Daily Archives: 31 December 2025

There’s a Lesson Here

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Recall that the Federal government last summer canceled a $4 billion grant to California’s slower-than-a-sick-snail-in-January bullet train project over that thing’s huge cost overruns and delays that kept the train not far from its drawing board. California’s Progressive-Democrat governor Gavin Newsom had filed suit over the Trump administration’s effrontery in declining to fund, further, this California waste management project. Now we get this:

California dropped its lawsuit against the Trump administration after it pulled roughly $4 billion in federal funding for the state’s high-speed rail project.

The bleats of the California High-Speed Rail Authority in explaining its decision to drop the lawsuit notwithstanding, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explained the reason for cancelation.

Governor Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years. Federal dollars are not a blank check—they come with a promise to deliver results. After over a decade of failures, CHSRA’s mismanagement and incompetence has proven it cannot build its train to nowhere on time or on budget[.]

The lesson: don’t do upfront Federal grants to States for projects. Don’t do grants after the fact without hardy strings attached. Make all grants conditional on the States having let the contracts; construction having begun; and significant, serious construction progress having been underway for six months. Then release the grant money a month at a time, after the State has released its funding for the month, with the granted funds matching, not exceeding, the State’s funding for each month. If the State misses funding its project for two consecutive months, or for any three months out of five consecutive months, the rest of the grant must be canceled. The grant could then be renewed, or funding resumed, conditioned on the State having relet its project contract; construction having been resumed; and significant, serious construction progress having been underway for six months. The month-to-month grant funds then could be released as above.

CHSRA’s CEO Ian Choudri had this in the alternative:

Interest from the private sector in investing in California’s high-speed rail project is strong and continues to grow[.]

Even better. If the private sector really is willing to fund this, then go for it. Just don’t expect the Federal government, or the taxpayers of the other 49 States who are the source of Federal dollars, to pay for it.

Not Enough

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European managers say they’ve made a concerted effort to stop buying Russian oil when the barbarian invaded Ukraine. Then there’s Turkey.

Several times a month, tankers unload tens of thousands of barrels of oil products at a Turkish storage terminal in the port city of Mersin. The vast majority of the ships come directly from Russia.
And several times a month, tankers leave that facility carrying similar quantities bound for the European Union.

In that alleged effort, those managers neglected Turkey. Now they’re claiming to be increasing “scrutiny” of that Turkish port and others.

I claim those managers’ neglect was largely intentional. I claim they consciously chose to ignore Turkey’s long relationship with Russia. Turkish enterprises, and the Turkish government, have long been happy to broker Russian oil.

Even if the increased scrutiny leads to concrete action regarding Turkish ports and transshipments of Russian oil, it’s not enough.

European nations, in addition to actualizing their scrutiny, could stop buying Russian oil that passes through Turkey. It isn’t that hard to trace the provenance of most of that oil, and where the provenance can’t be determined, that should be sufficient reason to not buy that oil.