The Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it terminated $4 billion in federal funding for California's high-speed rail project
It's time for this boondoggle to die," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy in the announcement. "President Trump and I will always fight to ensure your tax dollars only go to projects that accomplish great, big, beautiful things.
It also prompted President Donald Trump to take to Truth Social, declaring he had "freed" the U.S. from funding California "high speed train to nowhere."
Newsom tweeted a response to Duffy, saying he "won't be taking advice from the guy who can't keep planes in the sky."
Duffy's announcement about the cut funding also states that he has directed the Federal Railroad Administration to review other grants related to the high-speed rail project, and he would be consulting with the Department of Justice about the possibility of recovering some of the already used funds.
ABC10 has contacted the California High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) and the governor's office for comment.
WHAT TO KNOW
Voters first authorized $10 billion in borrowed funds in 2008 under Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to cover about a third of the estimated cost, with a promise the train would be up and running by 2020.
Five years beyond that deadline, no tracks have been laid and its estimated price tag has ballooned to over $100 billion.
Scrutiny over the high-speed rail project has long existed but ramped up in early February when Trump called for an investigation into it .
"The train that is being built between Los Angeles and San Francisco is the worst managed project I think I've ever seen," Trump said at the time.
The HSRA referred ABC10 to its tweet that 50 major structures along with 60 miles of guideway had been built so far with the project progressing into the track-laying phase.
Later in February, the Federal Railroad Administration launched a review of the project, which they said would be used to determine if $4 billion in taxpayer funds should still be committed to the section of the project connecting Merced to Bakersfield.
According to the Department of Transportation, the entire project — which would connect San Francisco to Los Angeles — was supposed to be completed by 2020 and cost $33 billion. The agency then estimated the total cost of the project is now around $106 billion.
The DOT says the California High-Speed Rail Office of the Inspector General found that the initial section has a funding gap of $6.5 billion, even with $4 billion in federal funding, and that the section connecting Merced to Bakersfield is unlikely to be completed by 2033.
Then, in June, the Trump administration signaled it intended to cut off the $4 billion in funding after a 300-page Department of Transportation report concluded there was "no viable path" to completing even part of the line.
In a letter to the California High-Speed Rail Authority, which oversees the project, Federal Railroad Administration acting Administrator Drew Feeley wrote that what was envisioned as an 800-mile system connecting the state's major cities has been reduced to a blueprint for "a 119-mile track to nowhere."
The HSRA had a month to formally respond to the FRA. The Department of Transportation says the FRA received an initial response from the HSRA on June 11 and then a final response on July 7. The FRA says neither response "satisfactorily addressed" its concerns, leading to the termination of the agreement on July 16.
This is a developing story and will be updated as we learn more.
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