I don't agree with the possibility of extensive tunneling being conducted in the near future. However, your last comment is spot on. Why is the government so lethargic when it comes to preparing for the aftermath of peak oil? Clearly the CIA has the best information on actual oil supplies. I can understand the official support for the oil companies and such but why no behind the scenes support for expanding Amtrak? Why not build in a new infrastructure while we still have relatively cheap oil? The cynic in me says that they see it as hopeless so they plan to take care of their own, pull up the drawbridge and let the rest of us fend for ourselves. Or perhaps they are so tied to the next quarter's results that they are incapable of reacting to a problem that is huge but won't officially strike till sometime in the future?

Their (the military-industrial complex) plan for the future combines authoritarian control of the domestic population, centralized corporatist control of the economy, and military control of international resource flows. The last thing they want is anything that would forward an alternative to this plan. The cutback in Amtrak and other idiocies and boondoggles (like ethanol) make complete sense under this set of assumptions.