SACRAMENTO -- California's high-speed train project is running short of cash and staff and may not have the resources to keep its office manned or complete an environmental study, its executive director said Tuesday.

"We are just this much short of basically closing the door," Mehdi Morshed told members of the California High-Speed Rail Authority's board.

Meanwhile, a state Senate committee voted to postpone a public vote on nearly $10 billion in bonds that would help pay for the first leg of the rail project, and environmental groups urged the board to include the Interstate 580 corridor as a possible route for the speedy trains.

Morshed said work on a draft environmental impact report on the 700-mile project cost about $750,000 more than anticipated and that the Department of Finance denied the authority's request for a budget augmentation.

He also said budget cuts will leave the authority with only two full-time staffers, forcing it to close its Sacramento office at times and leaving it strapped to oversee consultants and respond to requests from the public for information.

The Schwarzenegger administration has proposed $1.099 million to fund the authority in the fiscal year that starts July 1, but Morshed said he couldn't guarantee the authority would be able to complete the environmental review on time.

"There is a possibility that if we don't receive (additional) funding and the state has some real difficult financial situation we might not be able to finish the document and we may have to wait," he said.

Lawmakers are facing an overall budget gap of $17 billion as they struggle with how to finance state programs in the 2004-05 fiscal year.

Morshed said has asked the projects' consultants to slow down and "perhaps stop some of their work so we can save some money in case we need it for finishing the environmental document."

As he spoke, the Senate Transportation Committee voted 7-0 to approve a bill by its chairman, Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Culver City, that would delay a vote on a $9.95 billion bond measure from this November until November 2006.

Most of the money would be used to help pay for the first leg of the high-speed rail project, from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Murray said he supported the project, but that voters' approval of more than $27 billion in bonds at the March 2 election made it doubtful they would turn around and also approve the sale of the rail bonds this November.

The vote sent the measure to the Appropriations Committee, the last stop before the Senate floor.

Earlier, Assembly members Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Wilma Chan, D-Alameda, and several environmental groups urged the rail authority to consider the I-580 corridor through the Altamont Pass as a possible route for the trains between the San Francisco Bay area and the Central Valley.

Steinberg said the Altamont route would cut the travel time between Sacramento and the Bay area, serve a bigger population and possibly have less of an environmental impact than the routes to the south under consideration by the authority.

"I'd rather spend a little bit of money and a little bit of time now fully vetting all the alternatives, including the Altamont Pass, so we can be satisfied in the end that we have chosen the most cost-efficient route and the route that will serve the most people while doing the least amount of damage to the environment," he said.

But Morshed said the authority had dropped the Altamont route because it would mean less service for San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland than if the trains came from the south through the Pacheco Pass or one of two other alternatives.

"It's not a practical way to serve three communities by coming in the middle (of them) and splitting the trains three ways," he said. "The practical way is to hit one of them first and then split in two ways."