By George Skelton | Capitol Journal
Gov. Jerry Brown finally is showing us the money he hopes to parlay into paying for his bullet train. Basically, it’s the cash from selling licenses to pollute.
It’s not called pollution licensing, of course. Officially, it’s a cap-and-trade program, a polite government name for allowing industries to pollute for a fee.
It’s extremely complicated and somewhat controversial. More on that later.
Brown has been under pressure to specify how he’s going to finance the $68-billion, 500-mile high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Voters approved the project in 2008 when they were told it would cost half the current estimate. Only roughly $12 billion has been identified — about $9 billion in state bonding authorization and $3-billion-plus in federal grants.
