Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy released his report Wednesday into California’s troubled high-speed rail project, concluding that it was a waste of money and presented “no viable way forward” to completion.
In a press release, the department said:
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy today released the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Compliance Review Report finding that the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA)’s high speed rail project is in default of the terms of its federal grant awards. The detailed report, which is over 300 pages, contains 9 key findings including missed deadlines, budget shortfalls, and overrepresentation of projected ridership. The two grants total roughly $4 billion in taxpayer money. As the letter notes, CHSRA has up to 37 days to respond, after which the grants could be terminated.
In a letter to CHSRA’s CEO, Ian Choudri, the FRA noted its report identified a trail of project delays, mismanagement, waste, and skyrocketing costs. The project has received approximately $6.9 billion in federal dollars in roughly fifteen years but has not laid a single high-speed track. Even with continued federal support, the project is far short of the funding needed to finish just a fraction of the track.
Duffy added:
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 boondoogle trains to nowhere.
The report can be found here.
Duffy had announced an audit of the project in February. Originally, when voters passed a ballot measure authorizing the project in 2008, it was to have connected San Francisco and Los Angeles in under three hours by 2030, at a cost of $33 billion. But the project was subject to many legal and technical obstacles, and costs ballooned to well over $100 billion — even after being reduced to a route in the rural Central Valley alone.
After Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) canceled the L.A.-to-San Francisco route in 2019, President Donald Trump clawed back $1 billion in federal spending on the project. President Joe Biden restored that spending, but Trump and Duffy have renewed their attack on the program, adding suspicions of local corruption to the mix.
Another high-speed rail route, between L.A. and Las Vegas, driven by private investment, remains viable.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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