Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo joins ‘Varney & Co.’ to discuss the investigative findings alleging California lost at least $180 billion to fraud under Gov. Gavin Newsom, raising questions about oversight and accountability.
California lawmakers are calling for the state’s high-speed rail project to be scrapped after projected costs have ballooned by more than 700%.
“This is a project that will never be built, and everybody in this building knows this project will never be built for the people of California and we keep wasting billions of dollars at a time where we have budget deficits,” state Sen. Tony Strickland, vice chair of the state’s Senate Transportation Committee, told Fox News Digital.
Strickland is calling for the project to be abandoned completely.
“I’ve been saying this for years now, but this is the most wasteful government project in probably world history,” he told the New York Post.
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State Sen. Tony Strickland speaks at the Riverside County Registrar of Voters on March 2, 2026, at a press conference. (Anjali Sharif-Paul/MediaNews Group/The Sun via Getty Images)
The project received its first bond funding in 2008 and was originally slated for completion in 2020. Initial estimates also pegged its cost at between $33 billion and $45 billion.
But the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA), the body in charge of the project, recently estimated that the first phase won’t be finished until 2032 in its 2026 business plan. And costs are now predicted to be in excess of $230 billion.
“It goes from a $33 billion projected estimate to the voters to go from LA to San Francisco. Now it’s $231 billion and climbing,” Strickland told the Post.
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Work continues on the California High Speed Rail, Hanford Viaduct. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
The program was originally slated to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, but in 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom scrapped those plans, citing a lack of transparency.
“Right now, there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A. I wish there were,” Newsom said in his 2019 state of the state speech.
Now, the efforts focus on a Central Valley transport corridor between Merced and Bakersfield.
Strickland, for his part, doesn’t believe the next Governor will continue the plan.
“Whoever the next governor is, Republican or Democrat, is going to face a multi-year budget deficit and to continue to dedicate this kind of money… when you’re talking about $231 billion that’s almost the cost of our entire state budget. Is one project worth that?” he asked Fox News Digital.
“Whoever the next governor is is going to face a multi, you know, multi-billion dollar deficit in the years to come, and uh, to be physically responsible, would be to scrap this and pull a plug on this. I firmly believe whoever the next governor is, no matter Republican or Democrat, will scrap this plan,” Strickland concluded.
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Lou Thompson, who chaired a state legislative peer review group responsible for reporting issues to CHSRA, called the project a “dead end” in a March letter to state leaders.
“The project began as a promise of service from San Francisco to Los Angeles… Now, in the Draft 2026 Business Plan, even the 171-mile Merced to Bakersfield cannot be completed by the end of 2032 without access to more funding,” Thompson wrote.
He also said CHSRA and the California legislature’s “state of denial should end.”
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Google Maps’ view of the distance between Bakersfield and Merced, California. (Google Maps)
In July, President Donald Trump’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) pulled $4 billion in federal funding from CHSRA, citing the Golden State’s lack of cooperation on a previous agreement with FRA.
“To be clear, the mere promise of delivering the EOS someday and at some cost was not the bargain struck between FRA and CHSRA,” acting FRA Administrator Drew Feeley wrote in a letter to CHSRA at the time.
California initially sued the Trump administration for the move, but Attorney General Rob Bonta dropped the suit in December.
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California is now seeking private investment for the project, though skepticism still abounds.
“They’re talking about raising money from private capital, and I’ll tell you right now. I said it in the committee hearing. I wouldn’t invest. Would anybody invest in a project that started out as $33 billion, and now it’s $231 billion, and it was supposed to be done in 2020 and hasn’t even started and we’re in 2026?” Strickland asked.
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“Our country has never seen a fiscal disaster of this magnitude,” Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., also said in an X post. Additionally, Kiley told the Post the project was the “worst public infrastructure failure in U.S. history.”
Fox News Digital contacted Newsom’s office and Kiley for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
