High Speed FAIL: How California's Bullet Train Went Off the Rails
On Thursday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that his department would be investigating California’s mismanagement of the state’s high-speed rail project. They sent a letter to the California High-Speed Rail Authority – yes there is actually an established group in our state government for this project – warning that it would “ conduct inspections, review activities and examine financial records.”[1] This is a big deal because the investigation could result, and is likely to result, in pulling federal funding, which will be detrimental to the project. But let’s back up – what is the high-speed rail project, how did it start, and what progress has been made on it to date?
The Start of the High-Speed Rail Project
We need to go all the way back to the 1980s. Jerry Brown was Governor of California in the 1980s,[2] and near the end of his term, he took a trip to Japan. He and many other elected officials were fascinated by Japan’s system of high-speed trains across the country. When he returned, he ordered a feasibility study be conducted to investigate what it would look like to bring a similar high-speed rail system to California.[3] His time as Governor ended in 1983, but his influence started a conversation around public transport in the state.
In the 1990s, lawmakers began to see city overcrowding and traffic congestion in major cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles as a worsening problem. In response to this and Jerry Brown’s prior proposal, the California Legislature created the California High-Speed Rail Authority in 1996 to plan and construct a high-speed rail service between major cities in California. This plan was originally for this Authority to do the required research and draft a plan, then dissolve itself in 2003, but eventually it was made a permanent part of our state government.[4]
Fast forward twelve years to 2008, and voters approved Proposition 1A. What this proposition authorized was the issuance of $9.95 billion general obligation bond to plan and construct an 800-mile rail system from San Francisco down to Los Angeles.[5] Voters were sold the vision of a high-speed rail that would ease the burden of the major traffic across the state. And you can see why this would be appealing. After all, California has multiple cities with the worst traffic in the country.[6] The high-speed rail was marketed as travelling at 220 miles per hour, meaning that the total trip time from San Francisco to Los Angeles would only be around two and a half hours.[7] The terms of Proposition 1A were that the project would be completed by 2020 using the $9 billion bond from Proposition 1A, plus additional federal funding and investments by private parties, for a total cost of $33 billion.[8] Any revenues that would come in from the railway would be poured back into the program, in effect recouping the cost and maintaining it over time.
After Prop. 1A was passed, who returned on the scene? You guessed it – Jerry Brown! He was elected as Governor for what would become another 8 years, picking up the torch on the high-speed rail project right where he had left it.
Early Obstacles
Obviously it is 2025 and we do not have a high-speed railway as was promised by 2020, so what happened between 2008 and now?
Ground was first broken on the project on January 6, 2015. That’s a whopping 7 years after Prop. 1A was passed by voters! Why was construction delayed for so long? There are a few problems that popped up:
1. The first issue was funding. Yes, the voters approved a $9 billion bond, but those funds were actually tied up in court. It turns out the Rail Authority didn’t have a solid plan for how it would use the funding for the project, so a court in Sacramento ruled that the funds could not be released until the state could provide a clear funding plan for how they would be used.[9]
There was also an issue getting the external funding from the federal government and from investors that was needed. Remember, the total cost was supposed to be $33 billion, so even if the government could use the $9 billion bond, California still needed another $24 billion. Guess what else happened in 2008 at the same time as Proposition 1A was passed? The US was hit with the Great Recession! So, investment from private parties was majorly affected.
In terms of federal funding, the Obama Administration did allocate $2.25 billion to California’s high-speed rail project,[10] but this wasn’t a consistent funding commitment, meaning that once Republicans took back control of the House in 2010,[11] they recalled all high-speed rail funding.[12]
2. The second issue was the difficulty of land acquisition. Just think of how much land would have to be purchased to build specialty tracks for a high-speed rail system all the way from San Francisco, through middle California, to Los Angeles. Land acquisition, especially once you get into rural areas with lots of farmland, is never an easy or popular process for the government – and it certainly isn’t popular when you invoke eminent domain, which of course the California government did. Eminent domain is the legal power of the government under the Fifth Amendment to acquire private property for public use in return for just compensation.[13]
The problem is that the state government began acquiring land with only 15% of the rail design completed, meaning that it was difficult to know how much land they really needed. This meant that the rail authority went back and forth to landowners “hundreds of times,” asking for additional land even after original agreements were made and creating problems for local farmers.[14]
The state government was also incredibly slow to pay farmers the agreed upon just compensation, resulting in numerous lawsuits, slowing the project down even further.
3. The third issue was battles with local governments. Several governments for rural counties sued the Rail Authority over environmental concerns. For example, King’s County sued the Rail Authority for not properly assessing the long-term agricultural impact that the high-speed rail project would have on the land and on farms.[15] For example, the train’s path was set to cut right through farmland. This would separate fields and leave certain areas of farmland unusable. It also would disrupt the irrigation systems and drainage patterns in place, which would result in lower crop yields. There was even potential harm of depleting the groundwater supply. This is because to build the railway, there would be extensive digging, tunneling, grading, etc. required. This threatened to disrupt aquifers, which in turn could affect the water supply.[16] These are just a few examples of many concerns raised by local governments, requiring environmental impact reviews to address the concerns of local farmers, and just adding more time to the process
But, these setbacks early on didn’t seem to deter hardcore supporters. Robert Yaro, president of an NGO that promotes infrastructure, said this in 2013, already 5 years into the project:
“There’s a long tradition in the U.S. that every major infrastructure system takes about 20 years to catch on, and the cynics were just as cynical about canals and the interstate system. What we’re talking about here is a real game-changer. It’s going to be very expensive to build this system, but we have to make the investments and then not see the benefits for a decade or a generation or longer, but then it will pay back for centuries.”[17]
This sentiment fueled the project to keep going, despite the massive obstacles in its path.
Major Milestones & Status to Date
What has been accomplished so far and where does the project stand today?
As previously mentioned, the project first broke ground in early 2015. This took place in Fresno, which would become the capital of the project. By this point, the Governor had secured a more permanent source of state funding – through an established cap and trade program. This is a program that requires certain businesses and industries, like “oil refineries, electricity generators and importers, and manufacturing facilities” to buy permits allowing them to emit greenhouse gas emissions.[18] The goal of this program is to incentivize greenhouse gas emitters to reduce their overall emissions, while raising money for green infrastructure in the process. In 2017, the Governor signed Assembly Bill 398, extending this program through 2030.[19] By 2022, this program would raise over $5 billion for the high-speed rail project.[20]
The project was then split into sections to tackle the construction one segment at a time. There are 7 total segments:
- 119 miles from Merced to Bakersfield,
- 50 miles from San Francisco to San Jose,
- 90 miles from San Jose to Merced,
- 80 miles from Bakersfield to Palmdale,
- 40 miles from Palmdale to Burbank,
- 15 miles from Burbank to Los Angeles, and
- 30 miles from Los Angeles to Anaheim.[21] [22] [23]
Currently, there is only one segment actively being worked on, and that is the portion from Merced to Bakersfield. The total cost just for this one stretch of the railway has risen to $35 billion.[24] Let’s just pause for a second and remember, originally the total cost of the entire project was proposed to Californians as $33 billion; now, just the first segment of the project is proving to have exceeded that entire amount. To make matters worse, this one segment is still underfunded, meaning it won’t be completed until we can obtain an additional $6 billion. [25] It isn’t surprising then that none of the other 6 segments are funded, and that only 4 of them have obtained environmental clearance.
Let’s just do a little math to fully understand how much costs have increased. The Merced to Bakersfield line represents 119 of the 420 miles of the railway, with 305 miles left to even break ground on. This is just 27% of the total costs. So, if we project that percentage out based on the $35 billion costs for just that section onto the remaining 305 miles left to be build, that calculates out to a projected total cost of $129 billion, which is a 290% PERCENT INCREASE from the original price tag. Is that not wild?! That is over 3 TIMES ITS ORIGINAL COST. In case you think my math is off, or that I’m projecting incorrectly, the United States Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure confirmed my calculation skills as it has the total estimated cost today at $128 billion.[26]
Where does progress put us as of today? Well, nowhere. The Merced to Bakersfield segment isn’t finished. Projections don’t even have this portion of the total project operating until somewhere between 2030 and 2033[27] – that’s another 5 to 8 years just on ONE of SEVEN total segments! Not to mention, the funding is drying up. The Biden Administration’s Transportation Department had awarded an additional $4 billion to the project, but now that Trump is in office, that funding is likely to be pulled back.
To summarize, this project is wildly overbudget, totally underfunded, delayed by decades, with nothing to show for itself, and nothing is even planned to show for itself anytime soon.
Legislation & Investigations
As a result, there have been several pieces of legislation passed around the high-speed rail project. In January of this year, Kevin Kiley – a member of the House of Representatives who represents California’s 3rd Congressional District – introduced a bill to eliminate any future federal funding for the high-speed rail project.[28] California Assemblywoman Alexandra Macedo also introduced Assembly Bill 267 in January, which would cancel California’s $1 billion annual appropriation for the project for the next two years.[29]
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced last Thursday that the Federal Railroad Administration would be reviewing the $4 billion awarded to the project under the Biden Administration. This funding could be withheld pending the results of the review.[30] Republican lawmakers have come out in support of the Trump Administration’s plans to examine the project and bring accountability to those involved.[31]
Secretary Duffy described the investigation like this, "For too long, taxpayers have subsidized the massively over-budget and delayed California High-Speed Rail project. I will have to consider whether that money could be given to deserving infrastructure projects elsewhere in the United States."[32]
Response
So, what are we to think about this whole project?
To start, the concept of a high-speed rail system connecting two of the largest cities in California is, I think, a good idea. I would love anything that helps with the insane traffic and congestion we face in California’s major cities. We don’t have to disagree with a high-speed rail in the form of a concept or idea; we can acknowledge it sounds cool. I don’t even disagree with the idea of spending money on it, if what is presented to the taxpayer and the voter is true and is executed by our government. California residents voted yes on Proposition 1A because they believed in the vision, and they trusted the government to get it done. The government must then be held accountable to the plans it presented to obtain that yes vote.
Unfortunately, it is super clear that our government has NOT done that. Deadlines continue to get pushed, the goal keeps shifting from the entire project completion to just segments being operational, and the costs keep rising. This is because it is easy to paint a picture of all your hopes, dreams, and aspirations, but it’s hard to execute that vision in real life.
The problem then with the high-speed rail project is simply bad execution. What are the factors contributing to that bad execution?
First, is poor planning. Remember that land was acquired with only 15% of the rail design outlined, meaning the government did not do its due diligence to foresee how this would impact farmers, and leading them to go back to the same farmers repeatedly.[33] It also means that a lot of the project got delayed, held up in courts, and pushed back for so long that there was no way for the government to honor its original promise of completion by 2020. I really don’t understand how this idea began in the 1990s, the official Rail Authority had 12 years before Proposition 1A was brought to voters, and yet even with all that time, they didn’t have completed plans, or a firm idea of the costs involved. Bad planning set them up for failure before they even got started.
Then, a second factor was continually shifting the goals of the program and changing the promises that were made to the taxpayer. From the start, the project was presented to Californians on the 2008 ballot as something they would only need a $9 billion bond for, that it would be completed by 2020, and that in total it would run from San Francisco to Los Angeles at 220 miles per hour. But none of those goals have been achieved or have been accurate, in fact, they’ve all been changed.
To date, California alone has shelled out over $13 billion s for just a portion of the rail – that isn’t even considering the costs paid by federal grants and other funding sources. Now the total cost is projected for over $100 billion, in stark opposition to the original $33 billion cost.[34]
Additionally, they promised the entire project would be completed by 2020; it is now 2025 and zero segments of the project are operational. The most recent projections are for the first segment to be complete and running by 2033, but even that is up in the air due to a lack of funding.
Lastly, the entire point of the high-speed rail was that it would have a dedicated, separate track system, which would enable the train to travel at the 220-mile speed as intended. But even that is not the case any longer, with the project having been modified in several places to share tracks with traditional rail systems already in place. This means that the 2-and-a-half-hour travel time originally promised is pretty much out the window, as there will be several portions where the tracks being used cannot withstand high speeds.[35] Does this sound like transparency and honesty and delivering on the vision promised to you?
A third factor is that our representatives in government have failed to recognize that this project has had a real-life impact on people. It would be a mistake to think, well maybe this high-speed rail isn’t going according to plan, and the costs are more than what was anticipated, but it’s not really hurting anyone, right? I mean, it will take decades longer than promised, but what does that really matter if in 50 years we have an amazing rail system? The reason that thinking is wrong is because building this rail HAS impacted lives – most noticeably the lives of central valley farmers.
For example, one fruit farmer in Kingsburg lost 70 acres of his farmland to the rail project. He also spent $250,000 out of his own hard-earned money to relocate wells, remove trees, and build other infrastructure so that the land he retained would still be usable. The worst part is that, even with all those funds sunk into repairing and preserving his farm, he reported in 2019 that the California government still hadn’t paid him a cent of the money he was due for the land they claimed through eminent domain.[36]
And he isn’t alone. Countless central valley farmers have faced immense costs to replace irrigation systems, build roads and other access ways to the land they still maintain, and other expenses – which the state is supposed to pay for, but in most cases has never provided the agreed-upon compensation to cover the costs. Listen to some of the farmers in this situation, reported by the Los Angeles Times in 2019:
- Tim Raven is a walnut and almond grower who was owed $500,000,
- John Tos, another major grower, owed $150,000,
- Brenda Church, owed $1.9 million,
- Ray Carter, owed $630,000.[37]
These are real people, with lives, homes, families, and businesses – all which have been uprooted, altered, and in some cases, destroyed because politicians sitting in the Governor’s office and the Legislature have continued to pursue a project that has proven to be a pipe dream. They have failed our farmers, who make our state what it is, who give us the reputation as providing so much of our country’s agriculture, and who already have to battle the state over other liberal policies – like the failure to maintain and provide access to a sufficient water supply.
Even further than farmers, entire towns and counties are impacted as well. The lack of planning also meant that authorities didn’t consider what structures were in the path of the route they would later decide on. The LA Times reported that in Kingsburg there was a multimillion-dollar meat rendering plant – a place that takes animal by-product materials and renders them into usable products like beef tallow – that had to be torn down and rebuilt because it was in the path of the railway. There was also a cold-packing house, essentially a warehouse for perishable items, that also had to be torn down and rebuilt elsewhere in Fresno.[38] This project is quite literally destroying everything in its path, without having planned for what vital structures may be in these counties that make it not feasible to just run a railroad through them. This overly burdens small towns and counties that have to relocate these important buildings.
But the worst failure of all is the failure to admit all that has gone wrong and to pivot away from something that is clearly not working. It is so clear from the facts that this is a failed project. It takes honesty, integrity, and courage to come out and admit that. But while it may feel hard to be honest about it, it’s so much harder to continue clinging to a losing battle and then have to justify to the public the years and billions of dollars wasted with nothing to show for it. Yet, that is exactly what our government is doing!
Isn’t it time to look at the facts, shut down the project, and use our state budget, revenue, taxpayer dollars, and federal funding for things that can actually be achieved and make life better for Californians across the state? I mean, we just saw with the Los Angeles wildfires that one of the main points of contention was a lack of funding for the LA Fire Department. Or as another example, we continually hear about how underfunded the California public school system is. So, why doesn’t our government redirect literally BILLIONS of dollars to these programs, that benefit California residents, instead of throwing it directly in the trash – which is what they are doing by pouring it into a project that has never and will never come to fruition. It’s so insane.
It isn’t the job of our governor or our representatives to paint a rosy vision for what could be. It is their job to be honest with us about where our money is going, the time and cost that proposed projects will ACTUALLY take, and the cost benefit of pursuing such a project. What seems to be happening is that those with the idea and vision for a high-speed rail just want to keep the public support for as long as they can, even if that means lying and misrepresenting the facts to Californians.
Case Study – Theranos
What the California government has done with the high-speed railway, is it has essentially committed fraud against the taxpayer. It makes me think of the massive fraud cases we’ve seen in the past few years with major companies, because it’s directly parallel to how fraud always unfolds in the private sector.
Take the story of Theranos as an example. In case you’ve never heard of it, Theranos was a healthcare startup founded in 2001 by 19-year-old Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes. Her vision was to create a blood testing device that could run hundreds of lab tests from a single drop of blood. This sounds like a great idea, right? You’d never have to get an invasive blood draw again! You just prick your finger and have insight into all your health information.
Theranos raised $1.3 billion in funding from wealthy, Silicon-valley investors, and 13 years after the company’s founding it’s valuation sat at over $9 billion.[39] Elizabeth Holmes was recognized as the “Most Powerful Woman” in Inc. Magazine, she was included in Forbes’ 40 Under 40 list twice and their 30 Under 30 list once, she was the youngest recipient of the Horatio Alger Award, she was Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year in 2014, she was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, she was featured as a speaker at New York Time’s “Women in the World” Summit, she was appointed as a member of the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows, she was named Wall Street Journal’s Innovator of the Year in 2015, and she was declared a billionaire by Forbes due to Theranos’ valuation. Barack Obama, during his time as President, even named her a US Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship.[40] Walgreens partnered with Theranos, spending over $140 million setting up more than 40 testing sites with their technology.[41] This woman and her company seemed unstoppable, seemed as though they had achieved the unachievable.
But, the façade eventually came crumbling down when it was discovered that the entire business was just a house of cards. The technology didn’t work, and it had never worked. The whole company reached the pinnacle of fame, wealth, and acclaim based on the lie that the technology was perpetually almost there. In the end, Holmes would be convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to over 11 years in prison, but even through all the trials and legal challenges that would come, Holmes maintained that the technology was revolutionary, that it would change patient care, and that they just needed a little more time.[42]
It really seems like she believed in the product, but her downfall was that she was not willing to open her to eyes to see that while she had a good idea, it wasn’t as feasible as she hoped. The excuse was always that developing new technology takes time and money, and they just needed more of it. Maybe with more time they could engineer the product to run all the tests they advertised. Maybe with more money they could pay for the research and development that would bring everything together. Elizabeth hid just how far behind the R&D for Theranos was, how far away they were from running reliable patient tests. She couldn’t show that to investors or to Walgreens, or else no one would partner with her, and the dream would die. This is because when you refuse to see reality, then you will start to deceive others to keep them from seeing it too.
Isn’t this the exact same situation as the California high-speed rail project? A high-speed rail would be phenomenal, and it would be revolutionary. There was a vision, with an original date of completion and total cost. But when things started to get delayed or bogged down in court, officials kept telling Californians that once they cleared a few hurdles, it would be full steam ahead. But it’s never been full steam ahead. They keep running into challenges, raising the cost, and pushing the deadline. They refuse to see clearly that the entire project is built on a dream that isn’t feasible in real-life, and they want to keep everyday residents of the state from seeing that reality too – just like Elizabeth Holmes did. They just keep selling the vision, but vision without results, dreams without details, are worth nothing. They only defraud the taxpayer to continue supporting an initiative that has never, and will never, deliver on its promises, all while hurting real people.
Just as it ended for Theranos, it's time for there to be accountability in the California government, it’s time to expose it for the fraud that it is, and it’s time to end the California High-Speed Rail Project, once and for all.
References:
[1] Vartabedian, Ralph. “High-speed Rail Route Took Land From Farmers. The Money They’re Owed Hasn’t Arrived - Los Angeles Times.” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2019. https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-cash-20190610-story.html#:~:text=John%20Tos%2C%20a%20big%20grower,%241.9%20million%20for%20three%20years.
[2] California State Library. “Governors of California - Edmund G. ‘Jerry’ Brown,” n.d. https://governors.library.ca.gov/34-jbrown.html.
[3] Mortimer, Colin. “Why High-Speed Rail Has Failed — Center for New Liberalism.” Center for New Liberalism, July 18, 2023. https://cnliberalism.org/posts/why-high-speed-rail-has-failed#:~:text=The%20legal%20obstacles%20in%20opposition,countries%20with%20high%2Dspeed%20rail.
[4] “LAO 2003 Budget Analysis: Transportation, High-Speed Rail Authority (2665),” n.d. https://lao.ca.gov/analysis_2003/transportation/tran_6_2665_anl03.htm.
[5] Ballotpedia. “California Proposition 1A, High-Speed Rail Bond Measure (2008) - Ballotpedia,” n.d. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_1A,_High-Speed_Rail_Bond_Measure_(2008).
[6] Schlepp, Travis. “America’s Worst Traffic Isn’t in Los Angeles.” KTLA, January 30, 2024. https://ktla.com/news/california/americas-worst-traffic-isnt-in-los-angeles/.
[7] SPUR. “Proposition 1A - High Speed Rail,” December 16, 2023. https://www.spur.org/publications/voter-guide/2008-11-01/proposition-1a-high-speed-rail
[8] Stein, Shira. “California’s High-speed Rail Project May Be in Trouble — Again.” The San Francisco Chronicle, December 16, 2024. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/republicans-high-speed-rail-19983744.php?sid=66fc7dcf4199d48fd10e8367&ss=A&st_rid=2f711549-ba32-4120-b9db-c5d5ef5ad700&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=briefing&utm_campaign=sfcn%20%7C%20bay%20briefing.
[9] Hornyak, Tim. “Why California’s High-speed Rail Is off Track.” CNBC, April 11, 2018. https://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/07/nias-high-speed-rail-is-off-track.html.
[10] Behrens, Zach. “California Scores $2.25 Billion From Feds for High Speed Rail.” LAist, June 26, 2018. https://laist.com/news/california-scores-234-billion-from.
[11] ABC News. “Republicans Win Control of House With Historic Gains,” November 3, 2010. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republicans-win-control-house-abc-news-projects-vote-2010-election-results/story?id=12035796.
[12] Dawid, Irvin. “GOP Moves to Rescind Stimulus Funding for High-Speed Rail.” Planetizen News, September 19, 2022. https://www.planetizen.com/news/2010/11/47008-gop-moves-rescind-stimulus-funding-high-speed-rail.
[13] LII / Legal Information Institute. “Eminent Domain,” n.d. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/eminent_domain.
[14] Vartabedian, “Trump Administration Questions Funding for California High-Speed Rail.”
[15] Sheehan, Tim. “Kings County Getting $10 Million to Settle 2014 Lawsuit Over High-speed Rail Route.” Fresno Bee, August 16, 2019. https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article234062312.html.
[16] Warmerdam, Elizabeth. “High-Speed Rail Hits Six Legal Bumps.” Courthouse News Service, June 9, 2014. https://www.courthousenews.com/high-speed-rail-hits-six-legal-bumps/.
[17] Hornyak, “Why California’s High-Speed Rail Is off Track.”
[18] Legislative Analyst’s Office. “California’s Cap-and-Trade Program: Frequently Asked Questions,” October 24, 2023. https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4811.
[19] Yarkin, Genna. “California Governor Signs Climate Change Law Extending the Cap-And-Trade Program Until 2030.” Holland & Knight, July 31, 2017. https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2017/07/california-governor-signs-climate-change-law-exten#:~:text=Legislation%20Overview,%2C%20and%20the%20state's%20economy.%22.
[20] California High Speed Rail Authority. “2023 Project Update Report,” March 1, 2023. https://hsr.ca.gov/about/project-update-reports/2023-project-update-report/chapter-3/#:~:text=%2417.4%20billion%20in%20currently%20available,%246.0%20billion%20to%20%247.7%20billion.
[21] California High Speed Rail Authority. “Northern California,” 2023. https://hsr.ca.gov/high-speed-rail-in-california/northern-california/.
[22] California High Speed Rail Authority. “Central Valley,” 2023. https://hsr.ca.gov/high-speed-rail-in-california/central-valley/.
[23] California High Speed Rail Authority. “Southern California,” 2023. https://hsr.ca.gov/high-speed-rail-in-california/southern-california/.
[24] Nicholls, Flynn. “How California’s High-Speed Rail Line Will Advance in 2025.” Newsweek, December 25, 2024. https://www.newsweek.com/how-california-high-speed-rail-line-will-advance-2025-2004792?utm_source=chatgpt.com.
[25] Brekke, Dan. “The Future for California High-Speed Rail Just Got Even More Uncertain.” KQED, February 22, 2025. https://www.kqed.org/news/12028135/the-future-for-california-high-speed-rail-just-got-even-more-uncertain.
[26] Harclerode, Justin and Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure. “Congressional GOP Transportation Leaders Probing Failed California High-Speed Rail Project,” May 29, 2024. https://transportation.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=407517#:~:text=While%20California%20High%2DSpeed%20Rail,about%20two%20million%20riders%20annually.%E2%80%9D.
[27] Nicholls, “How California’s High-Speed Rail Line Will Advance in 2025.”
[28] Kevin Kiley - California’s 3rd Congressional District. “Representative Kiley Introduces Legislation to Eliminate Funding for the CA High-Speed Rail Project,” January 6, 2025. https://kiley.house.gov/posts/representative-kiley-introduces-legislation-to-eliminate-funding-for-the-ca-high-speed-rail-project.
[29] “Bill Tracking in California - AB 267 (2025-2026 Legislative Session) - FastDemocracy,” January 17, 2025. https://fastdemocracy.com/bill-search/ca/2025-2026/bills/CAB00033718/.
[30] Nieves, Alex. “California Watchdog Says High-speed Rail on Track to Blow More Deadlines.” Politico, February 21, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21/california-high-speed-rail-ig-report-00205506.
[31] Dizikes, Cynthia. “California Republicans Urge Trump’s Probe of State’s High-speed Rail Project.” The San Francisco Chronicle, February 17, 2025. https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/high-speed-rail-trump-20172166.php.
[32] Shepardson, David. “US Opens Probe Into Whether to Rescind $4 Billion in California High-speed Rail Grants.” Reuters, February 20, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-opens-probe-into-whether-rescind-4-billion-california-high-speed-rail-grants-2025-02-20/.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Harjai, Kavish. “High-speed Rail Review.” LAist, February 20, 2025. https://laist.com/brief/news/transportation/trump-administration-to-review-california-high-speed-rail-project.
[35] Joffe, Marc. “California’S High-speed Rail Line Will Share Track With Commuter Rail, Slowing Trains and Increasing Accident Risks.” Reason Foundation, May 13, 2022. https://reason.org/commentary/californias-high-speed-rail-line-will-share-track-with-commuter-rail-slowing-trains-and-increasing-accident-risks/.
[36] Vartabedian, Ralph. “High-speed Rail Route Took Land From Farmers. The Money They’re Owed Hasn’t Arrived - Los Angeles Times,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2019, https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-cash-20190610-story.html#:~:text=John%20Tos%2C%20a%20big%20grower,%241.9%20million%20for%20three%20years.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Kunthara, Sophia. “A Closer Look at Theranos’ Big-Name Investors, Partners and Board as Elizabeth Holmes’ Criminal Trial Begins.” Crunchbase News, March 8, 2024. https://news.crunchbase.com/health-wellness-biotech/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-trial-investors-board/.
[40] Stewart, James. “The Narrative Frays for Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes.” The New York Times, October 29, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/business/the-narrative-frays-for-theranos-and-elizabeth-holmes.html.
[41] Kunthara, “A Closer Look at Theranos’ Big-Name Investors, Partners and Board as Elizabeth Holmes’ Criminal Trial Begins.”
[42] Macmillan, Pan. “Everything You Need to Know About the Theranos Scandal.” Pan Macmillan, February 13, 2025. https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/literary/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-john-carreyrou.
