While Gov. Rick Scott looks to trim the $69.7 billion state budget through line-item vetoes, lawmakers put him -- and Florida taxpayers -- in a fiscal box with one big-ticket item: SunRail.

Scott has been weighing a decision on the $1.2 billion commuter train project for months. Having rejected $2.4 billion in federal funds for a proposed high-speed rail venture earlier this year, SunRail appeared ripe for derailment as well.

But, as sources told Sunshine State News last week, Scott may green-light the Central Florida line after all. The ostensible reason: He was boxed in by Republican legislators who previously committed state funds, and pushed the controversial project past the point of no return.

Convening a special session in December 2009, then-state Senate President Jeff Atwater tied SunRail to the ill-fated HSR scheme. The North Palm Beach Republican said the Legislature needed to act quickly to secure federal stimulus funding for a high-speed rail line between Orlando and Tampa. At the same time, lawmakers would push forward for federal funds for SunRail.

"This administration in Washington wants to get moving with investment in infrastructure," Atwater said at the time. In a show of bipartisan support, he was joined by U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and George LeMieux, R-Fla.

Also on board: state Sen. Mike Haridopolos and Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner who, along with LeMieux, are now vying for the U.S. Senate seat held by Nelson.

While the GOP bashing of so-called "ObamaRail" still lay in the distance, leading state Republicans and Democrats appeared united after the 2009 special session. It was all backslaps and handshakes when then-Gov. Charlie Crist signed off on the rail deals.

With the nascent tea party movement distracted by the pitched battle over Obama's health-care bill in Washington, Tallahassee's politicians ran under the radar. SunRail, which had been defeated twice before at the Legislature, was getting on track.

As Florida lawmakers set the fiscal and legal wheels in motion, SunRail quietly gathered institutional momentum. Within a year, the state would place $173 million in an escrow account to pay CSX Railroad for tracks that SunRail would use.

That crucial deposit occurred just a month before Scott assumed office.

With the money safely in escrow, the Florida Department of Transportation officially asked the federal government for the more than $300 million it had pledged toward $615 million in SunRail's initial capital costs.

U.S. House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica, R-Orlando, was well-positioned to push the needed funds through Congress.

The state money was earmarked for CSX, the Jacksonville-based railroad company that owns the 61 miles of tracks designated for SunRail. According to the arrangement, $150 million of the escrowed funds would go for the tracks and right of way; the remaining $23 million would defray the cost of moving portions of a CSX maintenance-and-switching station.

Scott, in a recent interview with the Orlando Sentinel, alluded to the conundrum he faces in trying to halt SunRail:

“This is different than high-speed rail. This is money that’s going to come out of that area of the state’s Department of Transportation money. So it’s not like I have to worry about taxes being raised when we’re walking into a budget deficit.

"It’s totally different in that regard," he said.


A RAILROAD JOB BY REPUBLICAN LEADERS

Calling Scott's comments a blend of justification and obfuscation, SunRail critics say the project sets up taxpayers for huge cost overruns, disappointingly low ridership and untold liability.

In other words, the same concerns that Scott cited when he killed the high-speed rail venture.