SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California High Speed Rail Authority is suing the Trump administration over its termination of $4 billion in previously awarded federal funding for the state’s high speed project.
A press release from Gov. Gavin Newsom says the lawsuit alleges the Federal Railroad Administration’s termination of the funding is political retribution “motivated by President Trump’s personal animus toward California and the high-speed rail project, not by facts on the ground.” Newsom called it “another political stunt to punish California.”
The suit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the funds were being pulled in a July 16 Department of Transportation press release, saying in that release that Newsom and California Democrats were responsible for “enabling this waste,” and that the CHSRA’s “mismanagement and incompetence” showed the agency could not deliver the project [see “FRA kills funding …,” Trains News Wire, July 16, 2025]. The termination followed an FRA view that said the high speed project was in violation of the terms of its federal grants in nine key areas; the head of the CHSRA has disputed those findings.
Reuters reports that Duffy said earlier that he was confident the administration would defeat any legal challenge, and that a spokesman for Duffy said the suit was a plan to “waste even more taxpayer dollars.”
