Reported by Colleen Shalby for LA Times.
The Trump administration has launched a compliance review into California’s high-speed rail project, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Thursday.
The review will focus on $4 billion promised by the Biden administration for continued construction in the Central Valley between Merced and Bakersfield and will determine the outlook of future federal funding commitments for the train, which has faced ongoing challenges related to budget and timeline.
“We can’t just say we’re going to give money and then not hold states accountable to how they spend that money — how they spend it per the agreements that they made with the federal government,” Duffy said at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. “If California wants to continue to invest, that’s fine, but we in the Trump administration are going to take a look at whether this project is worthy of a continual investment.”
Duffy said that the department would also review grants attached to environmental and social justice initiatives.
The announcement comes days after Republican lawmakers urged President Trump to investigate the high-speed rail line and after he and Cabinet leaders signaled they would examine the project.
Transportation labor leaders took issue with Duffy’s comments.
“As America’s largest transportation labor federation, representing thousands of rail and building trades workers who will build, operate, and maintain the California High-Speed Rail System, we strongly disagree with Secretary Duffy’s remarks that this is ‘a crappy project’ and ‘a train to nowhere’,” Greg Regan and Shari Semelsberger, president and secretary-treasurer of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, respectively, said in a statement.
“Just last year, President Trump complained that the United States does not have bullet trains similar to Japan. We agree with him that it is past time for our country to have these kinds of modern, efficient, high-capacity transportation systems. We also realize that those nations with bullet trains are ones who prioritized and paid for them. We are the wealthiest country in the world, and Americans deserve world-class trains right here at home.”
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