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Schwarzenegger Administration Endorses High Speed Rail to Meet Global Warming Targets

By Robert Cruickshank
California High Speed Rail Blog

The California Air Resources Board has released its draft scoping plan for implementation of the AB 32 greenhouse gas reduction law. This is the law that was passed in 2006 that requires California to reduce carbon emissions by 25%, to 1990 levels. It is rightly seen as a landmark national, even global law.

And as CARB recognized, its goals cannot be accomplished without high speed rail.

The cornerstone of the CARB plan to implement AB 32 is to use a cap-and-trade system. I prefer an outright carbon tax, but cap-and-trade is what we're likely to see initially here in California. This is where the overall amount of carbon emissions is capped, and credits are created to allow pollution up to that cap limit. Those credits can be traded - so if, say, a factory wants to pollute, it must purchase more credits, causing those who sell them to reduce their emissions. Over time the number of available credits is steadily reduced to achieve lower emissions.

Transportation is one of the capped sectors of the economy - meaning we can no longer just fly around or drive around endlessly; there will be increasing limits and at the same time rising costs as the cost of the credit purchase is passed on to consumers. To achieve the required lower emissions, and to provide sustainable and cleaner forms of transportation CARB endorsed high speed rail as one of its recommendations.

Their explanation was not particularly detailed - basically an endorsement of the concept of HSR and a projection that it would save around 1 million metric tons of CO2 in 2020. That's around 22 billion pounds per year, close to the figure of 17.6 billion pounds that Quentin Kopp has been quoting.

This also gives me a chance to reuse one of my favorite graphics, from Alberta High Speed Rail:

The amount of carbon emissions savings for HSR is really quite dramatic. And let's put this in context. Airline emissions are much higher than initially believed. CARB doesn't mention airline emissions, which is one of several reasons I believe their plan will ultimately be inadequate. But that just makes HSR all the more important a method of greenhouse gas reduction - if we are to have any hope of making the AB 32 targets, which are modest targets, we need to be constructing alternatives such as HSR. Without HSR it just will not be possible to make meaningful reductions in transportation emissions - and those emissions are the single largest category of emissions in the state.

Some might ask about the electricity generation for the HSR project. The CHSRA is currently undertaking a study of how to power the system with zero greenhouse gas emissions that should be ready any moment now. Given the potential for thermal solar in the Central Valley and wind power in some of the mountain passes and the Delta, a carbon neutral high speed rail system is entirely possible.

These facts are more than compelling. They demonstrate why high speed rail is an absolutely necessary part of California's solution to the great crisis of the 21st century - global warming and its effect on our environment. Although there are several other important reasons for HSR, on the environmental basis alone this project is something California cannot afford to reject.

Robert Cruickshank is a historian, activist, and teacher living in Monterey. He is a contributing editor at Calitics.com and works for the Courage Campaign, in addition to teaching political science at Monterey Peninsula College. Currently he is completing his Ph.D. dissertation in US history, on progressive politics in San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s. A native Californian, he was raised in Orange County and educated at UC Berkeley. This article originally appeared on the California High Speed Rail Blog http://cahsr.blogspot.com/ which he publishes.

Posted on June 27, 2008

Comments

Comrade Cruickshank,

I went to the state's website on HSR and searched in vain for DETAILED maps of how the HSR right-of-way will traverse Soledad Canyon, Tehachapi and Altamont Passes with their steep grades and sharp curves.

Can you reference them for me?

Regardless, the HSR website has an email box for questions: I asked them where such maps could be secured as well...

Guess what? NO ANSWER.

So after 10 years and nearly $60 million in taxpayer dollars spent the HSR website cannot even perform a function it set up for itself.

Could this be an indicator of how well the government is "taking care of us" in proposing and supporting HSR?

Posted by: Jay Gould at June 27, 2008 09:16 AM

Mr. Cruickshank like to spin yarns. His latest is his statement

And as CARB recognized, its goals cannot be accomplished without high speed rail.

Now please good sir show me where in this document one can read that statement.

Also at this stage he wants us to believe that the Governor has endorsed this project. Maybe Schwarzenegger will eventually endorse this project, but he certainly has not done that to date.

Posted by: Jim Johnson at June 28, 2008 06:52 AM

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