California Democrats urge federal to approve high-speed rail funding before DOGE cancels ‘wasted effort’
Several prominent California Democrats are calling on the U.S. Department of Transportation to approve a $536 million grant request for federal funds to advance the state’s long-awaited high-speed rail network.
The funds will come from funds already allocated to the Federal-State Partnership[s] Intercity Passenger Rail Appropriations” is obtained through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021 and is provided through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024.
Democrats urged Secretary Pete Buttigieg to approve the funds, calling progress on the California Corridor Phase 1 “critical to strengthening our state and California’s strategic transportation network investments.”
“The Phase 1 corridor is designed to address climate issues, promote health, improve transport and connectivity, and enhance economic vitality while addressing current highway and rail capacity constraints,” a letter to outgoing cabinet members reads.
Construction begins on high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and Los Angeles areas
The letter, authored by Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, Sen. Alex Padilla and California Democratic Reps. Jim Costa, Zoe Lofgren and Pete Aguilar, calls for Funds are earmarked for two projects: a tunnel through Southern California’s Tehachapi Mountains and the Pacheco Pass through Northern California’s Diablo Mountains.
“These investments will continue to support living wage jobs, provide small business opportunities, and equitably enhance mobility for communities in need, including disadvantaged agricultural communities, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Schiff and other lawmakers wrote.
“Please consider the tremendous value and meaningful impact that FSP-National grant funding will provide to advance CAHSR beyond the Central Valley,” they told Buttigieg.
Lawmakers said the boreholes are needed to connect to other intercity passenger rail systems, including Brightline West, CalTrain, Metrolink and the Altamont Commuter Express.
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Photo taken during ongoing construction of the California Bullet Train project in Corcoran, California (left) and Hanford, California (right). (Getty)
According to California Republicans, the entire high-speed rail project is nearly $100 billion over budget and decades behind schedule.
Trump’s DOGE duo, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, are not keen on continuing to fund what many Republicans view as a costly and futile effort.
Rep. Kevin Kelly, R-Calif., said the same thing in a speech on the House floor earlier this month.
“I’m pleased to report that the new Department of Government Effectiveness is already addressing what may be the greatest example of government waste in American history, the waste of California’s high-speed rail,” Kelly said.
The official DOGE X account also described California’s high-speed rail spending and requested funding in a tweet in November.
Earlier this month, Ramaswamy also called the plans a “wasteful vanity project” that burned “billions of taxpayer cash with little hope of completion within the next decade.”
He said Trump “correctly” canceled $1 billion in federal funding for the program in 2019 and expressed regret that President Biden reversed the move.
“It’s time to end the waste,” Ramaswamy said.
California’s top state Senate Republican also expressed DOGE leaders’ concerns.
Senator Alex Padilla (Getty Images)
“California’s ‘train to nowhere’ has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars — and now Biden wants all Americans are funding this nonsense.
“When President Trump returns to office in a few weeks, he must defund high-speed rail. This wasteful government experiment must end once and for all,” he added.
If approved, the federal funding would be backed by $134 million in state funding from California’s cap-and-trade program, according to the Sacramento Bee.
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At a conference in 2013, Musk proposed the idea of a “Hyperloop” and presented the idea in a white paper. Although it hasn’t happened yet, Musk said at the time that he had wondered if there was a better way to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco than what California was proposing.
“The proposed high-speed rail will effectively be the slowest bullet train in the world and the most expensive per mile,” he said. “Can’t we come up with something better?”
The world’s richest man described hyperloop at the time as a combination of Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table.
