Latest news with #High-SpeedRailAuthority
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump drives California into the arms of high-speed rail
President Donald Trump is about to snatch $4 billion away from California's high-speed rail project — and all that's doing is reinforcing Democrats' iron-willed support for the beleaguered venture. The Trump administration said Wednesday — in the form of a 300-page report — that it's on the verge of nixing Biden-era grants for the planned rail line from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, a conclusion state officials have feared since the president put the project in his crosshairs in February. Rather than being a death knell for a project that's years behind schedule and has a price tag that's ballooned from $33 billion to as much as $128 billion, Trump's attacks are fortifying state Democrats who hold the purse strings to its largest funding source — the state's emissions trading program for greenhouse gases. 'We've seen this coming and we're going to do everything we can to prevent it,' said Senate Budget Committee Chair Scott Wiener. 'Regardless of what happens here, we're committed to making this project a reality.' It's been a question just how much Democratic support the project would garner during negotiations to reauthorize the state's emissions trading system, as several lawmakers made it clear at the start of the year that high-speed rail isn't their priority amid finite climate funding. That uncertainty made its way into the Federal Railroad Administration's report, which, among other arguments, points to the lack of 'long-term stability of cap-and-trade proceeds' as a reason to cancel grants. But Trump's dual assaults on high-speed rail and cap-and-trade itself lit a fire under Gov. Gavin Newsom, who committed to reauthorizing the program this year after initially waffling on timing and championed a proposal to guarantee the rail line at least $1 billion in funding annually in his budget proposal last month. Republican lawmakers who've long blasted the project as a waste of taxpayer dollars are taking a victory lap. 'Hopefully, this will be the beginning of the end for high-speed rail,' Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) said during a press conference. 'This project needs to be over. It has been the biggest public infrastructure failure in American history.' Newsom spokesperson Daniel Villaseñor, when asked about Wednesday's news, pointed to the governor's budget press conference, where he doubled down on his support. 'I want to get it done, and that's our commitment. That's why it's still reflected in the cap-and-trade extension,' Newsom said. Carol Dahmen, the High-Speed Rail Authority's chief of strategic communications, said in a statement that the agency will 'correct the record' on the Trump administration's 'misguided' decision. But she also highlighted Newsom's proposal, saying $1 billion annually will be enough to 'complete the project's initial operating segment' from Bakersfield to Merced. Democrats' continued backing of high-speed rail also reflects an important reality of California politics: Labor unions can still make or break you. That's a lesson former Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter learned last month, after she bashed the project in a TV appearance before recalibrating at a labor event and saying she wants to 'put people to work, and I want to get it done for Californians.' A coalition of powerful labor and public government interests announced its cap-and-trade priorities last month, a list of infrastructure projects including high-speed rail. The project has employed nearly 15,000 union workers since construction started in 2015, more than any other infrastructure undertaking in the country. 'The time to double down is now,' said Michael Quigley, executive director of the California Alliance for Jobs, which represents carpenters, laborers, contractors and other construction unions. Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICO's California Climate newsletter.
Politico
2 days ago
- Business
- Politico
Trump drives California into the arms of high-speed rail
President Donald Trump is about to snatch $4 billion away from California's high-speed rail project — and all that's doing is reinforcing Democrats' iron-willed support for the beleaguered venture. The Trump administration said Wednesday — in the form of a 300-page report — that it's on the verge of nixing Biden-era grants for the planned rail line from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, a conclusion state officials have feared since the president put the project in his crosshairs in February. Rather than being a death knell for a project that's years behind schedule and has a price tag that's ballooned from $33 billion to as much as $128 billion, Trump's attacks are fortifying state Democrats who hold the purse strings to its largest funding source — the state's emissions trading program for greenhouse gases. 'We've seen this coming and we're going to do everything we can to prevent it,' said Senate Budget Committee Chair Scott Wiener. 'Regardless of what happens here, we're committed to making this project a reality.' It's been a question just how much Democratic support the project would garner during negotiations to reauthorize the state's emissions trading system, as several lawmakers made it clear at the start of the year that high-speed rail isn't their priority amid finite climate funding. That uncertainty made its way into the Federal Railroad Administration's report, which, among other arguments, points to the lack of 'long-term stability of cap-and-trade proceeds' as a reason to cancel grants. But Trump's dual assaults on high-speed rail and cap-and-trade itself lit a fire under Gov. Gavin Newsom, who committed to reauthorizing the program this year after initially waffling on timing and championed a proposal to guarantee the rail line at least $1 billion in funding annually in his budget proposal last month. Republican lawmakers who've long blasted the project as a waste of taxpayer dollars are taking a victory lap. 'Hopefully, this will be the beginning of the end for high-speed rail,' Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) said during a press conference. 'This project needs to be over. It has been the biggest public infrastructure failure in American history.' Newsom spokesperson Daniel Villaseñor, when asked about Wednesday's news, pointed to the governor's budget press conference, where he doubled down on his support. 'I want to get it done, and that's our commitment. That's why it's still reflected in the cap-and-trade extension,' Newsom said. Carol Dahmen, the High-Speed Rail Authority's chief of strategic communications, said in a statement that the agency will 'correct the record' on the Trump administration's 'misguided' decision. But she also highlighted Newsom's proposal, saying $1 billion annually will be enough to 'complete the project's initial operating segment' from Bakersfield to Merced. Democrats' continued backing of high-speed rail also reflects an important reality of California politics: Labor unions can still make or break you. That's a lesson former Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter learned last month, after she bashed the project in a TV appearance before recalibrating at a labor event and saying she wants to 'put people to work, and I want to get it done for Californians.' A coalition of powerful labor and public government interests announced its cap-and-trade priorities last month, a list of infrastructure projects including high-speed rail. The project has employed nearly 15,000 union workers since construction started in 2015, more than any other infrastructure undertaking in the country. 'The time to double down is now,' said Michael Quigley, executive director of the California Alliance for Jobs, which represents carpenters, laborers, contractors and other construction unions. Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICO's California Climate newsletter.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
We gave $7B to California for a high-speed rail line and no track was ever laid: ‘Trains to nowhere'
The federal government handed $7 billion to California to build a high-speed rail line, but the Golden State never laid a single foot of track, according to a new report. This prompted Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to threaten that he may remove federal grants to the state's High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA). The 310-page report states that there were numerous missed deadlines and budget overruns. Duffy handed the authority a deadline of July 11 to respond or risk losing approximately $4 billion in grants. 'I promised the American people we would be good stewards of their hard-earned tax dollars,' Duffy said in a statement. 'This report exposes a cold, hard truth: CHSRA has no viable path to complete this project on time or on budget.' 'CHSRA is on notice — If they can't deliver on their end of the deal, it could soon be time for these funds to flow to other projects that can achieve President Trump's vision of building great, big, beautiful things again,' he added. 'Our country deserves high-speed rail that makes us proud – not boondoogle [sic] trains to nowhere.' The rail line was passed as a ballot initiative in 2008 and was supposed to run for 800 miles, connecting Sacramento and San Diego. The budget was $33 billion and the work was supposed to have been completed by 2020. However, in 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said there was nowhere to go after costs had reached $77.3 billion and the rail line had been restricted to run from Merced to Bakersfield. Subsequently, officials with the CHSRA applied for grants totaling $8 billion from the funds passed in former President Joe Biden's infrastructure legislation to finish that shorter rail line. However, in a letter sent Wednesday, the Federal Railroad Administration's acting administrator, Drew Feeley, said that nine months after the first batch of funding was sent in September last year, the authority had crossed a deadline to buy rail cars. Feeley went through other procurement problems and tallied up as much as $1.6 billion in misspent funding because of changed orders. In the end, it's considered unlikely that the project will be finished by its new deadline of 2033. 'CHSRA relied on the false hope of an unending spigot of Federal taxpayer dollars,' Feeley wrote. 'In essence, CHSRA has conned the taxpayer out of its $4 billion investment, with no viable plan to deliver even that partial segment on time.' The California rail authority inspector general found in February that there was a budget shortfall of $7 billion. The federal government had handed the project $6.9 billion since 2010. Speaking to reporters last month, Newsom noted that a high-speed rail project connecting Dallas and Houston had been abandoned. 'You can see the progress we've actually made,' he said at the time. 'We're now on the other side of the environmental reviews; we're on the other side of the land acquisition.' But a spokesperson for the rail authority said the findings of the four-month review were 'misguided' and didn't reflect the project. 'The Authority will fully address and correct the record in our formal response,' a spokesperson said, according to The Los Angeles Times. 'We remain firmly committed to completing the nation's first true high-speed rail system connecting the major population centers in the state.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump admin threatens to halt funding for California's ‘boondoggle' high-speed rail project
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Wednesday threatened to halt all funding to California's high-speed rail project, calling it a 'boondoggle' with no viable path forward. In a 310-page report and a letter to Ian Choudri, CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Duffy alleged 'a trail of project delays, mismanagement, waste and skyrocketing costs' that have already cost taxpayers approximately $6.9 billion and failed to lay any track. 'I promised the American people we would be good stewards of their hard-earned tax dollars. This report exposes a cold, hard truth: CHSRA has no viable path to complete this project on time or on budget,' Duffy said. 'CHSRA is on notice — if they can't deliver on their end of the deal, it could soon be time for these funds to flow to other projects that can achieve President Trump's vision of building great, big, beautiful things again.' Duffy gave Choudri 37 days to respond to the report, after which $4 billion in grants could be terminated, he said. Voters first approved $10 billion in bond money in 2008 to cover one-third of the estimated cost of building the rail line, which would connect Los Angeles to San Francisco, with the aim of having trains up and running by 2020. The current construction involves only a 171-mile segment from Merced to Bakersfield in California's Central Valley, which the authority hopes to begin testing in 2028. In 2023, then-President Joe Biden awarded a $3 billion grant to help officials complete the first phase of the project. That grant came after he reinstated a $1 billion grant to the High-Speed Rail Authority that the first Trump administration had previously blocked. The California High-Speed Rail Authority did not immediately respond to KTLA's request for comment. Opinion: Trump is right, California's high-speed rail project is a mess Choudri, who was appointed CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority in August, is tasked with reinvigorating the nation's largest infrastructure project amid skyrocketing costs. 'We started this one, and we are not succeeding,' Choudri said, describing what drew him to the job after work on high-speed systems in Europe. 'That was the main reason for me to say, let's go in, completely turn it around, and put it back to where it should have been. Fix all the issues, get the funding stabilized, and demonstrate to the rest of the world that when we decide that we want to do it, we actually will do it.' The Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Politico
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Politico
Don't mess with high-speed rail
Presented by With help from Camille von Kaenel THIRD RAIL: Katie Porter is quickly learning a lesson Gov. Gavin Newsom knows all too well — cross high-speed rail at your peril. The former congresswoman and gubernatorial hopeful bashed the project in a TV appearance last week. 'I don't think we should BS California voters,' she told KTLA on May 7. 'They have noticed that we don't have a high-speed rail. And they have noticed we've spent money on it.' On Monday, after being greeted with chants of 'high-speed rail' at a labor event — and after she and the other six gubernatorial hopefuls voiced their support for the project — she told our Jeremy B. White that she wants to 'put people to work, and I want to get it done for Californians.' It makes sense that Porter, known for her fiscal prudence, would criticize a project with a price tag that's ballooned from $33 billion to as much as $128 billion. But her recalibration highlights an important reality of California politics: Labor unions can still make or break a statewide campaign. 'The fact that Katie Porter stepped in it and then had to walk it back in front of labor just shows Democrats have to figure out how to message this issue,' said Andrew Acosta, a veteran Democratic consultant. 'They're all trying to make these calculated decisions about how to put a campaign together.' The project has employed nearly 15,000 union workers since construction started in 2015, more than any other infrastructure undertaking in the country. 'It creates thousands upon thousands of great union jobs, jobs that you can buy a home and build your family on,' said Chris Hannan, president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, after Newsom came through for the project in yesterday's budget proposal. The episode mirrors Newsom's own trajectory. The governor set off alarms among high-speed rail supporters during his 2019 State of the State speech, saying 'there simply isn't a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A.' Newsom put the project front and center Wednesday in his long-awaited plan to extend the state's landmark emissions trading program, highlighting a proposal to guarantee the project at least $1 billion in funding annually alongside money for fighting wildfires and lowering utility bills. 'We're moving forward with high-speed rail,' he said. 'We're finally actually building this system out.' Threats from Trump aside, the move to convert the money from a 25 percent revenue carve-out to a minimum dollar amount gives the project stable funding that it's planning to offer bonds on. 'We worked very hard to get to a place where we have stable funding to securitize and monetize and invite some of you private sector people here to come and invest in California high-speed rail,' High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri told attendees at a rail conference Wednesday. 'So that's great news for us.' The good news for high-speed rail will also ratchet up tensions for everyone else fighting in a shrinking pool of cap-and-trade revenues as negotiations kick off. Lawmakers are looking to Newsom's move as a gauntlet. 'You'd really have to pry his fingers open,' said Senate Transportation Chair Dave Cortese. 'That would take the kind of a throwdown versus the governor that we haven't seen during his administration.' — AN Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! MCNERNEY'S TIME: Sen. Jerry McNerney told us last month he was gearing up for a big fight against the proposed 45-mile-long tunnel rerouting water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that makes up the heart of his district. Now, with Newsom asking lawmakers Wednesday to fast-track the tunnel, it's his time to shine. He and 14 other lawmakers representing the Delta region have already written to Assembly and Senate leadership today urging them to reject the trailer bill. AND ANOTHER THING: The tunnel isn't the only thing Newsom wants to fast-track. Another trailer bill would exempt pending water quality rules for the Delta region from CEQA, preemptively eliminating litigation under the law. For more context: Newsom is pushing for the State Water Resources Control Board to adopt a series of agreements he brokered with water agencies in 2022 to limit water use and pay for habitat conservation as an alternative to the more traditional flow limits that make up the water quality rules. The board is going through the plan now and could make a final decision this year. — CvK EVERYTHING'S BIGGER THERE: Texas is now beating California on almost every metric in renewable energy development. In 2024, Texas surpassed California in total utility-scale solar for the first time, according to the annual market report from American Clean Power, a trade group. That's a result of its eighth year leading the nation in renewable energy development; in 2024 alone, Texas added 14 gigawatts in solar, wind and storage, more than second-place California at 6 GW and third-place Florida at 3 GW. California does have Texas, and the rest of the country, beat in one area: renewable energy jobs. It had 340,900 of them last year, primarily in solar but also in wind and storage, far more than second-place Texas at 126,000 jobs. — CvK STUCK ON THE DOCKS: California commercial salmon fishing season is officially history. NOAA Fisheries announced this week that it will close salmon fishing off the California and southern Oregon coasts for the 2025-26 season, Daniel Cusick reports for POLITICO's E&E News. The decision comes after the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted last month to recommend a complete commercial salmon fishing closure and 7,000 Chinook salmon quota for recreational fishing. The decision is a blow for one of California's most lucrative commercial fisheries, which has been sidelined for two years already amid declining salmon populations linked to low water levels in rivers and streams where they spawn. NOAA's closure starts Friday and will be in place until mid-May of next year. — AN ON CAP-AND-TRADE: The California Chamber of Commerce is staking out a 'don't rock the boat' position as state officials kick off negotiations on the future of the state's cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases in earnest. In a letter to legislative leaders Thursday, the business group urged lawmakers to quickly pass an extension to the program to avoid market uncertainty that could cost the state 'billions' of dollars — and to avoid changes to the program some environmental groups are pushing in the name of further emissions reductions, like a decrease in the number of free allowances to businesses. 'Stable rules keep allowance prices predictable, predictable prices keep capital cheap, and cheap capital drives the scale and speed of emissions-cutting innovation California needs to cost-effectively hit its climate goals while protecting businesses and consumers and maintaining global competitiveness,' wrote CalChamber policy advocate Jonathan Kendrick. The letter follows Newsom's proposal Wednesday to reauthorize the landmark climate program, in which he avoided reforms and rebranded the program 'cap and invest' in line with his focus on its revenues. — CvK — The Trump administration slashed grants to study the Moss Landing battery facility, which caught fire in January. — California should nix its carbon offset trading system and instead require polluters to buy credits directly from the state, University of California, Berkeley, carbon trading researchers write in an op-ed. — Tesla told customers they had to return leased Model 3 sedans that would be turned into robotaxis — and instead sold them to new buyers.
