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- Feb 16, 2016
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Congress move to pull the plug on Newsom’s $128B train to nowhere
Duffy, Congress move to pull the plug on Newsom’s $128B train to nowhere
‘Enough already,’ they’re saying.
On August 19, 2025, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform escalated its scrutiny of Gavin Newsom’s vanity project: a high-speed railway that was originally supposed to connect California’s major cities by 2020. Congressional Oversight may mark the final phase in the latest review process that began in October 2024. This is not the first time the project came under federal fire — an earlier FRA review in 2019 led to the termination of a key grant, which was later reinstated on a smaller scale in 2021 and tied to the Central Valley segment.
Specifically, the other important FRA review in 2019 occurred under the Trump administration. It led to the termination of an FY10 agreement to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles. However, the project was reinstated in June 2021 under a settlement between the Biden administration and California. The settlement restored nearly $1 billion in federal grant funding, tying it back to the Central Valley segment, known as the Merced-Bakersfield (M-B) Early Operating Segment (EOS).
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History of a Train to Nowhere
In 2008, California voters approved the construction of an 800-mile statewide high-speed railway with “$9.95 billion dollars of state bond funding,” according to a letter sent by Comer to Transportation secretary Sean P. Duffy. The boondoggle has been characterized as “perhaps the greatest infrastructure failure in the history of the country,” according to the Hoover Institution.
The rail project was initially projected to be completed in 2020, with a projected cost of $33 billion. However, updated cost estimates, according to the August 19 letter, now “range from $89 billion to $128 billion,” with a projected completion date sometime around 2032.
The Oversight letter states that the “Biden administration committed roughly $4 billion in federal taxpayer dollars to the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) project, including almost $89.65 million dollars in the closing days of the administration.”
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Secretary Duffy wants to de-obligate the unallocated $4 billion in taxpayer dollars and reallocate them to more viable passenger rail and infrastructure projects elsewhere in the U.S.
Lee Ohanian, writing for the Hoover Institution, explains the rationale for the reallocation of federal funding.
"Even a favorable reading of CHSRA’s defense fails to concretely explain how the Authority will complete the scaled-down project, let alone revive the original vision that was promised to voters. The problems at hand with high-speed rail are not political — they are structural and have been part and parcel of the project since 2008. The FRA’s decision to defund is founded on a chronic pattern of overpromising and underdelivering that has eroded credibility to the point where there is none left. Federal infrastructure funds are scarce, and federal oversight must ensure that they are being invested in realistic, high-return projects".
Commentary:
The California Rail project was initially projected to be completed in 2020, at a projected cost of $33 billion. However, updated cost estimates, according to the August 19 letter, now “range from $89 billion to $128 billion,” with a projected completion date sometime around 2032.
What a joke. The First Transcontinental Railroad was 1,900 miles and was built for $336 million in todays dollars. (Approximately) and was built in 6 years.
Californian's wonder just how much did Newsom suck out of it?
It is becoming apparent that “California voters” are probably not Californians. Bass,Newsom, Bonta, Boudin and others should be in jail for defrauding the public, and not doing the job they were “elected” to do.
Try to build a home in California, or for real excitement anything on the coast. The smothering tentacles of California government run wide, deep and are malevolently opposed to getting anything done. There is a slight possibility that high speed rail to Las Vegas may happen with many fewer simultaneous and unconnected miracles, but that is no sure thing either.
The fact is that not one permit has been issued to rebuild a home destroyed in the latest palisades fire.
It's highly likely the 'train to nowhere' will ever be completed. If it is, it will eventually cost far more than $128B, and the result will be a rail system that hemorrhages cash and is infested with criminals of every type. No doubt it will be a "gun free zone", except for the gang bangers and other scum.
