Trump targets California’s troubled bullet train project. It may deserve a mercy killing

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Talk about timing.

President Donald Trump denounced California’s bullet train for the project’s delays and rising costs on Tuesday, and said his administration would investigate how billions of federal and state dollars have been spent.

“The train that’s being built between Los Angeles and San Francisco is the worst-managed project I think I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some of the worst,” Trump told reporters, asserting that the project is “billions and billions” of dollars over budget.

“We’re going to start a big investigation of that, because I’ve never seen anything like it,” he added. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. The worst overruns that there have ever been in the history of our country.”

Trump’s remarks came just 24 hours after the project’s inspector general, Benjamin Belnap, issued a sharply worded report on the first phase of what is envisioned as a statewide system, saying it’s unlikely that the High-Speed Rail Authority can meet its current goal of beginning passenger service between Merced and Bakersfield by 2033.

“With a smaller remaining schedule envelope and the potential for significant uncertainty and risk during subsequent phases of the project, staying within the 2033 schedule envelope is unlikely,” Belnap wrote. “In fact, uncertainty about some parts of the project has increased as the authority has recently made decisions that deviated from the procurement and funding strategies that were part of its plans for staying on schedule.”

It’s the latest chapter in the tortured history of the project, which was pushed by transit advocates for more than three decades before voters approved a $9.95 billion bond issue in 2008.

Since then, state officials have struggled to complete the 119-mile initial segment between Chowchilla and an orchard near Shafter, much less the 52 miles of extensions to Merced and Bakersfield that Gov. Gavin Newsom sought after becoming governor in 2019.

Newsom was highly critical of the project when he took office, saying, “let’s be real. The current project, as planned, would cost too much and respectfully take too long. There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency.”

“Right now, there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego (in the second phase), let alone from San Francisco to LA,” Newsom said. “I wish there were. However, we do have the capacity to complete a high-speed rail link between Merced and Bakersfield.”

He’s changed his tune in recent years as the Biden administration ponied up billions in federal support.

The project’s current estimate is that Merced-Bakersfield would cost $35.3 billion, more than the 2008 projection for a complete system. However, the Legislature’s budget analyst, Gabe Petek, says it has just $28.7 billion in state bonds, federal grants and a quarter of the state’s proceeds from auctioning permits for emissions of greenhouse gases, as much as $1 billion a year.

The latter revenue source, known as “cap-and-trade,” was approved by legislators on the assumption that a bullet train would play a significant role in the state’s crusade against carbon.

Project officials have estimated that a statewide system would reduce auto travel by 10 million miles a day, but Californians drive nearly a billion miles each day. A 10 million-mile reduction would ostensibly cut emissions by scarcely 1%.

Logically, spending emission auction money on more direct carbon reduction programs, such as reducing emission-spewing wildfires, would make more sense.

The current estimate for linking San Francisco with Southern California is $107 billion. Officials don’t even know how to fully finance Merced-Bakersfield, much less raise the other $72.4 billion they would need.

Trump’s opposition adds another uncertainty. During his first presidency, Trump clawed back some of the federal funds that the Obama administration awarded, but Joe Biden’s administration returned the money after California filed a lawsuit.

Trump seems even more determined to derail California’s bullet train. Given its sorry history, it could be a mercy killing.