In 2008, California voters approved plans to build a high-speed rail line connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco, a roughly 500-mile stretch that would be covered in less than three hours. The project, pushed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom when he was mayor of San Francisco, was a major investment from the state and federal government, promising to kickstart the development of high-speed rail in the United States.
That was more than 16 years ago. Since then, the estimated cost for the project has skyrocketed while the initial goal for the length of the high-speed rail has shrunk. Now, the Trump administration is threatening to pull all federal funding for the project, saying that the state has “not laid a single high-speed track.” In 2010, the project was awarded $929 million from the federal government, and just last year, under the Biden administration, the high-speed rail project received another $3.1 billion.
According to a 2023 report from Cal Matters, the estimated cost for completing just a fraction of the total project is now higher than the original $33 billion estimate that voters approved for the L.A. to San Francisco route. Completing the whole project, which the state says will “eventually extend to Sacramento and San Diego, totaling 800 miles with up to 24 stations,” is estimated to cost up to $128 billion, leaving California around $100 billion short in funding, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The first phase of California’s high-speed rail plan is much smaller than the original goal to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles. Currently, the state is still trying to build a 119-mile track connecting Merced to Bakersfield, called the “initial operating segment” or “early operating segment.” California is targeting a 2033 finish date for this first step, but the Trump administration argues that the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) doesn’t have “a viable path” to accomplish this first-phase goal by the deadline, let alone the 800-mile high-speed rail.
Newsom said last month that workers have begun the first phase of the project, “laying the tracks to get to where they start to lay the tracks.”
“It’s a technical way of actually doing the development in phases, so real tracks are being laid, and the formal track that will be the first-in-the-nation high-speed rail track is about to take place,” the governor added.
A cherry picker during the construction of a high-speed rail project in Madera County, California, US, on Monday, March 24, 2025. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy poured cold water on Newsom’s hopes on Wednesday, saying that his department “has found that the California high speed rail project is in default of its federal grant awards totaling $4 billion.”
“Here’s the cold, hard truth — there’s no viable path to complete the rail project on time or on budget,” Duffy added. “California is on notice — If they can’t deliver on their end of the deal, it could soon be time for these funds to flow to other projects that can achieve @POTUS’ vision of building great, big, beautiful things again.”
Duffy’s announcement comes on the back of a months-long Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) investigation into the CHSRA. In its review, the FRA found that California “does not have a viable path to complete” the project by the 2033 target date, adding that “CHSRA has at least a $7 billion funding gap to complete the EOS [Early Operating Segment] with no credible plan to secure additional funds.”
So what happened to this major project? According to the Trump administration, the CHSRA’s “mistakes and mismanagement” have raised a “reasonable question about whether continued Federal investment in the CHSR System is a prudent use of taxpayer dollars.”
A rendering shows a high-speed rail train as it enters a station during an informational open house by the California High-Speed Rail Authority at the Hilton DoubleTree in downtown Fresno on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 (via Getty Images).
Newsom, who joined then-Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as an early supporter of the high-speed rail project, has flip-flopped his position on it through the years. Six years after pushing the project, he bemoaned the rising costs and delays and pulled his support, according to the Los Angeles Times. Just two years later, he again endorsed the project.
Labor unions are also a major player pushing the $128 billion project, the L.A. Times reported in 2021. The State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, which represents 450,000 workers, has been a powerful voice behind the high-speed rail project despite the continued questions and criticisms swirling over the plan. The CHSRA partnered with 13 rail labor unions to “cover an estimated 3,000 workers who will operate and maintain high-speed trains, facilities, and stations from the Bay Area through the Central Valley and into Southern California.”
Union support for the high-speed rail was a major reason Newsom flipped back to endorsing the project, according to the Times.
Newsom claims the project has made progress and remains on track to bring high-speed rail to the state. When asked about the project on Tuesday, the governor’s office directed The Daily Wire to the CHSRA and highlighted a clip of Newsom addressing the issue during a press conference on the state budget last month. In the clip, Newsom commented on the high-speed rail plan, saying, “You can see the progress we’ve actually made.”
“We’re now on the other side of the environmental reviews. We’re on the other side of the land acquisition,” Newsom said.
Newsom also pointed to a high-speed rail project in Texas that promised to connect Houston to Dallas, but the plan was scrapped in April after the Trump administration pulled funding from it.
A CHSRA spokesperson told The Daily Wire in an email that it “strongly disagrees with the FRA’s conclusions, which are misguided and do not reflect the substantial progress made to deliver high-speed rail in California.”
“We remain firmly committed to completing the nation’s first true high-speed rail system connecting the major population centers in the state. While continued federal partnership is important to the project, the majority of our funding has been provided by the state,” the spokesperson added. “To that end, the Governor’s budget proposal, which is currently before the Legislature, extends at least $1 billion per year in funding for the next 20 years, providing the necessary resources to complete the project’s initial operating segment. The Authority will fully address and correct the record in our formal response to the FRA’s notice.”