“With its vote on September 21, the Senate Appropriations Committee ended the rail boosters’ hopes of getting a meaningful appropriation for high-speed rail in the new (FY 2012) fiscal year. It probably also dealt a decisive death blow to President Obama’s loopy goal of ‘giving 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail,’î writes transportation expert Ken Orski at Innovation Briefs.

And the $100 million the Senate left as a “placeholder” is likely to be zeroed out by the House, Orski notes, effectively killing President Obama’s dream of a high-speed rail network throughout the U.S.