"Numbers don't lie," said McCarthy in pointing out several recent analyses critical of California's plans for high speed rail. (Photo: KQED/John Myers)

And given McCarthy is the third highest ranking member of the GOP congressional leadership, he may be able to do a lot.

"I think it's a bad investment," the House majority whip on Monday afternoon during a wide-ranging interview in Sacramento with a group of Capitol reporters.

McCarthy was in town as part of an ongoing speakers series presented by the Public Policy Institute of California. While here, he said he intended to chat with legislative leaders and the GOP caucuses inside the state Capitol -- a familiar setting for the former Assembly Republican leader, who left Sacramento for Capitol Hill in 2006.

Though he's focused mostly on national issues, high speed rail is an issue in which the Bakersfield Republican seems to have taken a keen interest. And he doesn't like what he sees.

"I don't think it's dead yet," said McCarthy. "But it should be."

This is a period of rough waters for the bullet train project, as its supporters -- most notably, Governor Jerry Brown -- continue to defend the project from skeptical analyses and outright grumbling in the pages of the state's newspapers. McCarthy's efforts in DC, while not the final word, are yet another hurdle.

The House whip scoffed at ridership projections for the system, especially those for Central Valley residents, and said the flaws in those numbers mean the project will end up relying on government subsidies if it's built. And the project's single biggest investor, even according to the most recent business plan from the state's rail authority, would be the federal government -- at more than 60% of the San Francisco Bay-to-LA Basin route.

"It really looks like California is asking the federal government to build them a high speed rail," said McCarthy. He described the project as in need of "adult supervision to come in here and say, 'This is not the right time or place.'"

McCarthy has asked for a GAO audit of the project and introduced legislation back in October to freeze federal funding.

As for other topics McCarthy chatted about...

On Redistricting: "I expected something better" from the citizens commission, said McCarthy, who joined other California Republicans in singling out the hotly debated state Senate maps. He pointed in particular to the splits of cities and counties in the maps, a criteria on which others have found the commission did a pretty good job.

McCarthy dismissed one buzzed about item from 2011 -- that he helped stifle any kind of serious (read: financial) help for overturning the state's new congressional maps. "The majority of the [GOP delegation] was not there" on a challenge, he said. And McCarthy did express criticism that campaign dollars that the state GOP will need in 2012 was used to mount the political challenge to the Senate map via a still-pending referendum. And he said while 2012 may mean a loss of GOP congressional seats in the state, an "off year" race in the future may swing that pendulum back the other way.

GOP's California Woes: McCarthy suggested that his party needs to use an approach similar to the one he and national Republicans used in recruiting new candidates and perhaps stopping the party's slide into permanent minority status -- that is, looking for candidates who may be active in their communities but not in elective politics. And he said that means not to "come in and pick [the candidate's] philosophical bent."

McCarthy also mused at length about possible challengers to Sen. Dianne Feinstein -- Rep. David Dreier, in particular -- and he boasted about an iPhone app he helped create for the public to monitor the goings-on in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Will this artist's depiction of high speed rail in California come to pass? A new report raises questions. (Image: CA High Speed Rail Authority)

The new report is further proof that 2012 will be the most important year yet in the debate over the ambitious but costly bullet train system.

The report was issued Tuesday by the California High Speed Rail Peer Review Group, a panel of experts created by legislative action in 2008 to take an independent look at the ultimate plans crafted by the state's High Speed Rail Authority.

And while the group admits that it still doesn't have the information to render a final judgment, it doesn't seem to like what it's seen.

"Absent a clearer picture of where future funding is going to come from, the Peer Review Group cannot at this time recommend that the Legislature approve the appropriation of bond proceeds for this project," says the eight page report signed by panel chairman Will Kempton.

The report takes aim at both what's known and what's not known -- which means it will no doubt offer fodder for both critics and skeptics around the Capitol.

For starters, the peer panel points out the high risk to beginning construction in the Central Valley, a portion of track it says would not be electrified and no "independent" functionality if the entire north-to-south system fails to materialize.

The panel also rejects comparisons with major infrastructure projects from the past, like the U.S. interstate highway system or airports. "These programs were supported by authorizing legislation that had a dedicated funding source primarily dependent on user fees," they write.

From there, they raise additional concerns about the chances of finding the total amount needed, now pegged at about $98 billion:

The fact that the [high speed rail authority's] funding plan fails to identify any long term funding commitments is a fundamental flaw in the program. Without committed funds, a mega-project of this nature could be forced to halt construction for many years before additional funding could be obtained.

The panel is also critical of the number of decisions being made by the state-run authority and not left to the future actual operators of the train system; the ridership projections, which it calls "unverifiable"; and the estimates of the actual costs, which include complicated and costly blending with existing urban light rail systems.

On that final concern, the panel notes that the high-seed rail draft business plan offers no high/low range for the initial construction segment in the Central Valley, just a flat $6 billion estimate. "Given that there has been no construction experience at all, and considering the fact that the route is not yet fully defined, this appears unreasonable in itself."

Again, it's important to note the caveat -- namely, that the panel says a finalized business plan from the California High Speed Rail Authority will help answer some of the big questions. But with critics of the project now coming at it from all directions -- cost, feasibility, planning, routing, and more -- the new report will no doubt stir the simmering pot of questions about whether the Legislature should sign off on selling state bonds, bonds which will ultimately be paid back by the taxpayers through the state's general fund.

Update 3:49 p.m. Statement from Roelof van Ark, CEO of the High Speed Rail Authority" "It is unfortunate that the Peer Review Committee has delivered a report to the Legislature that is deeply flawed in its understanding of the Authority's program... As someone involved in many of the successful high speed rail programs internationally, I can say that the recommendations of this Committee simply do not reflect a real world view of what it takes to bring such projects to fruition."

High speed rail, well established in places like China, may have to fight for its survival in California. (Getty Images)

As supporters push forward on plans to break ground on construction by year's end, critics are demanding a second look and... perhaps... a scrapping of the project altogether. And both camps have the political firepower to wage an epic battle.

This morning, the latest jab from opponents: Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), the Majority Whip in the U.S. House of Representatives, asked for a formal federal audit.

"Good stewardship of taxpayer dollars is a priority for us," McCarthy wrote in his letter (PDF) to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). "Allowing the money of hard-working Americans to be wasted on a questionable project with many unanswered questions would be an abdication of our responsibilities as elected officials of the American people."

The federal role in the financing of the project is crucial. Dollars from D.C. will be used in the first leg of construction, and additional federal funds must then help build out the initial phase of a train system from San Francisco to Anaheim.

McCarthy asked the GAO to examine seven issues, from ridership projections to the thorny issue of operating subsidies to costs vis-a-vis other systems of transportation and other high speed rail plans across the U.S.

(As a footnote, remember that McCarthy served as GOP leader in the Assembly when the $9.95 billion high speed rail bond was delayed from the 2006 ballot to November 2008. McCarthy voted for that proposal.)

The request for a GAO audit comes on the heels of a contentious Capitol Hill hearing last week about the project which, as we know, itself came on the heels of a GOP led effort in Congress to kill future funding, and new and heated debate about the rail authority's upwardly revised price tag of $98 billion for the SF-to-Anaheim corridor.

All of this seems to have created an environment of uncertainty at the state Capitol. It's unclear whether the prevailing political winds will continue to be behind the project or blow it off course and -- perhaps -- out of existence.

There's no doubt been praise for the newly constituted leadership of the California High Speed Rail Authority and its approach to planning and execution. But there's not yet unanimity on whether the Legislature should approve, as required, the first appropriations from 2008's Proposition 1A voter approved bonds.

It may have been voters who approved borrowing the money, but it's the the Legislature that now has to act to get the ball rolling.

While legislative Republicans seem resolute in their desire to stop the project, there have been some interesting laments about the project's challenges among some key Democrats. And given that the Prop 1A bond funds must eventually be paid back, with interest, out of the beleaguered state general fund, the discussion may come back to what the state can -- and can't -- afford. Governor Jerry Brown unveils his proposed budget on January 10, and critics of high speed rail may use the opportunity to remind everyone of the annual debt service the Prop 1A bonds will require once they've all been sold.

But the greatest weapon for rail advocates may be Brown himself. After all, not only did the governor remake the Authority's board with members of his own liking (including his top economic adviser), but he offered full-throated praise for the project on the release of its new business plan:

"California's high-speed rail project will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, linking California's population centers and avoiding the huge problems of massive airport and highway expansion. The High-Speed Rail Authority's business plan is solid and lays the foundation for a 21st century transportation system."

Even so, there are signs that the voters might be having a change of heart. 64% of voters in a December 6 Field Poll (PDF) support a new ballot measure on high speed rail, and 59% of those said they'd vote against the project.

Still, this is a debate that's just getting started. While critics call the project a boondoggle, supporters call it visionary. One side laments the dollars that will be diverted from other needs; the other will invoke the great infrastructure projects in California history as proof of what a long-term investment can create.

It should be interesting.