California drops lawsuit against Trump admin. for cutting funding for high-speed railway

California has dropped a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s decision to cancel more than $4 billion in federal funding for the state’s high-speed rail project.

 The California High-Speed Rail Authority filed the suit in July. On Friday, it said that the decision to abandon the proceedings on Tuesday reflected the state’s “assessment that the federal government is not a reliable, constructive, or trustworthy partner in advancing high-speed rail in California.”

Instead, the agency plans to move forward without federal grants, noting that only 18% of the expenditures for the project have come from federal funding. The California agency said that it was beginning to attract private investors and developers, and that the federal cuts would not derail the project, but provide “a new opportunity.”

“Rather than continuing to spend time and money challenging the termination, the state is moving forward without them,” the agency said.

 When the White House initially pulled funding this summer, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) called the move “petty, political retribution, motivated by President [Donald] Trump’s personal animus toward California and the high-speed rail project, not the facts on the ground.”

After ulling $4 billion in federal grants, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) canceled another $175 million in August that would have covered four projects related to the rail program. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and President Trump have both criticized the project as a “train to nowhere.”

“The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” Trump remarked on Truth Social in July. “This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED.”

 

Donald J. Trump Truth Social 07.16.25 07:28 PM EST

To the Law abiding, Tax paying, Hardworking Citizens of the United States of America, I am thrilled to announce that I have officially freed you from funding California’s disastrously overpriced, “HIGH SPEED TRAIN TO NOWHERE.”…

— Commentary Donald J. Trump Posts From Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) July 16, 2025

The construction has been in the works for 16 years after its approval in 2008 in an effort to provide a three-hour train ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco, becoming the fastest passenger railway in the United States.

More than 50 major structures have been built in relation to this project, including bridges, overpasses and viaducts.

 

This is not the first time Newsom’s state has caved to the Trump White House. The state also sent notices in November and December to about 17,000 migrant drivers notifying them that their commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) would be canceled after the DOT called the state out on issuing licenses to those who didn’t pass the requirements and had expired work permits in the country.