(The following story by Aaron Deslatte appeared on the Orlando Sentinel website on May 2.)
ORLANDO — Senate leaders announced late Wednesday they were stripping a transportation bill of the legal protections CSX Corp. says it needs to pave the way for Central Florida’s commuter rail deal.
Claiming the huge bill loaded with projects for other regions like South Florida was being weighted down by the controversial rail deal, Senate Transportation Chairman Carey Baker, R-Eustis, said he would gut the CSX legal protections and framwork for the deal to buy the 61-mile line.
“It’s been a long shot,” said Senate Majority Leader Dan Webster. “‘It would have been a difficult vote.”
Senators had prepared a raft of deal-killing amendments to the bill that had been slated for debate in the chamber today — making changes like restricting state funding for the deal until federal money was appropriated, stripping the liability protections for CSX or prohibitng hazardous waste from being transported on the rail line.
“All we had to do was lose one amendment and it was going to be dead anyway,” Webster said.
In retaliation, Sen. J.D. Alexander of Winter Haven had filed an amendment to strike the $45 million state subsidy Tallahassee sends to the Tri-Rail system in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties — complaining that lawmakers who were fighting central Florida’s rail project were benefiting from the same legal protections in their region.
“At the end of the day I hope we build commuter rail first in Orlando,” he said. “Whatever our policy is, it should be the policy for the entire state. We shouldn’t have a South Florida policy and a Central Florida policy.”
Never say never in the final days of the session, but Webster was not overly optimistic after the Senate broke Wednesday night.
“I think the liability issue is dead,” Webster said.