Vote went 5-4 on Senate Bill 1601 

Comments regarding HSR:

Texas Central Railway has always maintained that they would not need, want, or seek public funds or government subsidies.

Yesterday, TCR participated in two hearings in Austin, one Senate committee meeting and one House committee meeting.

In the Senate committee hearing a senior TCR executive admitted they were open to, and would possibly seek (most likely this means “probably seek”), loans from the federal government – anyone remember Solyndra?

The constructions costs will be tens of billions of dollars, thus putting the taxpayers at risk for a massive loss – all to support a single entity.  We taxpayers would suffer any loss, but the gains (if any) would be solely those of TCRs.

In the House committee hearing a senior TCR executive lobbied to reserve the right to borrow money using private activity bonds (these are like local municipal bonds).

So the charade is broken. They are planning to line up at the public money trough.

This changes the entire game.  They no longer can claim this is merely a private entity working in the open marketplace.

Looks like another Amtrak, with billions of dollars in government assistance (taxpayer money) at risk.