Good reason to pull back bullet-train grant

The Federal Railroad Administration’s decision to formally cancel a $929 million federal grant made in 2010 to the hugely troubled California bullettrain project was immediately depicted by Gov. Gavin Newsom as “political retribution” by President Donald Trump. But there are two key facts that strongly undercut Newsom’s claim.

The first is that the FRA’s deep concerns about the propriety of the project’s use of federal funds emerged during the final year of the Obama administration. In December 2016, federal rail officials warned — correctly, as it turned out — of a potential 50% cost overrun as well as years of delays on the construction of the initial highspeed rail segment in the Central Valley. They also attached new conditions to the $929 million grant that effectively delayed state access to

the funding by five years.

The second is that the FRA has an overwhelming case that California has failed to meet the core requirement of the grant: that the state is making “reasonable progress” on the project. Instead, it’s at least a decade behind schedule, at least $45 billion over budget and a constant target of critical state audits and investigative journalists.

In February, Newsom acknowledged the project’s deep problems when he installed new leadership on the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s board and said the agency didn’t have a credible plan to build a statewide network of bullet trains. For him to now blast the Trump administration for its concerns makes no sense. The feds’ critique echoes the one the governor himself made three months ago.