Transportation Secretary Axes Additional Funds for California High-Speed Rail Projects

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says the move will save U.S. taxpayers $175 million.

A full-scale mock-up of a high-speed train is displayed at the California Capitol in Sacramento. Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has canceled $175 million from California’s high-speed rail project, a month after the agency withdrew $4 billion in federal grants to the project.

The move cuts funding for four projects related to the high-speed rail, including the Le Grand Overcrossing on the Merced Extension ($89.6 million), the Southern San Jose Grade Separations ($7.5 million), the final design for track and rail systems at the Transbay Terminal ($24.7 million), and the Madera High-Speed Rail Station ($54.5 million).

Duffy’s department cited the $15 billion expended and projections ballooning to $135 billion, despite that not a single mile of operational high-speed track exists.

“In 20 years, California has not been able to lay a single track of high-speed rail,” Duffy said in a statement on Aug. 26. “The waste ends here. As of today, the American people are done investing in California’s failed experiment.”

Duffy also directed the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) on Tuesday to review all obligated grants for the project.

In July, Duffy terminated $4 billion in unspent grants to the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA), after the authority’s responses to a compliance review were deemed inadequate in addressing the administration’s concerns, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation..

A 315-page report listed nine critical failings, including that CHSRA would not complete the Merced–Bakersfield line by 2033 as promised in grant agreements.

“CHSRA’s mismanagement and incompetence has proven it cannot build its train to nowhere on time or on budget,” Duffy said in July. “It’s time for this boondoggle to die.”

In response, the California High Speed Rail Authority sued the Department of Transportation over its clawback of the $4 billion in funds, calling it “illegal.”

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.

The project was originally envisioned to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, but it was later reduced to 170 miles through central California, connecting Merced and Bakersfield.

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform launched an investigation into the project on Aug. 19 to determine 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.

The California High Speed Rail Authority has not returned a request for comment, but previously told The Epoch Times that the investigation was “baseless.”

“This is yet another baseless attempt to manufacture controversy around America’s largest and most complex infrastructure project,” an authority spokesperson said 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.’”

Jill McLaughlin contributed to this report.