Republican leaders seek to apply brakes to bullet train project

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Two influential Republican lawmakers called Friday for California to slow down the high-speed rail project.

The vice chairs of the Assembly Budget Committee and Appropriations Committee asked the head of a budget panel to reject a request to allocate an additional $18 million for work to buy land for the $98.5-billion project.

Assembly members Jim Nielsen of Gerber and Diane Harkey of Dana Point said in a letter to a key decision-maker that the California High Speed Rail Authority had not provided a satisfactory explanation of how the system was going to be financed and whether it would be successful if built.

‘Until we receive credible answers to the questions we have placed on the public record, as well as information requested from the Authority by our members … we feel it is inappropriate to grant additional funding requests for the project,’ Nielsen and Harkey wrote to Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), chairman of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.

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-- Patrick McGreevy