$50K for DEI Trainings, $5 Mil for Graffiti Removal, and No Rail Line: How California’s High-Speed Rail Project Has Burned Through Taxpayer Cash
11th March 2025
When the Trump administration announced it was investigating California’s long-troubled high-speed rail project, the top official overseeing it pressed back. Though the project has more than tripled in price to $106 billion, the official said that “every dollar is accounted for.”
While the money is indeed accounted for, that accounting does not paint a rosy picture for the Golden State. State audits over the past 15 years, which the Washington Free Beacon reviewed, have found a litany of wasteful and bizarre spending and financial commitments, ranging from $177,000 for PoliticoPro subscriptions to $5 million for graffiti removal. One company received more than $50,000 to head diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, while active environmental service contracts total $537 million.
The high-speed rail project launched in 2008. It promised to offer 220 mph trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco, with an estimated completion date of 2020 for $33 million. Construction didn’t begin until 2015. Since then, no track has been laid, no stations have been built, and there’s no estimate on when it will be finished. Even the shorter-term goal that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) announced in 2019—a 171-mile rail in the Central Valley—will likely miss its 2033 deadline, according to the project’s inspector general.