Fox & Friends off the rails on claim that stimulus money went to "save" Napa wine train
Trumpeting a report by Sen. John McCain and Sen. Tom Coburn on "wasted" stimulus funds, Fox & Friends hosts Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, and Peter Johnson Jr. repeatedly claimed that $54 million in stimulus money went to "save" a wine-tour train in Napa Valley, when in fact, the funds are for an Army Corps of Engineers project "designed to minimize flooding of downtown Napa," which requires the relocation of the Wine Train.
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Fox & Friends hosts repeatedly claim stimulus funding went to "save" a Napa Valley wine-tour train
From the December 14 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
CARLSON: Talk about a gravy train, we're tracking your stimulus money. More than 50 million of it. Why is it being used to save some train tracks in the wine country?
[...]
CARLSON: I guess we're listening to some pigs this morning as well. Which sounds better: the music or those pigs? But the pigs remind about all the money that is being spent in pork on Capitol Hill. And, apparently, one of -- we have been covering this for you for months now -- but one of the recipients of $54 million from your taxpayer dollars is this train in Napa Valley. Apparently was damaged by floods. Needs to be fixed, and some people are scratching their heads wondering if it really needed $54 million to be fixed.
DOOCY: Fifty-four million to save the Napa Valley wine train. That is the headline from Senators McCain and Coburn, and in fact, the multimillion-dollar contract is number 11 on their list of 100 projects deemed by them to be "wasteful or just outright silly."
JOHNSON: All aboard.
DOOCY: All aboard the wine train. Here's the thing though, it's not just to save the wine train, but it's also to save the integrity of the track and, you know, because through erosion and stuff like that, if the track goes away, then the farmers get flooded and stuff like that.
JOHNSON: This issue with regard to flood control funds. So it's not as simple as it sounds, although it is to save the Napa Valley wine train.
CARLSON: To me the key is this, and you guys are going to be interviewing the public information officer out in this part of the country in Napa Valley a little later on.
JOHNSON: What should we ask him?
CARLSON: Well, I just read through his notes, and to me the whole crux of this is that he says our congressman from our area pitched to get some money for the project. We expected 10 to 20 million but we never imagined we'd get so much. Now see, that, to me, is the essence of this whole argument. It's OK, maybe, if they asked for it, well, why didn't you just give them 10 million? I mean, are our tax dollars so aplenty that we just, you know, flourish them with 54 million?
JOHNSON: We will be asking that. That is a good question.
CARLSON: I guess, I don't know.
DOOCY: This could be one of those programs that is actually shovel-ready, because it's all about fixing the land and stuff like that. Nonetheless, there is a wine train involved and millions of dollars, so we're going to talk about that.
[...]
DOOCY: And, you can call it a gravy train. California getting a lot of our money to save a wine tour train from flooding. That's right, we're tracking your stimulus money straight ahead.
In fact, the project does not fund Wine Train, but is designed to prevent "flooding of downtown Napa"
Flood-control project relocates Wine Train. The award description for the project states: "The Napa Valley Wine Train Relocation project is a flood control job designed to minimize flooding of downtown Napa, CA. The existing railroad bridge over the Napa River is at an elevation that impedes the flow of the 100 year storm event. This backs up river flows from major storms and floods homes and businesses. In addition the river has an oxbow channel which constricts the major flows further adding to the flooding of downtown." The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracted with Suulutaaq Inc., an Alaskan firm, to complete the project. Contrary to Carlson's claim, the Wine Train is not a "recipient" of the stimulus funds.
Napa Valley Register: Officials said project "not done at the behest of or for the benefit of the Wine Train." According to a December 11 Napa Valley Register article, "The funding is part of the larger $99.5 million in stimulus funds awarded to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Napa's flood control project" and the "goal is to prevent another major flood like the one that ripped through central Napa on New Year's Eve 2005, causing an estimated $115 million in damage." The article noted that "[o]fficials have said in the past that the project is not done at the behest of or for the benefit of the Wine Train, but to maintain the only rail right of way through the valley and lift two train trestles high enough that they will not catch debris, slow fast-moving water and cause flooding downtown."
Napa County spokesman: "We're not doing anything to protect the train in any way." According to a local ABC report, Barry Martin, spokesman for the Napa Flood Protection District, stated of the project, "We're not doing anything to protect the train in any way, we're just getting the train out of the way so we can give the protection to the downtown area, the residents and businesses closest to the river." The article also quoted Congressman Mike Thompson's statement that "[t]he wine train would continue to operate with or without the flood control project, this merely allows the flood project to be completed." After Doocy, Carlson, and Johnson repeatedly claimed the money went to "save" the wine-tour train, they hosted Martin, who said it's a "flood-control project" and that it "will absolutely protect locals from flooding and absolutely not is it a waste of money." Martin also said: "Our project is different from other flood-control projects. It is land intensive. We are moving things out of the way where the floodwaters go rather than trying to deepen or straight and the river, which we have learned over time is not a very environmentally sound practice and it doesn't really work very well. So this is a new approach to flood control, we have been under construction for many years, and we've have moved many facilities, buildings, railroad tracks and bridges. It's a large project, and this is just one piece of it."
Wine Train spokesman "shocked" to hear that people think train "received $54 million in stimulus money -- which, of course, we didn't." In an open letter to McCain, Melodie Hilton, director of marketing and public relations for Napa Valley Wine Train, stated, "I was shocked to hear that people high up in Washington think that the Napa Valley Wine Train received $54 million in stimulus money -- which, of course, we didn't." Hilton further stated:
It worries me that no calls were made before we were held up to the entire American public -- a small business in Northern California -- as an enormous source of government waste.
If you had spoken with us, or even project officials, you might have asked: Why would the Napa Valley Wine Train need, or take, $54 million in taxpayer money to move a small section of rail line 33 feet? The answer is: we didn't!
So, who does? Napa County has an award-winning flood control project and design; one that was proposed, and approved by voters, many years ago. This is the project that is being funded. That design has impacted a lot of businesses. It has necessitated the movement of several rights-of-way, and at my last count four or five bridges (including the Wine Train's). The goal of this project is to protect the city of Napa from continued flooding, period, not enhance specific companies.
From his point of view, he's arguing the right thing - the 'right thing' is anything that distracts from the topic at hand.
He says he "thinks" it went to save the train, despite the fact that 100% of the facts dispute that.
The train would keep running in any case. The train doesn't need the train trestle to be moved in order to continue running! The city of Napa needs the trestle moved so that the city doesn't get flooded again.
Top that off with YOUR posts that clearly are intended to derail threads, versus my post that was about the host of the show from which the cropped quote came from, and you don't have a leg to stand on.
How unique for you - NOT. Your arguments virtually never have any support!
You derailed this thread with lots of posts about the appropriateness of the funding, when the post was about the inaccurate framing of the discussion by FoxNews personalities. On the other hand, I fully addressed the topic on that other thread. You haven't once addressed the topic on this thread.
You fool lots of people with your derailing troll posts, but not me, and that tees you off. Too bad, so sad.
So let's really torture him and post these facts about it. What a dunce he is, and please, please, stop feeding the troll posts!
In total, the relocation of Wine Train tracks will cost $65 million in federal money, including the $54 million stimulus award. The funding is part of the larger $99.5 million in stimulus funds awarded to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Napa’s flood control project.
The $65 million award will allow the Corps to build a replacement and elevate the existing rail bridge over the Napa River, and build a new bridge over the planned bypass channel that will divert water away from the Oxbow and Soscol Avenue’s Auto Row in case of a major flood. Streets in the area, as well as underground utilities, will be raised. A flood wall will be built at the Napa Wine Train station.
The goal is to prevent another major flood like the one that ripped through central Napa on New Year’s Eve 2005, causing an estimated $115 million in damage.
“In the past, floods in that area have taken human life, destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars of personal property, disturbed commerce, disrupted the lives of many, many people, and caused local governments to dip into funds,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena.
Local officials said stimulus money will allow the Corps to complete the project within the next two years, rather than the decade it might have taken without it.
Officials have said in the past that the project is not done at the behest of or for the benefit of the Wine Train, but to maintain the only rail right of way through the valley and lift two train trestles high enough that they will not catch debris or slow fast-moving water that would cause flooding downtown.
City and county officials familiar with the Napa flood project argue McCain and Coburn are twisting the facts to use as political fodder.
“The McCain report completely mischaracterizes what’s happening,” Martin said, stating the report makes it sound like the money is going to the Wine Train and not to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“It is just an unbelievable lack of understanding,” he said. “And if it’s not a lack of understanding, it’s a deliberate deception to try to make the stimulus look bad. … These guys are just trying to score political points by coming up with this report, and they decided to point the finger at something they don’t really know anything about.”
Thompson, a strong advocate for the flood project in Congress, agreed that the report shows “a complete lack of understanding as to the importance of this project in our community.”
“It was just a shoot-from-the-hip, reckless comment that was made in regard to a project that is going to save taxpayers a lot of money and save lives and save personal property,” Thompson said. “This was not about trying to deal with good public policy, or trying to figure out how to succeed in stopping us from going into a depression, or how to succeed in getting the economy back on its feet,” he said, “This was just politics at its worst.”
Thompson added that the project, for which local voters agreed to tax themselves a decade ago, is largely viewed as a model effort by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The injection of "Wine Train" is a red herring.
Also, "100 year flood zone map" is an estimate based upon past events. Past results are no indication of future performance.