After roughly 15 years and billions in taxpayer dollars, California’s high-speed rail project still has yet to lay down a single track, according to President Donald Trump’s Department of Transportation.
A shocking 300-page Federal Railroad Administration report released Wednesday by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy revealed that the project has already absorbed approximately $6.9 billion in federal funds.
‘While continued federal partnership is important to the project, the majority of our funding has been provided by the state.’
California is anticipating another $4 billion in taxpayer money from two additional grants. However, Duffy noted that the state is in jeopardy of losing the funds because the project’s colossal failures have put it “in default of the terms of its federal grant awards.”
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July 13, 2017, in Fresno, California. Photo by California High-Speed Rail Authority via Getty Images
A DOT press release stated that its latest report uncovered “years of mismanagement, broken promises, and wasted federal taxpayer dollars.”
The rail projects revealed nine “key findings,” including “missed deadlines, budget shortfalls, and overrepresentation of projected ridership.”
California High-Speed Rail Authority has 37 days to respond to the FRA’s report and secure the grants.
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Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Photographer: Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Duffy said, “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. 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.”
“Our country deserves high-speed rail that makes us proud – not [boondoggle] trains to nowhere,” he added.
The DOT secretary wrote in a post on X that the funds currently allocated toward the doomed project could be redirected to “other more deserving infrastructure projects.”
The CHSRA responded to the FRA’s report in a Wednesday statement that only further emphasized the project’s egregious waste of taxpayer funds, but this time on the state level.
We remain firmly committed to completing the nation’s first true high-speed rail system connecting the major population centers in the state.
The Authority strongly disagrees with the FRA’s conclusions, which are misguided and do not reflect the substantial progress made to deliver high-speed rail in California. While continued federal partnership is important to the project, the majority of our funding has been provided by the state.
To that end, the governor’s budget proposal, which is currently before the legislature, extends at least $1 billion per year in funding for the next 20 years, providing the necessary resources to complete the project’s initial operating segment. The Authority will fully address and correct the record in our formal response to the FRA’s notice.
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