Trump administration pulls $4 billion in federal funding for California high-speed rail

San Francisco Chronicle​

3 days ago

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration plans to pull the plug on federal funding to California's high-speed rail project.
Following a review of the $4 billion in federal funds allocated to California's bullet train project launched in February, the Transportation Department said it plans to terminate federal funding for the project, according to a report released Wednesday.
'We have $4 billion that has been authorized to go to California to build this project and we don't want to invest in boondoggles,' Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy told Fox News Wednesday.
The state will have 30 days to make the case that it has complied with the grant's terms and any corrective action it plans to take before the federal government can terminate funding. The Transportation Department is not asking for the state to repay federal funding previously given for the project, but said it could do so in the future — although any attempts to do so would likely be unsuccessful.
'What started as a proposed 800-mile system was first reduced to 500 miles, then became a 171-mile segment, and is now very likely ended as a 119-mile track to nowhere. In essence, (the California High-Speed Rail Authority) has conned the taxpayer out of its $4 billion investment, with no viable plan to deliver even that partial segment on time,' Drew Feeley, acting administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, said.
The federal government 'cannot continue to commit taxpayer dollars to (the California High-Speed Rail Authority's) Sisyphean endeavor,' Feeley said. California's high-speed rail project is a 'story of broken promises and of waste of Federal taxpayer dollars.'
The Trump administration has 'been laying the groundwork for this for month. They're completely hostile, not just to California high-speed rail, but rail in general and public transportation,' state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, told the Chronicle. 'This is a Neanderthal administration that probably thinks public transportation is a communist plot.'
Wiener, a staunch proponent of the bullet train, acknowledged the project's challenges. 'We certainly have to do better in California in terms of project delivery, but … it's not a reason to start canceling major, transformative public infrastructure projects. We need to find a way to get these projects done more efficiently and more effectively,' Wiener said.
The first Trump administration pursued terminating the project's funding in 2019, but the Biden administration negotiated a 2021 settlement with the state to continue supporting the segment from Bakersfield to Merced.
The project's costs — initially estimated to be $33 billion and now expected to cost between $89 billion and $128 billion — have ballooned and its timelines have been repeatedly delayed. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Democrats have not backed down on funding for high-speed rail in past budgets, despite opposition from Republicans.
Newsom has acknowledged for months that Trump would try to claw back money for the project, just as Trump did during his first term. Newsom has promised to fight any efforts to revoke the money. The high-speed rail funding is just one bucket of federal money Trump has threatened to withhold from California, along with federal health care and education funding.
'There still is the rule of law, still the court system, there's still due process,' Newsom told reporters in January when he unveiled an initial version of his 2025-26 state budget proposal. 'You can threaten, as Trump has consistently done ... but ultimately those federal dollars will be recovered.'
Since January, California's budget outlook has deteriorated significantly, and the Newsom administration now predicts California faces a $12 billion shortfall, which will make it harder for state officials to backfill any federal funding cuts. Newsom and lawmakers are negotiating over the state budget for the upcoming fiscal year and must reach a deal on how to balance the budget this month to meet constitutional deadlines.
Even with the state's difficult financial situation this year, Wiener said he expected the project to move forward because 'it's not about one year, this is about the long-term health and economic strength of California.'
Republicans have for years decried the project's skyrocketing costs and lack of progress. President Donald Trump told reporters Feb. 5 that he would personally investigate the high-speed rail project.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin (Placer County), introduced legislation on Jan. 6 to make the project ineligible for further federal funding, the same day Newsom drove a symbolic spike in the ground to celebrate the rail line's first 22-mile segment, from the border of Tulare and Kern counties to Poplar Avenue in Wasco (Kern County).
Republicans in the Legislature sent a letter to Trump Feb. 13 expressing support for his probe and saying they have a duty to constituents to 'carefully examine the viability of this project.'
'I want to see high-speed rail in America,' Duffy said. 'Why it can't be built in America and why it can't be built within time frames that work for the people that invest in these projects makes no sense to me.'
State leaders have focused largely on finishing the stretch of high-speed rail track from Merced to Bakersfield, with the idea of linking it to two other bullet train lines: the High Desert Corridor in Los Angeles, and the privately owned Brightline West route from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga (San Bernardino County). Ultimately, they also want to connect to Caltrain's commuter line on the Peninsula, patching together a network that somewhat resembles the original vision from the mid-1990s.
The loss of this funding would 'certainly be a setback, but it is a relatively small percentage of the overall budget of the project,' Wiener said. 'It's not a death knell.'