California priorities list includes high-speed rail

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - California has released a list of priority infrastructure projects estimated to cost more than $100 billion in the hope of securing support from the federal government.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s office on Wednesday released the list of projects including a high-speed rail, tunnels to transport water from the north to the south and an earthquake early warning system.

California’s heavily Democratic Legislature is in the midst of an escalating war of words with President Donald Trump. Lawmakers have condemned Trump’s positions on immigration and the environment. In turn, Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from the state if it doesn’t fall in line.

But Brown and other Democrats have pointed to infrastructure as one area where Washington and California can work together.

“We have roads and tunnels and railroads and even a dam that the president could help us with,” Brown said in his State of the State address last month. “And that will create good-paying American jobs.”

Trump has pledged to generate $1 trillion in infrastructure spending.

Brown’s office developed the list in response to a request from the National Governors Association, which has compiled similar lists from most other states for the Trump administration.

California doesn’t know yet what the Trump administration’s specific plans are for the lists, said Brian Kelly, secretary for the State Transportation Agency.

“It’s a little unclear what the next step is at the federal level,” Kelly told reporters on a conference call Wednesday.

In its letter to the National Governors Association, the governor’s office stressed the importance of California infrastructure to the rest of the country.

“These projects will benefit businesses up and down the state and put thousands to work — many in communities with the highest rates of unemployment,” Brown’s executive secretary Nancy McFadden wrote in a letter to the head of the National Governors Association. “California is home to one out of every eight Americans and when we build in California, we build for America.”