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California’s high-speed rail agency owns land across the Central Valley but lacks a basic power held by other state agencies: It cannot issue an ordinary permit to a city, utility or business that wants to newly cross or build on that property.
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The California High-Speed Rail Authority told lawmakers that the gap has left it unable to approve several pending requests, including a city seeking to run a sewer main through rail property, a water district seeking to connect pipes across the alignment and a renewable-energy company seeking access to connect a generating facility to the electrical grid, according to an Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee analysis.
Senate Bill 1425 would create an encroachment permit program allowing the authority to approve and regulate certain work on its operating right-of-way, giving it authority similar to that already held by Caltrans and the Department of Water Resources.
The bill, authored by Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, will return to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which placed it on its suspense file because of its potential costs, on Thursday. It would need to move to the full Legislature before the session ends on Aug. 31.
The permitting proposal comes nearly three decades after California created the authority to develop the rail system. The state has spent $16 billion on construction for the project, mostly on the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment, according to an Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee analysis.
As of June, more than 170 miles between Merced and Bakersfield were under design and construction, according to HSRA data. The project has yet to begin passenger service and won’t do so until at least 2034.
High-speed rail officials already work through agreements with utilities whose existing facilities must be moved because they conflict with high-speed rail construction. But it has no comparable statutory process for unrelated parties seeking new access to authority property.
The authority told lawmakers it had five such requests it could not accommodate, including the sewer and water projects, a farmer seeking to divert drainage water across the right-of-way during heavy rains and a utility seeking crossings to serve new customers.
The authority . It currently has a “limited ability” to issue these permits, according to a 2025 project update report.
High-speed rail has faced continuous opposition and roadblocks. President Donald Trump’s administration pulled $4 billion from the authority last August and the agency’s inspector general reported in July that the authority could exhaust its available funding as soon as December 2027 without financing and faces about $9.6 billion in funding gaps through 2031-32 to maintain its Merced-to-Bakersfield construction schedule.
High-speed rail also has experienced major delays involving utilities, but those problems are not the same ones SB 1425 would address.
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A found that negotiations over utility relocations had delayed design work for planned extensions to Merced and Bakersfield. Of 38 reimbursement agreements needed for those extensions, 12 remained unresolved as of November 2024, some after nearly two years of negotiations.
The inspector general said the authority’s own slow reviews, disagreements over contract terms and delays by third parties contributed to the problem. It recommended legislative changes that could give the authority more leverage over unresponsive parties.
SB 1425 does not directly implement those recommendations. Instead, it establishes a system for permitting access to and work on authority property.
Under the latest version, the new permit requirement would apply to crossings, facilities or infrastructure installed beginning Jan. 1, as well as certain repair, maintenance, expansion or relocation work. Emergency responses remain excluded from the definition of work requiring a permit, though emergency situation would still require prior express consent.
Still, the California Municipal Utilities Association and private utility providers such as PG&E worry the permit program could interfere with operations and maintenance, according to a bill analysis. The businesses and groups also argue it could impose new costs and give the rail authority too much control over their infrastructure.
“There is also concern that new permit requirements, penalties and utility-funded relocation obligations could increase costs and place additional pressure on customer bills,” PG&E spokesperson Mike Gazda said in an emailed statement. “We believe any legislation should protect public safety, preserve utilities’ existing rights and avoid unnecessary costs for customers.”
Cortese said the bill’s aim was not to completely discourage temporary installations on the right-of-way, but to make them easier to track, so there are no miscommunications that lead to delays.
“It’s not about (the HSRA) needing permits or avoiding permits,” Cortese said. “It’s about people who need permits from high-speed rail that would otherwise just basically be trespassing on the right of way.”
Permit holders could be required to restore affected property and relocate or remove infrastructure at their own expense if the authority later determined it interfered with rail operations, safety, maintenance or future improvements. Performing work requiring a permit without obtaining one could be a misdemeanor. Separately, the authority or attorney general could seek $5,000-a-day civil penalties if an unauthorized encroachment remained after required notice periods.
The Assembly Appropriations Committee estimated earlier this month that the permit program could cost “hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars” to establish and administer. The authority said it expected permit revenue to offset administrative costs and did not anticipate needing additional positions “at this time.”
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