Several prominent California Democrats are calling on the U.S. Department of Transportation to approve a grant request for $536 million in federal money to move forward with the state's long-awaited high-speed rail network.
The money will come from funds already generally allocated to the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Commuter Rail Grants through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021 and made available through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024.
Democrats urged Secretary Pete Buttigieg to approve the funds, saying progress on the “California Phase 1 Corridor” is “essential to advance strategic transportation network investments in our nation and California.”
“The Phase One Corridor aims to address climate concerns, promote health, improve access and connectivity, and enhance economic vitality, while addressing current highway and rail capacity constraints,” a letter to the outgoing Cabinet member said.
Construction begins on a high-speed rail line between the Las Vegas area and Los Angeles
Formulated by Senator-elect Adam SchiffAnd Sen. Alex Padilla, California Democratic Reps. Jim Costa, Zoe Lofgren, and Pete Aguilar, the letter calls for funds to be directed to two projects in particular: tunneling through the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California and through the Pacheco Pass in Diablo. Mountains in Northern California.
“These investments will continue to support living wage jobs, provide small business opportunities, and equitably promote mobility for communities in need – including disadvantaged agricultural communities – all while reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Schiff and other lawmakers wrote.
“Please consider the tremendous value and beneficial impact that FSP-National grant funding will provide to develop CAHSR beyond the Central Valley,” they told Buttigieg.
Lawmakers said these holes are necessary for communication with other intercity commuter rail systems including… Brightline WestCalTrain, 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)
According to California Republicans, the total high-speed rail project is $100 billion over budget and decades behind schedule.
The Trump duo, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, aren't keen on the idea of continuing to fund what many Republicans view as an expensive and fruitless endeavor.
Representative Kevin Kelly, Republican of California, said this earlier this month in remarks he made on the House floor.
“I am very pleased to report that the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency has focused on perhaps the single largest example of government waste in U.S. history – high-speed rail in California,” Kelly said.
The official DOGE
Earlier this month, Ramaswamy also described the plans as a “wasteful vanity project” that has burned “billions of taxpayers’ money with little prospect of completion in the next decade.”
He said Trump “correctly” canceled $1 billion in federal funding for the project in 2019 and expressed regret. President Biden's coup From that step.
“It is time to end waste,” Ramaswamy said.
The top Republican in California's Senate echoed the concerns of DOGE leaders.
that it. Alex Padilla (Getty Images)
“California’s train to nowhere has already wasted billions of taxpayer dollars — and now Biden wants all Americans to fund this free train,” state Sen. Brian W. Jones of San Diego told Fox News Digital.
He added: “When President Trump returns to office in a few weeks, he must stop funding high-speed rail. This wasteful government experiment must end once and for all.”
If approved, federal funds would be boosted by $134 million in state money from California's “cap-and-trade” program, according to the Sacramento Bee.
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At a 2013 conference, Musk floated the idea of a “hyperloop,” which was also presented in a white paper. Although the project has not yet come to fruition, Musk said at the time that he was considering whether there was a better way to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco than what California proposed.
“The proposed high-speed rail would actually be the slowest bullet train in the world and the most expensive per mile,” he said. “Isn't there something better we can come up with?”
The richest man in the world at the time described Hyperloop as a combination of Concorde, a railway cannon, and an air hockey table.
