(KMJ) Despite being several years behind schedule and with no firm completion date, California lawmakers this week approved spending another $20 billion on the troubled High Speed Rail Project.
“Today’s agreement has made a big, bold statement about California’s future—one that will create jobs, cut pollution and connect and transform communities across the state,” HSR CEO Ian Choudri said in a statement.
Where is the money coming from? Legislators are reauthorizing California’s Cap-and-Trade program. The plan will shift $1 billion every year for the next 20 years from that program to the belabored bullet train.
“This funding agreement resolves all identified funding gaps for the Early Operating Segment in the Central Valley and opens the door for meaningful public-private engagement with the program,” Choudri continued.
The California Cap-and-Trade program requires the biggest industrial emitters of greenhouse gases to buy pollution credits, through 2045. It’s the biggest funding commitment in the project’s history, which got underway after voters approved a $10 billion bond measure in 2008.
The current cost estimate for California’s high-speed rail project is approximately $128 billion to $135 billion, depending on the source and scope of the estimate:
- The California High-Speed Rail Authority has reported a cost of $128 billion, which reflects a nearly 22% increase from the previous estimate of $105 billion
- Other sources, including Newsweek, cite a broader projection of $135 billion for the full system connecting major cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles.
This is a significant jump from the original 2008 estimate of $33 billion, and the project continues to face funding challenges and timeline delays.
The Trump administration recently clawed back $4 billion in federal funding from the project, triggering a lawsuit from the state of California.
