The Federal Government plans to carry out a financial review of any federal funding for the California High Speed Railway project, The Secretary of Transport, Sean Duffy, said on February 20 at a press conference at the Los Angeles Union station.
“I will exercise my authority as a transport secretary to direct the Federal Railway Administration (FRA) to start a review of compliance with the funding to the High Speed Railway Authority in California,” he said.
Duffy called the project a “black hole” of wasted money that is “seriously out of the court”. He said that the financial review would focus on $ 4 billion, which pledged to the portion of the Merced-to-Bakersfield project by Biden’s administration. More than $ 3 billion under construction has been completed.
Duffy, who replaced Pete Buttigeg as transport secretary last month, said that this part of the project in the central valley of the state “will cost California and federal taxpayers between 33 and 35 million dollars, and in the Best of cases will not be complete until 2033 or 2035, which was completed by this whole project. “
He said that the review would help determine if the billions of taxpayer money should be committed to the California High Speed Railway. “Let’s see if the California High Speed Railway has fulfilled the agreements signed with the federal government,” said Duffy, who added that the federal government has already given the project $ 2.7 billion. “We cannot give money and not responsible for the states of the way to spend this money.”
The California High Speed Rail Authority responded to Duffy on social networks. “We welcome this research and look forward to working with federal partners,” the authority wrote to X. “The California High Speed Railway has been audited more than 100 times. Each dollar is counted and the progress is real: 50 structures Built, 14,600 jobs created and 171 miles under construction. ”
When asked by Enr if he believes that the railway project would be viable with the appropriate supervision and contractors, the secretary replied that the dowry will “completely listen” to California if he sent a plan to the legislator and the federal government that cuts the red tape and is ready to build.
“We are committed to investing in good projects that move people between cities, but it cannot be invested in projects that go nowhere,” he said. “Thus, California can find out how to build a project in a time scheduled with an assigned amount of money, because right now, all estimates have been wrong.”
Duffy’s statements arrive one week after President Trump called the “managed” project, and after a report on February 3 of the Inspector General’s office, the High Speed Railway (OIG-HSR) , discover that only the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment has a financing gap of at least $ 6.5 billion.
Trump’s first administration in 2019 threatened to cancel $ 929 million in federal grant money for the planned line of the Los Angeles-Bay area, shortly after California and other states were challenged than attempts at the attempts Administrations to declare emergency funding for a border wall.
