US Cancels Almost $1 Billion For The Bullet Train -- Ball Back In The Governor's Court -- May 17, 209

At an earlier post, a reader offered this comment:

Federal payments for that high speed rail are dead. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-rail/us-cancels-929-million-in-california-high-speed-rail-funds-after-appeal-rejected-idUSKCN1SM2F9.

The state was warned before, but now action has been taken.

California was already showing signs of possibly giving up project themselves but now they can blame it on the Feds. Doesn't matter...no reason to throw good money after bad.

My reply:

There was not much news after the February announcement that the "bullet train was dead / not dead." I did find this from about a week ago: https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-trump-dispute-20190508-story.html.

I had not yet read the Reuters story that the reader linked.

From that link: the Feds and the state of California are no longer talking to each other with regard to the bullet train.

• the Feds are not answering phone calls from California regarding the bullet train -- literally not answering phone calls
• the Feds are not acting on federal permits, environmental statements
• the project will simply die on the vine unless the governor of California wants to double down on this project

This is the legal basis on which the decision was made to cancel the billion dollars, and also the legal basis to "claw back" Federal money from California for this project that was killed: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/02/13/california-high-speed-rail-plan-bullet-train/2861594002/.  At that USA Today story the governor said the project was dead. He was substituting a different project -- a short 100-mile railroad track from nowhere to nowhere with no purpose.