California’s public transportation  system has made for ripe comedic fodder for many years. Particularly  in Southern California, the transit system is a joke on wheels. Over  the last year, however, state leaders have been working to obtain funding  for a high speed rail project to run the length of the state.

On November 23, Governor Schwarzenegger’s  Office informed the public that he, alongside California’s two Democratic  senators, sent a letter to President Obama in an attempt to speed the  process of obtaining federal funding for the transit project. The funding  is expected to come from the massive American Recovery and Reinvestment  Act, signed into law by President Obama in February 2009. In their letter,  the governor and Senators Boxer and Feinstein outlined reasons why the  funding request should be granted, including the impact of removing  more cars from the roads, providing more jobs and updating an aged and  outpaced infrastructure system. They wrote that the state “has  completed design and planning for the nearly 800-mile system and made  significant progress on the environmental review, making our state uniquely  qualified to employ federal funding quickly.”

California voters approved Proposition 1A in November 2008, arranging around $10 billion for the purpose of building a  rail system to connect various regions of California to one another,  including Los Angeles to Anaheim, San Francisco to San Jose, and Fresno  to Bakersfield. In October, the governor and various state authorities  banded together to jockey for $4.7 billion in federal aid to build the  high speed rail system. Funding for the project has got off to a slow start,  as the state is broke and legislators continue to stubbornly refuse  to give up irresponsible spending practices and pet projects (re: ‘green’  anything).

While the governor and enact policies based on man-made global warming,  this is one idea that makes sense. Building an efficient and affordable  transit system to connect all Californians is a meaningful and logical  way to take more cars off the road and reduce the boogeyman known as  carbon emissions. Taxing business and individuals, however, in order to combat  global warming, does not make sense. Also this week, the governor noted  with pride, that the California Air Resources Control Board began to  draft legislation on a statewide cap and trade program. Penalizing businesses  does not help turn a state green, while investing in the future in the  form of a solid transportation system does. Perhaps the governor and  his allies should stick to actual firm ideas to enact change, rather  than pointing the finger at business and demanding "cleaner" output  at higher costs. It’s time to focus on the tangible, and stop reaching  for "green" at all costs.