The Trump administration has canceled billions of dollars in funding for California’s high-speed rail project after the state agency rejected the federal government’s assessment of the project’s failings.
The Federal Railroad Administration pulled $4 billion in funding on Wednesday that was intended for construction in the Central Valley, according to a letter that acting FRA administrator Drew Feeley sent to the project’s chief executive officer Ian Choudri.
Department of Transportation Secretary Duffy has also asked the FRA to review other grants related to the project. The agency said it will consult with the Department of Justice on potentially clawing back other funds.
Duffy blamed state leaders for the “mismanagement” of plans for the train.
“Governor Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years. Federal dollars are not a blank check – they come with a promise to deliver results. After over a decade of failures, CHSRA’s mismanagement and incompetence has proven it cannot build its train to nowhere on time or on budget,” Duffy said in a statement Wednesday. “It’s time for this boondoggle to die.”
On X, Duffy said that Newsom and California “are the definition of government incompetence and possibly corruption.” In response, Newsom said he “won’t be taking advice from the guy who can’t keep planes in the sky.”
President Donald Trump, a vocal critic of the project who has vowed to defund it, said the decision to pull funding saves taxpayers’ money.
“I am thrilled to announce that I have officially freed you from funding California’s disastrously overpriced ‘high speed train to nowhere,’” Trump wrote on social media. “The railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will. This project was severely overpriced, overregulated and never delivered.”
The high-speed rail project was supposed to be completed by 2020 but is decades off schedule and about $100 billion over budget from its original proposal of $33 billion. No part of the line from Los Angeles to San Francisco has yet to be completed and construction has so far been confined to the Central Valley.
The Trump administration initiated a review of the project in February after Republican lawmakers called for an investigation. In a 310-page compliance review released in June, the federal government cited budget shortfalls, missed deadlines and a misleading projected ridership and found “no viable path” forward for the train.
Choudri sent two letters to the Trump administration in response to the review findings. In a letter sent earlier this month, Choudri called the assessment inaccurate and said the administration relied on old information to come to its conclusions, misrepresenting the facts.
“FRA’s flawed inputs have led to flawed outputs,” Choudri wrote. “Rather than rely on the relevant information and documentation provided by the Authority, FRA inexplicably relies on outdated information, unreliable, unsupported third-party sources, and incomplete and flawed analyses to support its conclusions.”
Choudri asked the Trump administration for another meeting in early August and for the decision to be delayed. The responses did not satisfy FRA’s concerns, the agency said.
The high-speed rail authority and state lawmakers have been pushing for private-public partnerships to fund the project outside of government support. The state is also committing $1 billion per year in funding towards the project, which has created thousands of jobs in the Central Valley and has become central to several communities’ business revitalization plans.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
