Why is Obama Administration Trying to Railroad the States?

The unending melodrama surrounding Florida's rejection of failed stimulus dollars begs the question: Why is the Obama administration so fixated on rail?

The transportation blog in the National Journal addressed that query today and, echoing Gov. Rick Scott, suggested a better route:

"Isn't it curious that an administration devoted to the principle of multi-modalism is so obsessively determined to promote a single mode of its own preference -- that of high-speed rail?" asks transportation writer Ken Orski.

"All three governors who rejected the federal HSR grants -- Governors Walker, Kasich and Scott -- told Secretary LaHood that their states could badly use that money for more urgent needs of fixing roads, bridges and transit systems and, in the case of Governor Scott, rebuilding Florida's ports in anticipation of the Panama Canal expansion.

"Yet Secretary LaHood turned a deaf ear to those requests, insisting that the stimulus money must be spent on high-speed rail -- even though money spent on other modes could have been just as effective in creating jobs.

"After justly condemning 'stove pipe' mentality and modal biases in federal decision-making it is ironic to findthe administration ignoring its own principles of modal neutrality in such a blatant manner," Orski concluded.