WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Tuesday it would cancel almost $1 billion in funding for the California high-speed rail network, casting doubt on whether the state will be able to complete even the first phase of the troubled project.
Federal Railroad Administrator Ronald Batory wrote Tuesday to state officials that the administration was canceling its grant agreement with the California High-Speed Rail Authority, and halting $928.6 million in future grant payments it was expected to make to fund the project through 2022.
The FRA is also considering a legal effort to recover the federal funds already spent on the project. The authority has “failed to make reasonable progress on the Project” according to the terms of the federal funding agreement, Batory said, in a letter to the rail authority.
Batory said the FRA’s decision was also based on the announcement by California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week that the state would focus on completing the first phase of the project, connecting the cities of Bakersfield and Merced, and revisit the existing plans to extend the network south to Los Angeles and north to San Francisco.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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