that the legislature will look at this project and decide, you know, maybe that would be worth a vote of the people of california. to decide if this is still a priority, at these prices. so, assemblyman garell got a pretty big task to put that in front of the legislature and achieve the votes. but interesting, still talking state politics here, the state senate, to put forward the first segment of funding in late 2012, they received the bare majority of votes to fund that. our california state senate is 40 members. it got a vote of 21-19. all republicans voted no. and four of the democrats who up to that point had been pretty favorable on high-speed rail. it barely got out of the state senate floor. i think that's saying a lot.

that the opinions have changed. certainly amongst the voters, we have to put the state legislature in a figurative headlock to get them to think about it. i hope the assemblyman is successful in this measure because it would be proper to put this back in front of the voters and ask them again, would you rather have this or water projects, highway projects, school projects, any number of things that could be done to help move california forward instead of this boonedoingle that has no way of pie -- boondoggle that has no way of paying for itself or sustaining itself. so we see that, again, with the court handsing down a ruling -- handing down a ruling that the plan has diverged so far from what was initially voted on and approved by the voters, that it's now illegal. why should state government be doing things that are illegal?

because they're right now in such a hurry to get the money spent, the federal money. if the federal money was to stop , the state money also has -- they both have to have a match with each other. if there's not the match happening, then there's giant legal problems. as congressman denham mentioned a while ago. what's the payback procedure of federal -- if federal money is misspent, improperly spent? does california have the capacity to do that, if it doesn't meet its timelines, doesn't meet the goal, doesn't meet the tenants laid out, of it being a true high-speed rail system, all the way from san francisco to los angeles, which so far that plan is not. . you have to ride three different train types to accomplish that under this current plan. now we know the folks in the bay area and parts of los angeles are interested in seeing some of their tracks

electry fied, as beneficiaries of some of the money coming from this. i get that, i understand that, it would be a benefit for them. some upgrades in their local infrastructure. i don't know why you couldn't support that separately from this. if it helps to have cal train in the bay area electrified, that should be a separate question a separate set of funding. because right now this is illegal. the people in the bay area want to be part of an illegal project like this and maybe perhaps lose the funding they're depending on to electrify and upgrade their system. i don't think so. that's a lot of money when it gets around to doing that. above what's going on in the valley with the condemnation of the land and building in an area where they said they'd have the least amount of resistance to the prompt, let alone the bay area and parts of l.a. county. it's very problematic. it's really time, as i proposed back in my state senate day,

slow down the project and get some real numbers on it. that's my first bill in the state senate, s.b. 22, no spending, no doing anything, until we have a fully vetted and thought out plan. i mean, honestly this reminds me of obamacare. i've been calling this around my neighbors obamacare jr. because it's so poorly thought out and the plan for funding it looks largely the same -- pie in the sky. investors won't touch it. frolvet, are they going to come in and bridge the gap of the other $55 billion that's missing, if we believe a $68 billion plan, let alone inflation and projects that might drive toyota $150 billion. all for what? what could really be seen as an outdated tech knoll and something a lot of people can't afford to access nor even makes

sense for them to use in short segments within the valley. yes, it may make sense, possibly if you had a fast train going from san francisco to l.a. and complete that. but one of the things brought up is that in order for the project to be technically legal, they would only have to send one train per day in each direction at full nonstop length. they would have other trains perhaps that are making these stops, stopping at every little burg along the way. that's not high speed rail. that's glorified amtrak. glorified local commuters. that's not the intent of voter or -- voters or anybody on this measure or for that funding which is scarce money these days. in california and the huge problems we have in trying to get a budget done and move eventually toward balance in our federal budget. it isn't a priority that with we should be doing. so mr. speaker, i just want to

te that again, congressman denham will be having a hearing tomorrow in his transportation and infrastructure subcommittee at 10:00 a.m. washington time develop manager on this situation. i'd invite you to participate or watch that and expose what really needs to happen with federal funding as well as maybe perhaps the people of california have an opportunity to weigh in on assemblyman gerrell's proposal to have this pack on the ballot and maybe shift our scarce funds to other things. with that, mr. speaker, i thank you for the time here tonight and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the jevt from california have a motion? mr. lamalfa: i move that the house do adjourn for the night.

the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. motion is adopted. accordingly the house stands adjourned until

everything from preventing the post office from discontinuing saturday mail. to preventing the export import bank from blocking funds, an important priority for house committee chairman hal rogers. the other things not in the bill, there's no provision blocking all funding for obamacare, that's the issue that shut down the government for 16 days in october. however, conservatives can point to the fact that $1 billion has been taken out of

the obamacare prevention fund which they've derided as a slush fund that heath and -- health and human services secretary sebelius can dip into to bolster obamacare funding. and there's no new funding for obamacare. >> 2014 an important year for u.s. efforts in afghanistan. how does the omnibus handle war funding? >> it's at $92 billion on the high end, that's what the house was seeking. this will help the pentagon deal with what is a funding cut, about $20 billion in base fund regular ducks from what the house had sought. this is a pretty strong number. aid to the afghan government is limited, there are policy provisions which would require bilateral security agreement in order for full funding for the afghan government. in addition in that section, there's new limitations on aid to egypt as well which saw a

coup and its funding limited by the administration and now it will have to meet certain democracy objectives to receive its full military support as well. hypoyou reported on some language reverting back to some benefits that were taken away, military benefits. tell us about that. goip it cut about $85 billion in spending in order to boost spending in the near term on the discretionary side. how they got to that cut involved a cut to military pentagons of about $6 billion. this is a cost of living adjustment for military retirees and it's proven quite controversial even among deficit hawks on the republican side and there's a big effort in the senate by democrats and republicans to reverse that. this pill has not completely reversed the cut, instead, it

addresses how it affects disabled veterans and survivors of members of the military who have been coirled died while in service. this would exempt them from the cut. that's part of this deal. hypoafter the politics of getting this through the house and senate you tweeted that republican leaders in the house are starting to sell the $1 trillion omnibus to the rank and file. how are they doing that? goip there was talk about it in this morning's conference meeting among house republicans. they were pointing out that this is bringing discretionary funding back to the year of the bush administration before the obama stimulus. it's a lower number than in the first paul ryan budget and they're emphasizing that there are a lot of conservative principles, including on obamacare, that are in here and worth going for. a lot of members have just started to review the bill, it's 1,582 pages, it dropped at 8:00 p.m. last night. when i was talking to them,

they were still reviewing it and some had concerns. representative jason chaffetz, a true conservative, is concerned about a land provision, payment in lue of taxes that relates to rural communities and payments to lowal government. people are bringing up individual pieces of the bill that they're worried about, talking to leaders about how that might be addressed and other legislative vehicles. there's a real conversation going on. hypoon the democratic side with the administration -- host: on the democratic side with the administration, does it make it easy for democrats to favor the bill? guest: i think there'll be a strong house democratic vote. steny hoyer, the minority whip who opposed the budget deal because it didn't do enough to create a grand bargain to deal with deficit, has said he'll

support this measure. i think there's going to be a strong vote. we're talking to members and seing if they have concerns. there are cuts to, you know, national institutes of health funding and certain programs, especially in the education department that may deter some especially liberal members from voting for it. host: read more from erik wasson at thehill.com. thanks for the update. in a few moments president obama's advisory group tells congress that the program hasn't had a sig can effect on stopping terrorism. in a little more than two hours, a forum on raising the minimum wage hosted by the economic policy institute. after that, it's a heritage foundation discussion of the economy. >> i think i had little antennas that went up and told me when somebody had their own

agenda and not ronnie's. and i'd tell him. he didn't always agree with me but i'd tell him. it usually worked out. >> watch our program on first lady nancy reagan at our website on c-span.org/firstladies or see it saturday on c-span. and our series continues live on monday as we look at first lady barbara bush. >> president obama's advisory group, assigned to review the n.s.a.'s data collection programs, has determined the programs didn't have a significant effect on stopping terrorism. members of the group didn't call for ending the program but recommended taking certain information out of the n.s.a.'s control. they testified before the senate judiciary committee for little more than two hours.

>> senator grassley is going to be joining us. we have a roll call vote expected soon but i want to get this started and then we can, when the oo-- when the vote occurs at some point, we can recess far few minutes while we go and vote. but what's important about this hearing, we're going to hear from the president's review group on intelligence and communications technologies. i was talking briefly with them in the back and i know this is the first time they've appeared together publicly since the groundbreaking report was released last month and i thank them as i know the president has and others have for taking the time, a lot of time and ffort, to prepare this report.

and i know it will be reflective of what the president will say later this week. the report addresses some of the weightest issues that will -- weightiest issues that will affect us in the coming years. we know that more and more data will be created by all of us as each day passes. the questions are obvious. when should the government be allowed to collect and use that data? when does the collection of data improve our national security? and what will the answers to these questions mean for privacy and free expression in the 21st century. all three branches of government are grappling with whether to let the n.s.a.'s dragnet collection of america's domestic phone records to continue. we're finally doing so with full public participation in that debate.

i think americans across the political spectrum want us to have this debate. and want to have a clear understanding of what is going -- of where it's going so we're trying to get as much as we can into a public debate and have a clear understanding of what is going on. we are trying to get as much as we can into a public hearing. all of us on this committee have had access, as have the five witnesses, to classified matters . we try to go into as much as we can in open session. anyher we conduct intelligence activity, the ports is the assessment of its value. it is important, especially with the phone collection program done under section 215 of the patriot act. it is you not -- it is not uniquely valuable enough t