After Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy claimed that a California high-speed rail project had broken several conditions of its federal grant agreements, the project’s existence is in jeopardy.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority “has no viable path to complete this project on time or on budget,” according to a statement released by the agency on Wednesday.
“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,” Duffy stated.
The project allegedly violated nine “broken promises” in the Federal Railroad Administration’s Compliance Review Report, which includes a letter to California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri.
These included missing deadlines, funding gaps, and not having enough time and money to finish the project as promised.
The warning from the Trump administration infuriated the train system group. According to a spokeswoman, the authority “strongly disagrees” with the report.
The authority spokeswoman said the group intends to “correct the record” in its answer to the Federal Railroad Administration, pointing out that the state of California provides the majority of the project’s funding.
“We remain firmly committed to completing the nation’s first true high-speed rail system connecting the major population centers in the state,” according to the spokesperson.
The approximately $4 billion in federal grants are being used to build a high-speed rail line in California’s Central Valley that would link key communities over a distance of 170 miles between Merced and Bakersfield.
According to the article, the train authority has seven days to respond initially and another thirty days to raise a protest or risk having its grant money revoked.
In part of the report, Federal Railroad Administration Acting Administrator Drew Feeley stated, “CHSRA is simply not using state or federal funding to advance responsibly the CHSR Project.”
Feeley identified “poor planning” as a contributing factor.
The development on Wednesday comes after the inspector general of the train authority issued a warning in February that the 2033 schedule was “unlikely.”
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According to that evaluation, among other factors, finance shortages and construction delays have raised doubts about the project’s viability.
In order to connect the 800 miles of land between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Federal Railroad Administration paid $2.55 billion in 2009 to build the nation’s first high-speed railway.
This marked the beginning of California’s high-speed rail initiatives. It was estimated that the voyage would take less than three hours.
About ten years later, California Governor Gavin Newsom drastically reduced the project’s scope, limiting its use to the area between Merced and Bakersfield.
“At this rate, CHSRA will never complete the CHSR System,” according to the report.
