SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) When voters approved Proposition 1A on November 4, 2008, they authorized the state to issue $9.95 billion in general obligation bonds and expend the proceeds for the construction of a 520-mile high-speed rail system between San Francisco and Los Angeles/Anaheim. In the official title and summary approved by the Legislature, voters were promised that the only cost to the state’s General Fund would be “to pay bond principal and interest.”
(b) Neither the Legislature nor the voters have approved the direct expenditure of state General Fund dollars for high-speed rail construction.
(c) On July 6, 2012, the Legislature enacted SB 1029 (Chapter 152 of the Statutes of 2012), amending the 2012−13 Budget Act to appropriate $4.7 billion in state bond funds and $3.3 billion in federal high-speed rail funds to initiate high-speed rail construction. Under an agreement with the federal government, the federal funds require state matching funds. It was the intent of the Legislature in enacting SB 1029 that the appropriated state bond funds would be used to provide this match.
(d) On August 16, 2013, a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled that the High-Speed Rail Authority had not yet met the legal requirements to access and spend Proposition 1A bond funds for high-speed rail construction.
(e) In its October 11, 2013, response, the High-Speed Rail Authority did not dispute this finding, but argued that, even if it cannot access or spend Proposition 1A bond funds for construction, it can proceed with construction using federal funds. Because federal funds must be matched with state funds, the authority argued that other sources of state funds, including, but not limited to, the state’s General Fund, can be used to fulfill this matching requirement.
(f) This course of action enables the High-Speed Rail Authority to unilaterally obligate the state to provide more than $3 billion in state resources toward high-speed rail construction that may otherwise be designated for purposes such as education, health care, or public safety, without any prior review or approval by the Legislature.
(g) It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this act to ensure that, if the High-Speed Rail Authority cannot legally spend state matching funds appropriated by the Legislature, it may not obligate the state to provide additional sources of state funds that have not yet been appropriated by the Legislature.