California’s high-speed rail authority sued the Trump administration Thursday over its cancellation of billions of dollars in federal funding.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California by state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, comes one day after the Federal Railroad Administration pulled $4 billion from the project that was intended for construction in the Central Valley. The suit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and challenges the legality of the decision.
The lawsuit calls the administration’s actions “arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law, and threatens to wreak significant economic damage on the Central Valley, the State, and the Nation.” It names Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and acting FRA Administrator Drew Feeley as defendants and details President Trump’s “personal animus” toward the project and long-standing criticism of it. Trump previously pulled funding from the train during his first term.
The suit calls the president’s past statements over the project’s budget as untrue. The project is about $100 billion over budget from its original proposal of $33 billion. Trump previously said it was “hundreds of billions of dollars” more.
“Trump’s termination of federal grants for California high-speed rail reeks of politics.” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement Thursday. “It’s yet another political stunt to punish California. In reality, this is just a heartless attack on the Central Valley that will put real jobs and livelihoods on the line. We’re suing to stop Trump from derailing America’s only high-speed rail actively under construction.”
The fast train to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles was originally expected to be completed in 2020. But while the entire route was environmentally cleared last year, no portion of the line has been finished and construction has been underway only in the Central Valley. The Trump administration initiated a compliance review in February after Republican lawmakers called for an investigation into the project and demanded that it be defunded.
The 310-page review found significant failures in the project, citing budget shortfalls and missed deadlines in its assessment, and found “no viable path” forward. In two letters disputing the findings, Ian Choudri, chief executive of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said the review was filled with inaccuracies that misrepresented the project’s progress.
In early July, Choudri asked that the Federal Railroad Administration delay its decision and requested another meeting. Less than two weeks later, the Trump administration canceled the funds instead.
