The chickens may finally be coming home to roost for the California High-Speed Rail (HSR) project. On February 20, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that the Department of Transportation would be opening an investigation into the more than $4 billion in federal funding that the project has received, including a $3.1 billion grant from the Biden administration.
According to the announcement, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will investigate California HSR’s compliance with its federal grant agreements to determine whether the project is meeting the grant agreement requirements. The potential for the department to try to pull federal funding from the project is high, though a legal fight from California would be all but guaranteed in response.
