SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A group of California state legislators are asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to reconsider a requirement for catenary electrification for the state’s high speed rail system, seeking the option to use battery or fuel-cell power to avoid the expense of stringing overhead power lines.
The Los Angeles Times reports state Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and 17 other Democrats made the request to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg in a June letter. It comes when Rendon and others are seeking to redirect funding to complete the under-construction segment of the high speed system in California’s Central Valley to segments in Southern California and the Bay Area. The newspaper says supports of that plan fear the cost of electrification would prevent that move.
Recent restoration of a federal grant to help fund the project specified electrification, as did the bond passed in 2008 to provide $9 billion for the project. The state’s high speed rail authority agrees, saying electrification is the only way to meet the speeds required in the act approved by voters.
A U.S. DOT representative told the Times in an email that the agency would respond “shortly.”
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