House Committee Launches Probe Into California’s High-Speed Rail

The investigation will focus on whether ridership projections were inflated to secure federal and state funds. The rail authority calls the inquiry ‘baseless.’

California's High Speed Rail Project announced the completion of a section of bridgework in Madera County in May 2023, the project's first major milestone. California High Speed Rail Authority

California’s beleaguered high-speed rail project is under investigation by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The probe, launched on Aug. 19, will focus on whether project officials knowingly misrepresented the ridership projections and financial viability of the long-delayed and expensive rail line to secure federal and state funds.

Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) has requested a staff-level briefing, documents, and communications related to the project.

“The [California High Speed Rail] Authority’s apparent repeated use of misleading ridership projections, despite longstanding warnings from experts, raises serious questions about whether funds were allocated under false pretenses,” Comer said in a statement. “The massive cost overruns and lack of progress warrant a reassessment of whether [the authority] acted with transparency and complied with the law.”

The High Speed Rail Authority was first established in 1996 to plan a railway connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles. Costs for the project were originally expected to reach $33 billion, and Californians were told it would be completed by 2020. Voters authorized the rail line in 2008, but to date, the state has not laid any track, and the railway is now expected to cost up to $128 billion.

Officials at the authority dismissed the investigation.

“This is yet another baseless attempt to manufacture controversy around America’s largest and most complex infrastructure project,” an authority spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email. “The Authority has already addressed these recycled criticisms in its response to the FRA’s compliance review supported by facts, noting the ridership critiques are ‘nonsensical, cherrypicked and out-of-date, and therefore misleading.’”

President Donald Trump announced in February that his administration would investigate the project.

During former President Joe Biden’s final days in office, the project received $3.1 billion for the initial segment connecting Merced, Fresno, and Bakersfield—the largest grant the program had received. The funding came from Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said the rail construction has created 12,000 union jobs.

The cost to build the initial 171-mile stretch through central California has increased by about $8 billion.

Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) presides over a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 5, 2025. Comer has opened an investigation into California's high-speed rail project. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Federal Railroad Administration, however, clawed back $4 billion in unspent federal funding in July after the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s responses to a compliance review were deemed not adequate in addressing the administration’s concerns, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“Gov. Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. “Federal dollars are not a blank check—they come with a promise to deliver results.”

The Merced-to-Bakersfield segment had a funding gap of at least $6.5 billion, of which $4 billion was promised by the Biden administration, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Inspector General.

Duffy said it was “time for this boondoggle to die.”