NASA administrator Sean Duffy visits the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Management Constructing on the Kennedy House Heart for House Launch Complicated 39A earlier than the NASA and SpaceX Launch Crew-11 mission to the Worldwide House Station on July 31, 2025 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo | Getty Pictures
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pulled $175 million from California’s high-speed rail challenge on Tuesday, only a month after canceling $4 billion in federal grants.
Duffy cited 4 tasks associated to the broader California high-speed rail initiative that will lose funding, together with observe extensions, grade separations, design work and the development of a rail station in Madera. Duffy mentioned the total challenge has to date incurred $15 billion in prices, calling it a “boondoggle.”
“In twenty years, California has not been in a position to lay a single observe of high-speed rail,” Duffy mentioned in a assertion. “The waste ends right here. As of right this moment, the American individuals are completed investing in California’s failed experiment. As a substitute, my Division will deal with making journey nice once more by investing in well-managed tasks that may make tasks like high-speed rail a actuality.”
An aerial picture reveals development staff constructing the Hanford Viaduct over Freeway 198 and previous agricultural fields as a part of the California Excessive Velocity Rail (CAHSR) transit challenge in Hanford, California, on February 12, 2025.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Pictures
The California Excessive-Velocity Rail Authority didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
Duffy additionally directed the Federal Railroad Administration on Tuesday to evaluation all obligated grants for the challenge.
In July, the administration canceled all the railroad group’s federal funding following an FRA report that discovered “critical issues” with the challenge’s viability, together with an alleged incapability to finish the challenge by its deadline and claims of breached phrases of its contract.
California filed to sue the Division of Transportation in July for its “unlawful” motion. In an op-ed in The Sacramento Bee, Duffy replied by writing that California Gov. Gavin Newsom “has no clue what purposeful authorities seems to be like.”
The challenge was initially envisioned after a state poll measure handed in 2008 with the purpose of connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles in underneath three hours, however it was later lower down to serve a shorter 170-mile stretch between Merced and Bakersfield.
In accordance with the FRA, the present iteration of the plan was projected to value round $22 billion with an estimated finish date of 2033.
The railroad system beforehand advised CNBC that almost all of its funding is offered by the state, not the federal government.
