The money is already starting to move to firms like AECOM and Tutor Perini following a California budget resolution earlier this summer that cleared the way for a continuous, year-over-year, funding stream for the state’s ambitious high-speed rail project. Top engineering and construction firms—likely to be called upon to build, and also finance the project—have been waiting for long-term public funding commitments before risking their own capital and labor, says Stephen Polechronis, senior vice president of AECOM, which provided some of the earliest design and planning services for the rail line.
Industrial polluters will be imposed upon by AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, to fund construction over the next 20 years—$250 million in fiscal 2014 and 25% of the revenues of the market-based emissions cap-and-trade program annually. “We and other teams are at work today moving forward on the state and federal environmental studies necessary to get the construction permits,” Polechronis says.