Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy terminated $4 billion in unspent federal funding for California’s high-speed rail project Wednesday, citing around $15 billion spent without a single high-speed track laid down.
The total cost of the project, estimated to be around $135 billion, could buy every resident of San Francisco and Los Angeles nearly 200 round-trip flights between the two California cities, according to an announcement Wednesday from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“To the law-abiding, tax-paying, hardworking citizens of the United States of America, I am thrilled to announce that I have officially freed you from funding California’s disastrously overpriced, ‘HIGH SPEED TRAIN TO NOWHERE,’” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom called the move to terminate federal funding illegal and hailed the project’s progress.
“This comes as the project enters the track-laying phase, is actively building across 171 miles, has built more than 50 major railway structures — including bridges, overpasses and viaducts — and completed over 60 miles of guideway,” a press release from Newsom’s office says.
Last month, Duffy released a 300-page report conducted by the Federal Railroad Administration that examined the project. It found missed deadlines, delays, mismanagement, waste, skyrocketing costs, budget shortfalls and overrepresentation of projected ridership.
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The report also said there is a $7 billion funding gap to complete a subset of the first phase in the Central Valley from Merced to Bakersfield, known as the Early Operating Segment (EOS).
California’s high-speed rail project was initially touted as a two-phase system connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco and, later, north to Sacramento and south to San Diego. Since then, the project’s footprint has been reduced significantly from an 800-mile segment to a 171-mile segment.
Timeline:
1981: California works with Japanese partners to explore the feasibility of a high-speed rail corridor in Southern California.
1996: California’s Intercity High-Speed Rail Commission decides that building a high-speed rail is possible. The State Legislature creates the California High-Speed Rail Authority to oversee the rail project.
2008: California voters approve Proposition 1A, allocating $9 billion to the California High-Speed Rail Authority for the rail’s planning and construction.
2015: California holds an official groundbreaking ceremony in Fresno to mark the beginning of construction of the first 29-mile segment of the rail.
2019: The Trump administration announced it was exploring options to reclaim $2.5 billion in federal funds spent by California on the rail and that it intended to cancel $928 million in federal grants not yet paid for the project.
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2023: The Biden administration sends California nearly $3.1 billion in federal taxpayer funds for high-speed rail.
February 2024: The project’s first construction package, which covers 22.5 miles in the Central Valley, reaches “substantial completion.”
June 2024: The 38-mile Palmdale-to-Burbank segment of the rail is environmentally cleared.
January 2025: Newsom joins local leaders to commemorate the start of the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Railhead Project, which they say is the first step to laying track.
February 2025: President Trump calls for an audit of California’s high-speed rail project.
June 2025: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy releases a scathing report exposing what he says is an infeasible high-speed rail project.
July 2025: Duffy announces the termination of $4 billion in unspent federal funding by the Federal Railroad Administration for the project.
Newsom’s office and the California High-Speed Rail Authority did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Stepheny Price and Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
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