Federal agency cancels California bullet train’s grant of $929M
LOS ANGELES — The Trump administration transformed its threats against the California bullet train project into a sour reality Thursday, terminating a $929 million grant for construction in the Central Valley.
While loss of the money poses a potentially devastating hit to the project, state officials said no immediate construction changes are planned because the federal government’s action could be reversed in future legal action.
Termination of the 2010 grant was based on the state’s multiple failures to forecast accurate schedules, report key milestones and show that it can meet deadlines to complete work by 2022, the Federal Railroad Administration said in a 25-page letter announcing its decision.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority “is chronically behind in project construction activities and has not been able to correct or mitigate its deficiencies,” said Ronald Batory, chief of the federal agency.
The railroad administration’s letter notes that the agency rejected every quarterly budget that the state authority submitted since late 2016, repeatedly admonishing the state for “deficiencies and errors” in its documents. The letter alleges the state made ineligible expenditures from the grants, including giving a bonus to consultants for meeting the terms of the grant and paying for expenses “related to a consultant’s name change.”
Even more troubling for the project is a warning, reiterated Thursday, that federal officials are looking into recapturing $2.5 billion in another grant that the state already has spent. U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has said the government has a right to get repayment of that money, based on reductions in the original scope of the rail system. Chao previously called the cutbacks a “classic bait and switch.”