Several leading California Democrats are asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to approve a request for $536 million in federal funding to help advance the state’s long-awaited high-speed rail network.
This funding would come from funds already generally allocated to “federal-state partnerships.”[s] Intercity passenger rail subsidies were obtained through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021 and made available through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024.
Democrats asked Secretary Pete Buttigieg to approve the fund, saying progress on the California Phase 1 Corridor is “essential to strengthening investment in our nation’s and California’s strategic transportation networks.”
“The Phase 1 corridor will address climate challenges, improve health, improve access and connectivity, and boost economic vitality, while addressing current highway and rail capacity constraints,” the letter to outgoing ministers said. Aim for it,” it says.
Construction begins on high-speed rail between Las Vegas and Los Angeles area
The letter, authored by Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, Sen. Alex Padilla, and California Democrats Jim Costa, Zoe Lofgren, and Pete Aguilar, specifically asks for the money to be earmarked for two projects. A tunnel construction project runs through the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California. Pass through Pacheco Pass in the Diablo Mountains of Northern California.
“These investments will continue to support living wage jobs, provide small business opportunities, and support communities in need, including disadvantaged rural areas, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It would equitably enhance liquidity,” Schiff and other lawmakers wrote.
“Consider the tremendous value and meaningful impact that FSP and state funding will have in advancing CAHSR beyond the Central Valley,” they told Buttigieg.
Lawmakers say the bore is needed to connect with other intercity passenger rail systems such as Brightline West, Caltrain, Metrolink and Altamont Commuter Express.
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Ongoing construction of the California Bullet Train project is photographed in Corcoran, California (left) and Hanford, California (right). (Getty)
The California Republican Party says the entire high-speed rail project is nearly $100 billion over budget and decades behind schedule.
Trump’s DOGE duo of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are reluctant to continue funding what many Republicans consider an expensive and fruitless effort.
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) said as much in remarks on the House floor earlier this month.
“I’m very pleased to report that the newly created Department of Government Efficiency has zeroed in on perhaps the greatest example of government waste in American history: California’s high-speed rail outrage,” Kiley said.
DOGE X’s official account also tweeted in November explaining California’s high-speed rail spending and requesting funding.
Earlier this month, Ramaswamy also described the plan as a “wasteful vanity project” that wasted “billions of dollars of taxpayer cash with little prospect of completion over the next 10 years.”
He said President Trump “correctly” canceled $1 billion in federal funding for the project in 2019 and lamented that President Biden has reversed that action.
“It’s time to end wastage,” Ramaswamy said.
California’s top Republican senator echoed DOGE leaders’ concerns.
Senator Alex Padilla (Getty Images)
“California’s ‘train to nowhere’ has already wasted billions of taxpayer dollars,” state Sen. Brian W. Jones of San Diego told Fox News Digital. I hope people will fund this outrage.”
He added: “When President Trump returns to office in the coming weeks, he must cancel funding for high-speed rail. This wasteful government experiment must end once and for all.”
If approved, the federal funds would be augmented by $134 million in state funds 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,” which he also announced in a white paper. Although it hasn’t happened yet, Musk said at the time that he 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 would actually be the world’s slowest and most expensive bullet train per mile,” he said. “Isn’t there a better way?”
The world’s richest man described the Hyperloop at the time as a combination of a Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table.
Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant.
Charles covers media, politics and culture for Fox News Digital.
Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduate of Temple University with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism. Story tips can be sent to charles.creitz@fox.com.
