Gov. Rick Scott defended his decision to allow a controversial Central Florida commuter rail project to move forward, saying he legally had no authority to block the $1.5 billion SunRail line as he did when rejecting $2.4 billion in federal funds for high-speed rail.

Scott, a tea party favorite, put SunRail on hold when he took office in January, freezing four contracts totaling $235 million. Tea party activists, railing against the commuter line, met privately with Scott to urge him to axe it.

Scott earned national headlines when he said ‘no thanks’ to $2.4 billion in federal stimulus funds for high-speed rail. Two lawmakers – one of them a fellow Republican – sued Scott but failed to convince the courts that Scott had overstepped his authority in sending back the money.

Scott said his lawyers told him there was a “significant risk” he would have lost a similar court challenge had he tried to block the commuter project.

“These are two totally different projects,” Scott told newspaper executives at the annual Florida Press Association and Florida Society of Newspaper Editors meeting at the Renaissance Vinoy Hotel in St. Petersburg. “It’s like comparing apples to oranges.”

Local officials’ pledge to cover cost overruns gave Scott some security in approving the project, backed by powerful GOP legislators including House Speaker Dean Cannon of Winter Park – and local officials of both parties.

Even so, he said, “I don’t know that I would have made the decision to go forward with this if I had been around three or four years ago.”

Gov. Rick Scott has put the brakes on the $1.2 billion SunRail commuter train in Central Florida by freezing $235 million in contracts for the project until July while he decides whether to allow it to go forward.

Could give him some the upper hand with powerful GOP lawmakers who support the project, including Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, as they craft their budget? It’s due before the legislative session ends on May 6.

Nope, Alexander said.

“Unless he had my children in handcuffs I don’t think he can get leverage on me,” Alexander said after learning of Scott’s maneuver.

Read The Orlando Sentinel’s Aaron Deslatte‘s blog about Scott and SunRail after the jump.

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Gov. Rick Scott continued his tour of state agencies Monday — stopping at the Florida Department of Transportation and seeming to give a couple hundred tense employees some reason to believe they’ll keep their jobs a while longer.

Scott praised the performance and efficiency of DOT employees. And he said that during his campaign last fall, no voters complained about the agency, unlike — he named names — ridiculing the Department of Community Affairs.

“You’re helping to make sure that this state is going to be the jobs creator over the next 20 to 30 years,” Scott told the crowd gathered inside the agency’s auditorium.

The new boss acknowledged that if anyone was “a high-speed rail enthusiast, I’m not your best friend.” And he gave advocates of Central Florida’s SunRail commuter train little reason to gain confidence.

“That’s one project I’m looking at,” Scott said.

He only had to field two questions from DOT employees. But one came from Florida Democratic Party activist Jon Ausman, also a DOT staffer, who quizzed the Republican governor about how cutting benefits and reducing state agency payrolls helps Florida’s economy.

“We have to make sure we treat taxpayers and government workers fairly. Both,” Scott said.

Gov. Charlie Crist ordered an investigation into “Wafflegate” but his concerns about transportation officials’ possible violations of the state’s Sunshine laws aren’t keeping him from signing the bill they were writing about into law tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Crist will hold ceremonial signings in Tampa and Orlando of the sweeping rail bill passed during a special session last week.

Today, Crist acceded to Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink’s request for the inspector general investigation.

But he rejected Sen. Paula Dockery’s suggestion that he delay signing the bill that paves the way for SunRail.

Dockery’s fought for three years the deal in which the state will pay CSX at least $430 million for 61 miles of track in Central Florida for a commuter rail project. The state will share the rails with CSX, which will continue to operate freight on the line for less than $4 million a year.

The Palm Beach Post reported on Sunday that CSX played a major role in the crafting of the bill.

“For three years, the agency has been stonewalling citizens trying to examine this back-room deal. Given the secretive code words used to hide its communications, the agency has violated the public trust. Until the investigation is completed, I would encourage the governor to delay signing – or better yet, veto – the legislation we’ve now learned was authored by CSX,” Dockery, R-Lakeland, said in a statement.

Orlando Ax the Tax chairman Doug Guetzloe also asked Crist to hold off on signing the bill into law. Guetzloe and the state Tea Party Chairman Fred O’Neal have asked Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs to investigate the matter they coined “Wafflegate.” Guetzloe also said he will file an ethics complaint and ask Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office to look into it.
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Gov. Charlie Crist ordered his inspector general to investigate the state’s top transportation officials’ use of code words in e-mails.

Crist made the request after Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink asked Crist for an internal investigation to find out if Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Stephanie Kopelousos (whom Crist appointed in 2007) and her deputy Kevin Thibault tried to hide their e-mails from public records review by giving the subject line of “pancake,” “pancakes” and “French Toast.”

The e-mails sent in November contained information about a proposed rail bill later approved by lawmakers during the special session that ended last week.

“Given our state’s proud and comprehensive public records laws, I remain concerned that DOT employees may have deliberately used these code words in an attempt to disguise their actions from the people of Florida. We live in the Sunshine State, and this is not the way the people’s business should ever be done,” Sink, the presumptive Democratic candidate for governor, wrote in a letter to Crist to Crist asking for the investigation.

Minutes after Sink’s office released her letter, Crist’s office sent out his response.

“I agree with the letter that was just received from Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink. Accordingly, I have directed Chief Inspector General Melinda Miguel to conduct an inquiry of the Department of Transportation,” Crist said in a statement.

Crist’s order for an investigation came after numerous demands for an inquiry from other sources.
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Tea Partiers have asked Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs to convene a grand jury to investigate state transportation officials’ use of code words in e-mails.

Tea Party Chairman Fred O’Neal filed a request with Meggs yesterday asking for a grand jury to look into “deliberate evasion of Florida’s Public Records law” as well as “as an arrogant disregard” of the state constitution’s Sunshine Law guaranteeing access to public records and meetings.

Tea Party activists dubbed the messages “Wafflegate” after The Palm Beach Post reported that Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Stephanie Kopelousos and her deputy Kevin Thibault exchanged three messages last month with the subject lines “pancake,” “pancakes” and “french toast.”

Doug Guetzloe, chairman of “Ax the Tax,” said he plans to file complaints with the ethics commission and Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office and another to Meggs.

“This is a direct violation of public trust,” Guetzloe said. (more…)

The Florida Senate gave a final thumbs-up on a rail bill that is now headed to Gov. Charlie Crist, who has pledged to sign it into law.

The third time was the charm for the chamber, which passed it with a 27-10 vote but had twice before refused to sign off on a Central Florida commuter rail project called “SunRail” included in the measure.

The House passed the bill yesterday and a last-minute deal between the AFL-CIO, the Department of Transportation and Tri-Rail officials paved the way for its passage in the Senate.

The bill includes up to $15 million a year for Tri-Rail, enough to keep its current 50 trains-a-day running. That will keep the commuter line and the state from having to pay back $256 million in federal funds that would have to be returned if the schedule had been cut.

The measure also allows state transportation officials to move forward with the purchase of 61 miles of railroad track from CSX Inc. for the SunRail Central Florida commuter project. That commuter line will run from Poinciana to Maitland and was another sticking point in the Senate.

The bill creates two statewide panels to oversee passenger rail and diverts $60 million a year from real estate sales taxes to be spent on rail projects beginning in 2014.

The Florida Senate is poised to take a final vote on a rail bill approved by the House yesterday after less than two hours of debate.

The measure faced fierce opposition in the Senate but a last-minute deal cut by the AFL-CIO, the Department of Transportation and Tri-Rail cleared the way for its passage.

Leaders of the union, which has 500,000 members, had strenuously objected to the measure throughout the special session because, they said, it created a policy that would have had a negative impact on the state’s 7,000 railroad workers.

But the deal preserved up to 184 jobs for employees of CSX Inc. who work on Tri-Rail and what will become SunRail.

The deal combined with up to $15 million included in the measure for Tri-Rail is likely to sway some Democrats who had planned to vote against the measure.

Lawmakers had given themselves until Friday to finish up the special rail session.

The Senate did not make any changes to the House bill so once it passes it will go directly to Gov. Charlie Crist, a proponent of the proposal who will sign it into law.

A last-minute deal between the AFL-CIO, Tri-Rail and state transportation officials has satisfied union leaders that their workers won’t be laid off under a bill now being debated in the Senate.

The union had opposed the measure, which the House passed easily yesterday.

The labor issue posed a threat to its passage in the Republican-dominated Senate despite the support of GOP leaders including Senate President Jeff Atwater.

The Senate could take a final vote on the measure as early as this evening.

The side deal means that the Senate is poised to pass the same bill the House approved by an 84-25 vote yesterday. Once passed by the Senate, it goes to Gov. Charlie Crist – one of its biggest supporters – for final approval.

The rail bill that is the subject of the special session squeaked out of three Senate committees and is headed to the Senate floor this afternoon where its fate remains in doubt.

The Senate Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee approved the measure by a 4-2 vote. Sen. Chris Smith, a Democrat from Ft. Lauderdale, cast the crucial vote in favor of the measure allowing it to pass out of its final committee and head to the floor for debate this afternoon.

The House easily approved the measure – backed by GOP leaders including Gov. Charlie Crist and Senate President Jeff Atwater – yesterday. The Senate is expected to vote it tomorrow.

Two contentious issues remain in the measure. The AFL-CIO says it would reclassify railroad workers to transit workers and the workers would lose federal job protections that they say make trains safer.

And language in the bill dealing with who would pay for accidents – taxpayers or transportation giant CSX Inc. – on a proposed commuter line that would be shared by the state and CSX is also causing angst for some senators.

Two committees passed the bill earlier by 5-4 votes thanks to some committee changes ordered by Atwater, R-North Palm Beach.

Atwater pulled Sen. Ronda Storms, a Valrico Republican and fierce opponent of the SunRail measure included in the bill, off the committee in October. Had Storms remained on the panel, Smith’s vote would again have been the tie-breaker.

The Senate Judiciary Committee narrowly passed a rail bill that the House easily approved yesterday but for the third time faces a serious challenge in the Senate.

As in its first committee yesterday, the bill passed by a 5-4 vote.

Contentious testimony this morning centered on the controversial “SunRail” Central Florida commuter rail deal in which the state will pay Jacksonville-based CSX Inc. $641 million for 61 miles of track from Deland to Poinciana. The transportation giant would be able to continue to operate its freight on the line in exchange for a $1 a year payment to the state.

Who would pay for accidents on the line was the heart of the debate in the committee this morning.

The proposal would cap liability for CSX – even if freight operator is at fault – at $10 million. The state would be on the hook for the rest of the damages, which have run into hundreds of millions of dollars in other states.

Why wouldn’t Florida do the same as some other states that make freight operators liable for criminal negligence, Sen. Dan Gelber, a lawyer, asked committee Chairman Joe Negron.

“It’s because of pleading requirements and other issues that arise in indemnification agreements we’ve made the choice that we’ve made,” Negron, R-Stuart, said.

Gelber wasn’t satisfied.

“What we’re really doing in this is we’re allowing a private company to insure itself for criminal misconduct, for wanton misconduct, for gross negligence, for gross recklessness which nowhere else in Florida have we ever done. We’ve never done that by statute. So this is a major move,” said Gelber, D-Miami Beach, who was on the losing side of the vote.

The measure is now being heard in the Senate Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee, where it is also expected to pass.

The Senate will debate the bill on the floor this afternoon.

Updating the news from this morning that Republican Gov. Charlie Crist wanted to meet in his office with the four Republican swing votes on the special session bill…

Turns out he could only get three, including Dennis Jones of Seminole who says he initiated the meeting to talk about some local college appointments. That means the fourth Republican either declined to meet with the governor or refused to clear his or her schedule.

Meanwhile, Crist got good news from at least two of the lawmakers: Jones says he’ll change his vote from ‘No’ to ‘Yes’ if leaders can show there are no general revenue dollars in the proposal and that the rail lines will benefit the Tampa Bay Regional Transportation Authority.

Nancy Detert of Sarasota told Crist she’s already planning to change from ‘No’ to ‘Yes’.

“If it’s part of a huge rail piece where we can access federal dollars and use that money to put people back to work, and to put rail all across the state as we’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t afford then I am a ‘Yes,’” Detert said.

“If we cannot access federal funds then it changes the game.”

The third Republican, Durell Peaden of Crestview, said he was firmly against it, noting that it would be difficult for him to run for any Panhandle office if he supported the bill.

“The people in my area think we need more asphalt,” he said.

A sweeping rail bill narrowly passed its first committee in the Senate by a 5-4 vote after being approved by the House earlier today.

The Senate Transportation Committee approved the measure after two hours of testimony and questions and a lot of distancing by Senate sponsor Jeremy Ring on what the bill is not about.

It’s not about SunRail, he repeatedly asserted. SunRail is the controversial Central Florida commuter rail project that the Senate failed to approve twice before, most recently in May.

It is unclear yet whether Ring has the votes in the Senate to pass the bill (HB 1). Republicans in the Senate are split over the bill in part because of the SunRail deal in which state transportation officials have already agreed to pay CSX Inc. $641 million for 61 miles of track around Orlando. In exchange, the transportation giant can continue to run its freight cars on the line for $1 a year.

A last-minute addition to the committee made Friday secured its passage.

Senate President Jeff Atwater placed Sen. Mike Fasano, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee and a SunRail supporter, on the committee late Friday to replace Sen. Larcenia Bullard, who was hospitalized.

Without Fasano’s “yes” vote today, the bill would have died.

Two more Senate committees will vote on the bill tomorrow before it goes to the floor for debate tomorrow afternoon.

A heated exchange took place in the Senate Democratic Caucus meeting this afternoon over the sweeping rail proposal that is the topic of the special session now underway.

Conspicuously absent from the meeting were representatives of the state Department of Transportation, responsible for a controversial $641 million deal with transportation giant CSX Inc.

A provision included in the bill that would allow state transportation officials to unlink union jobs from railroads has put the measure in jeopardy in the Senate.

A frustrated Sen. Tony Hill, a former longshoreman and union organizer, demanded that fellow Democrat Jeremy Ring, the bill’s Senate sponsor, fix the measure to ensure that union workers won’t lose their jobs.

“Get it right. Get it right. It’s your bill. Get it right,” Hill, D-Jacksonville, told Ring.

The bill is either all about jobs or has nothing to do with jobs, depending on who is talking and what day of the week it is.

About 138 Tri-Rail workers would get pink slips if the bill passes, union representatives say.

That’s not true, countered South Florida Regional Transportation Authority Chairman Jeff Koons, also a Palm Beach County Commissioner.

He claimed the only way Tri-Rail workers will be out of a job is if the controversial bill does not pass because the commuter rail system won’t get the extra $15 million a year included in the measure. Without that, he said, Tri-Rail won’t be able to run its full schedule.

“We are holding our nose. We are supporting this agreement,” Koons told the packed conference room.

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Florida House Speaker Larry Cretul called lawmakers to the Capitol last week to clear a path for high-speed rail. The move came six years after he cast a ballot to repeal a voter-approved mandate for high-speed rail.

From the campaign trail, Republican Gov. Charlie Crist condemns federal spending. In radio ads for his U.S. Senate race, he tells President Obama, “Enough is enough.”

But in Tallahassee, Crist is the leading supporter of the special session bill aimed at securing $2.5 billion in stimulus money for the state to build a bullet train. That money would be in addition to the $5.2 billion in stimulus funds propping up the state budget Crist approved in May.

“Anybody who wants to help us, we’re more than eager to accept it and to make sure that we put people before politics,” Crist said.

For Florida Republicans, who have controlled the state House, Senate and governor’s office since 1999, the federal stimulus plan has proven to be a thorny issue in a high-stakes political year that includes open races for U.S. Senate, governor and all three Cabinet jobs. Doubly so when it’s for the creation of public transportation, a campaign promise of Democratic President Obama’s and not a typical Republican issue.

“It’s hypocrisy,” designated House Democratic Leader Ron Saunders of Key West said. “They’re campaigning one way and governing another.”

Rest here.

Lawmakers in the House are debating the 49-page proposal that would pave the way for a $2.2 billion Central Florida commuter rail system, create a statewide rail authority and keep Tri-Rail rolling.

GOP House leaders – who have been heated critics of President Barack Obama’s stimulus spending – say they’re doing all that to increase Florida’s chances of getting a slice of the $8 billion in federal stimulus funds for high-speed rail projects being doled out in January. The state’s applied for four projects totaling about $3.7 billion.

After 20 years of Tri-Rail’s operating in the red, why the rush to bail out the South Florida commuter line – the state’s only existing one – now?

Because U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said so.

“There’s a commitment at the federal level to get into the passenger rail business like it never has before,” LaHood told SunRail supporters in Orlando in October. “But, the only way it will pay off is if the State Legislature gets its act together.”
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Sen. Ronda Storms complained repeatedly about the rushed special session schedule and what she said is not enough time in a three-hour committee meeting held today to vet a 49-page bill dealing with a variety of rail issues.

She said she’s spent more time shopping for a computer than was devoted to the bill during the three-hour “workshop.”

“As a professional I want the chair to know that I object to the lack of time that we’ve been given,” Storms, R-Valrico, began her line of questions.

Storms likened the omnibus package to the federal bank bail-out package that was pushed through, she said, at the 11th hour and failed to result in the economic boost it promised.

She then launched into an attack on bill sponsor Sen. Jeremy Ring’s contention that the 15,000 who use Tri-Rail every day – two thirds of whom take it to work – will lose their jobs without the Tri-Rail fix included in the measure.

“Suddenly they’ll just be flopping around out there without transportation? That does not speak to me,” Storms said.

Storms prefaced each of her questions with gripes about the rushed scheduled slammed up against the Christmas holidays.

Transportation Committee Chairman and SunRail supporter Andy Gardiner had enough.

“Sen. Storms, I’ve heard the comment. We’re familiar with your position on this. The summary of this bill was sent out on Monday. This is a workshop…there is time over the weekend to review this,” Gardiner, R-Orlando. “I’ve heard ya. And I understand that. But please understand this is just the first opportunity.”

The Senate is expected to vote on the bill on Tuesday.

Senate President Jeff Atwater and his GOP lieutenants insist that the rail proposal now being considered in a special session that opened today has nothing to do with a controversial Central Florida commuter line known as “SunRail.”

That’s probably a wise maneuver since Senators twice failed to pass measures that would have allowed the state Department of Transportation to move forward with a deal paying CSX Inc. $641 million for 61 miles of track to start the commuter line and allow CSX to continue to run freight on the line for $1 a year.

Yet the first committee to take up the 49-page bill in a workshop this morning spent nearly the entire three hours discussing the SunRail project that the measure is supposedly not about.

And Tri-Rail got a fair amount of attention, too.

Sen. Paula Dockery, who’s hoping to ride a victory in the death of the SunRail deal earlier this year to the governor’s mansion, led the charge against SunRail with some simple questions about Tri-Rail.

The proposal will give up to a $15 million helping hand to Tri-Rail that, like every other public transit system in the country, loses money every year.

And it will bring thousands of jobs, said Sen. Jeremy Ring, the bill’s sponsor.

“How many jobs were created when Tri-Rail went into existence 20 years ago,” Dockery asked Ring.

Ring said that the 20-year-old commuter line has 330 employees.
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The Senate kicked off the special session this morning setting into motion a financial fix for Tri-Rail, a thumbs-up on a Central Florida commuter line and the possibility of bringing in billions of federal dollars for high-speed rail projects.

This is the third time around for the controversial Central Florida commuter project known as “SunRail.” The Senate killed the deal – already signed off on by the Department of Transportation – twice, most recently in May.

Critics in the Senate, led by Paula Dockery, objected to the deal in which the state will pay transportation giant CSX Inc. more than $500 million for 61 miles of track for the commuter line. CSX will still be operate its freight on the line in exchange for a payment to the state of $1 per year.

The SunRail deal died in the Senate during the regular legislative session by a 23-16 vote. Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, now apparently has 21 of the 40 senators on his side – just the amount he needs to get the bill passed.

Atwater said the legislation will bring thousands of jobs to the state and boost its flagging economy.

“This is indeed time for visionaries,” Atwater said during a brief opening session this morning. “A time when the people of florida are demanding action and are desperate for relief.”

The Senate is expected to vote on the bill on Tuesday.

The third time may be the charm for the controversial Central Florida commuter rail project called SunRail.

A special session dealing with SunRail and South Florida’s ailing Tri-Rail system will begin Thursday at 9 a.m.

House Speaker Larry Cretul issued a memo this afternoon saying he plans for the House to vote on the bill on Monday and for the Senate to vote on it on Wednesday.

Cretul, R-Ocala, said he and Atwater have agreed in principal on the proposal, which apparently exists but has not yet been distributed to most lawmakers, if any.

Money for Tri-Rail will come from the state road project fund and money for Sunrail and other rail projects will come from doc stamps from home sales.

PDF: Summary of proposed statewide rail transit legislation