Understanding Government

Inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found a laundry-list of safety problems at Pacific Gas & Electric’s controversial Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, including several seemingly serious issues, according to a story by John Upton in The Bay Citizen.

According to the inspection and evaluation, ordered after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan, Diablo Canyon’s fire station is seismically unsound, parked cars block access to critical emergency control valves, a new security fence blocks access to an emergency coolant pool, and plant operators skipped required training exercises. Despite the findings, the NRC declared the plant safe, along with all 103 other nuclear plants recently inspected. (more…)

Planners promoting California’s high speed rail system are apparently on the hunt for some serious cost savings.

Two recent stories about the ambitious plan to link Los Angeles with San Francisco via 220-mile per hour trains suggest the project may be facing serious financial questions — just as the naysayers have crowed all along. (more…)

San Bruno, CA – Sept. 2010

Federal prosecutors are apparently poring over documents related to last September’s natural gas transmission line explosion, laying the groundwork for possible criminal prosecution of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., according to John Upton of the Bay Citizen and Garance Burke of AP. Officially, however, the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Francisco is only ‘looking into’ the events that led to the 2010 explosion that killed eight and leveled 38 homes in a San Bruno subdivision. (more…)

Scott Walker

Before Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker blasted public employee unions, he made a name for himself by rejecting stimulus money for high-speed rail. It may come as a surprise then that Walker wants to increase transportation spending in the state of Wisconsin, given his purported distaste for federal transportation money and the dire budget warnings that accompanied the public employee bill. But Walker’s state budget shows that, like many leading Republicans, the governor isn’t against big, expensive government.  It’s more that he’s against certain government programs.

And Walker is especially not a fan of public transit. (more…)

A major windfall in federal funding offered to Florida for a new high speed rail effort, just might end up in America’s other sand-and-sun tourist destination — California.

Arguing that local matching funds and future operating and maintenance costs would be an albatross around Floridians’ necks, Florida’s Republican leadership recently rejected the $2.43 billion Washington offered for that state’s long planned fast train project. Now, according to Rich Connell of the Los Angeles Times, the race is on to get that money and California is hoping for a healthy slice, if not the whole pie. (more…)