Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Above-ground concrete supports for California's much-delayed and costly high-speed rail system are viewed under construction across Highway 198 on April 13, 2023, near Hanford, California. The current plan is for 171-miles of track between Bakersfield, Fresno, and Merced to begin operation in 2029. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images) Another regulatory train wreck is coming in California, which calls itself the Golden State.
But California’s governance is pure lead. Never has an area with so much going for it—weather and natural beauty—been so mismanaged by its politicians. The tax and regulatory wounds they inflict are nonstop, which is why businesses and people are fleeing the state.
For the first time since it achieved statehood in 1850, California has been losing population. Even so, the regulatory wreckers in Sacramento are still going at it. They are scheming to ban diesel-powered locomotives.
Older engines would be pro- hibited by 2029, and longer-distance freight trains would have to be at zero emissions of carbon dioxide by 2035. The battery technology for these train engines doesn’t yet exist. But the once-Golden State’s modern socialists never let reality get in the way of their fantasies.
Railroads will have to deposit billions of dollars into a special fund, so they’ll someday be able to buy zero-emission locomotives. In other words, money that could be productively employed now will instead sit aro.