by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 8:45 AM ET, Wed August 27, 2025
The Trump Administration has pulled federal funding to four projects related to the California High-Speed Rail Project after months of threats about canceling the project.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced the move, saying it would save $175 million in funding that Congress had previously already allocated to the project. Beyond the four canceled projects, Duffy also directed the FRA to review all other grants connected to the California High-Speed Rail Project.
According to CNBC, Duffy also pulled about $4 billion in grants this past July, which California sued for, calling the action illegal.
“This is a continuation of the Trump Administration’s illegal, politically motivated, and baseless attack on California High-Speed Rail and Central Valley communities,” a spokesperson for the rail authority told CNBC. “The facts are clear: California is delivering the only true high-speed system under construction in North America.”
The United States is decades behind many other countries in developing an efficient high-speed rail system.
In a largely Democratic-led state that’s drawn President Trump’s ire since his first term, the California High-Speed Rail Project became a potential target as early as February, when Trump claimed the project was “billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars over budget.”
The famously delayed project has faced significant hurdles since its approval in 2008, including exploding construction costs, change orders, buying right-of-way and legal hurdles. The estimated cost to finish the project has also ballooned from $33 billion to over $100 billion in the past seventeen years.
The Administration claims that nothing has been built. However, the California High-Speed Rail Authority reports that, as of May, it has completed 54 structures and is currently building another 30, with a total of 70 miles of guideway already complete and another 27 miles under construction.
“In twenty years, California has not been able to lay a single track of high-speed rail. Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg didn’t care about these failures and dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the state’s wish list of related fantasy projects,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy.
“The waste ends here. As of today, the American people are done investing in California’s failed experiment. Instead, my Department will focus on making travel great again by investing in well-managed projects that can make projects like high-speed rail a reality.”
The federal government provided less than $7 billion towards the high-speed rail project during the Obama and Biden Administrations, with the state of California funding the rest of the project’s current $13 billion price tag.
According to the project’s website, it generated 109,000 job-years of employment, generated $8.3 billion in labor income for workers and generated $21.8 in economic output for the state.
The four projects with canceled federal funding are the Le Grand Overcrossing Project on the Merced Extension; the Southern San Jose Grade Separations; the DTX Final Design for Track and Rail Systems Project; and the Madera High-Speed Rail Station Project.
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