As we noted the estimated cost to build California’s bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles has doubled to $77.3 billion and could almost triple to $98.1 billion. Governor Jerry Brown is now on record what he thinks of it. “This is bullshit,” he told reporters in Sacramento on March 19. “I’m so…
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This week Elon Musk launched his Falcon Heavy skyward, with a Tesla roadster along for the ride. A power pack of 27 Merlin engines boosted the takeoff with five million pounds of thrust, the most by a conventional rocket since the Saturn V moon mission. As USA Today reported, “within a half-hour of the…
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As we noted, even with a single tunnel, Jerry Brown’s massive $16 billion “WaterFix” for the delta is a financial bust. According to Benefit-Cost Analysis of The California WaterFix, by Jeffrey Michael of the Center for Business and Policy Research at the University of the Pacific, construction costs, estimated at $16 billion, are still more than…
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Governor Jerry Brown wants to drill two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and calls this project “a fundamental necessity of California’s current and future prosperity.” Now Ellen Hanak, director of the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, and PPIC fellows Brian Gray and Jeffrey Mount want the state to drill…
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As we noted, California’s vaunted high-speed rail project will require 35 miles of tunnels through the mountains north of Los Angeles. Governor Jerry Brown, a backer of the bullet train, also has tunnel vision for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Brown wants to dig 35 miles of tunnels to convey water to the State Water…
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As we have noted, governor Jerry Brown wants to drill two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The total cost of his Delta conservation plan is $25 billion, but based on projects such as Boston’s “Big Dig,” and a highway tunnel project in Seattle, the cost would be much higher. A coalition…
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We have been keeping track of California’s bullet train boondoggle, or as some call it, a “Browndoggle” after governor Jerry Brown. He backs the train and wants to dig two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta at an estimated cost of $25 billion. Now taxpayers learn that the bullet train also has…
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As we have noted, government never hesitates to waste money on projects of dubious utility. For example, commuters can get along quite well without California’s $68 billion high-speed rail boondoggle. The state does not need two massive tunnels under the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, but the governor wants to spend $25 billion the project. Likewise,…
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As part of his $25 billion plan for California’s water system, governor Jerry Brown wants to build two tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Each tunnel would be 40 feet high, 35 miles long, and together they would cost nearly $17 billion. Backers of the plan would do well to consider the pitfalls…
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