It's Time for California to Fund High-Speed Rail Itself

If the past couple weeks are any indication, it's going to be a long winter for California high-speed rail. In late November, a judge issued two rulings against the project: one denying its request for a blanket validation to sell state-backed bonds, another ordering the rail agency to produce a new funding plan. Earlier this month, federal regulators denied a request by the agency to exempt part of the line from an environmental review.

To be sure, none of these decisions ends the project. The agency began hiring workers this fall in preparation for construction of the first segment of the line, and officials have told news outlets they expect to proceed as planned. But the setbacks do threaten to delay the project down the road — no small complication, since $3.3 billion in federal stimulus funds granted to the line must be spent by late 2017.