California goes off track again

Another regulatory train wreck in California, which calls itself the Golden State. But California’s governance is pure lead. Never before has an area with so much to offer — weather and natural beauty — been so mismanaged by its politicians. The tax and regulatory wounds they inflict are nonstop, causing businesses and people to flee the state. For the first time since it became a state in 1850, California is losing residents.

Yet the regulatory wreckers in Sacramento are still at it. They are hatching plans to ban diesel locomotives. Older engines would be banned by 2029, and long-distance freight trains would be carbon-free by 2035. The battery technology for these train engines doesn’t yet exist. But the modern socialists of the once Golden State never let reality get in the way of their fantasies.

Railroads will have to pour billions of dollars into a special fund so that they can one day buy zero-emission locomotives. In other words, money that could be put to productive use today will instead sit unused to buy what may never exist. After all, zero-emission locomotives require batteries that are up to ten times larger than those today. Should we buy smaller locomotives? Aside from their inefficiency, smaller battery-powered locomotives are vulnerable to fire and explosion.

Given California’s economic size, these rules would ban about two-thirds of the nation’s locomotives from entering the state. California’s socialists know that this would be a great way to force the rest of the country to do the same.

Would this force more freight onto supersized long-haul trucks? Not so fast. California has a mandate to force a transition to electric trucks.

This whole exercise is dangerous. It makes trains and trucks more prone to accidents. It is a huge waste of money that the private sector could otherwise use to improve our standard of living.

When it comes to transportation, California has shown unique ineptitude with its project to build a 463-mile high-speed rail system between San Francisco and Los Angeles. To call this fiasco a white elephant is an insult to pachyderms. It is a decade behind schedule, and the estimated cost has risen from $35 billion to $135 billion and counting. Only a quarter of the system’s length is under construction, with the route repeatedly changed for political reasons. The projected ridership, unrealistic from the start, has been scaled back. Funding is uncertain.

Sacramento is counting on a Democratic victory in November to prevent a permanent derailment of this ill-conceived plan. That bailout isn’t going to happen.