Lack Of Debate On CSX Rail Deal Riles Lawmakers

Lack Of Debate On CSX Rail Deal Riles Lawmakers By LINDSAY PETERSON The Tampa Tribune Published: Nov 28, 2007 TAMPA - Several Florida lawmakers are fuming over a $491 million deal the state is on the verge of signing with railroad company CSX Transportation. They say it passed through the Legislature without most members knowing anything about it, and they want to find out why. The deal would give the rail company nearly half a billion dollars for a section of track in the Orlando area and upgrades on freight lines into a hub planned for Polk County. The Orlando area track would be for commuter rail. "I don't think this is a good deal, but the fact is, I don't really know because I don't have enough information. This never even came up in our committee," said state Sen. Paula Dockery, a Republican from Lakeland and member of the Transportation Committee. The $491 million package will come up for final review in next spring's legislative session, now that CSX Transportation and the Department of Transportation have worked out details of how it will be spent. This time, Dockery and others say they will be ready with questions. They want to know what kind of deal the state is getting. They also want to know how so much money could be allocated to a private company without any legislative scrutiny. "What bothers me is the way this was done, the secrecy," she said. The Department of Transportation "has so much money and so little oversight. We need to look at revamping or adding more oversight &hellip I don't think we should have another project happen like this." State Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said he plans to hold hearings before the session starts. He leads the Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee. "I have members with concerns," he said. "We want DOT to explain the dollars they are spending on these railroads." Gov. Charlie Crist has said nothing publicly about the deal, put together under Gov. Jeb Bush's administration. Neither Crist nor his aides have answered several calls from The Tampa Tribune. DOT officials say the three major pieces of the $491 million plan were in the transportation work program the Legislature approved last year. The DOT program is laid out in a massive document sent to lawmakers for approval every year. It's hundreds of pages long, listing every project the agency plans for the next five years. "Sounds like they were trying to slip something through," said state Sen. Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, also a member of the Transportation Committee. "I don't remember voting to give CSX anything like that. I think it's outrageous that that kind of money can move around and not be subject to public debate or scrutiny." The deal between the state and CSX could be derailed if the Legislature votes against the money, but many say that's unlikely. Money Was Set Aside The deal goes back several years to efforts among Central Florida officials to build a passenger rail system in the Orlando area. It began to come together in late 2004 when CSX, based in Jacksonville, approached DOT officials with a new plan for the state. The company planned to reroute its freight traffic from a line into Orlando onto a parallel line into Polk County, where CSX also wanted to build a major hub. The shift would open up track in the Orlando area, which CSX said it would sell to the state if the state would pay for track improvements on the line into Polk County. The following spring, in 2005, state lawmakers approved about $3 billion in transportation spending, creating new funding for the DOT to use, money that would be used to pay CSX. Former Senate President Tom Lee, a Republican from Brandon, played a major role in the legislation. But he said no one mentioned anything to him about money going to CSX. "My goal was to meet some long neglected infrastructure needs," he said. "I'm sure there were a lot of people down stream who thought this was an opportunity for them to access these resources. But that certainly wasn't anything I was a part of." As a lawmaker, he said, his role was to allocate the money to the agency - in this case the DOT - that had been entrusted with spending it fairly and responsibly. Then-House Speaker Allan Bense, a Republican from Panama City, also said he doesn't recall any talk of CSX receiving any money that year. "I'm not trying to dodge," he said. "But we see about 3,000 bills in a session &hellip It may have been discussed, I just don't recall." But others remember it clearly. "There was money set aside specifically for categories and one was commuter rail," said former state Rep. Randy Johnson, an Orlando Republican. "I'm not sure it was specifically earmarked for CSX, but we all realized that CSX would have to reroute and that was part of the deal. We realized that and factored it into the number," he said. "We asked the question: What would it take to make this happen, what would it take to get this deal done to bring commuter rail to Central Florida." No Hearings, No Debates The deal may have been discussed among the Central Florida lawmakers whose districts would benefit, Dockery said, but they didn't discuss it with many others in the Legislature. There were no hearings in any of the committees that dealt with the bill. No one discussed it when it came up for a vote on the House or Senate floors. State Sen. Michael Bennett, a Bradenton Republican, led one of those committees, Community Affairs, and helped write the bill that eventually passed. He said he thought the transportation money in the bill was for road improvements. "Who the hell brought CSX to the dance?" he asked. "These railroad companies are for-profit operations. Why is the state giving them money? What did the president of CSX make last year?" Negotiations between the DOT and CSX officials began in late 2005, after the session ended and Bush signed the bill. Bush touted the bill's passage in a news release that listed the major projects it would fund. It included "infrastructure for the rail main line in Central Florida." But it didn't mention the line's owner, CSX. In August 2006, Bush and CSX CEO Michael Ward stood together in Orlando to announce the $491 million "agreement in principle" between the state and CSX, with details to be worked out over the coming months. According to the agreement, the state would pay $150 million to purchase 61 miles of CSX tracks in the Orlando area, $198 million for improvements to a CSX line running through West Central Florida, $52 million for other freight line improvements, $23 million to move a CSX hub from Orlando to Winter Haven and $9 million for roads to the Winter Haven hub. The state would also pay $59 million for rail bridges and overpasses in Alachua, Sumter and Marion counties. The DOT presented the package to the 2007 Legislature in the DOT work program. But like the lawmakers who didn't know they were approving money for CSX in 2005, many members of the 2007 Legislature said they didn't realize CSX projects were in the DOT budget they approved. "You're telling me something I didn't know," said state Rep. Bill Proctor, R-St. Augustine, when told about the state's arrangement with CSX. He's a member of the House Economic Expansion and Infrastructure Council, which deals with transportation issues. State Rep. Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater, didn't know either. As member of the House Transportation Committee, he "knew there was an opportunity for commuter rail in Orlando, but I don't remember it coming up." Still, when he heard about it, he wasn't surprised. "Anytime you say transportation, I'm never shocked by the number that comes after it." State Sen. Carey Baker, a Republican from Lake County who will lead the Senate Transportation Committee next year, said he understands other members' questions about the CSX deal, though he was "fully apprised of it" last year when he was named chairman. He thinks it's the best way to bring commuter rail to Central Florida. "I'm more than willing to talk about it, but we're not going to start from zero &hellip We don't have time to start all over," he said. The answer may be to require specific legislative approval of high-cost projects in the future, he said. "We don't want to go back to the old days, when the Legislature voted on every road project &hellip But it's not unreasonable for us to take a close look at any large-dollar projects." Also, he said, the DOT needs to do a better job of explaining its projects to lawmakers. "If they had done that, we might not have had these problems." Reporter Lindsay Peterson can be reached at (813) 259-7834 or lpeterson@tampatrib.com.