California sued the Trump administration on Thursday over its termination of $4 billion in federal grants for the state’s high-speed rail project, calling the decision an illegal act of political retribution.
What happened: Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, the day after President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that the Federal Railroad Administration had revoked the Obama- and Biden-era grants and said the project would not receive a “SINGLE penny” in federal funding ever again.
That decision came after Trump threatened for months to claw back federal funding from the planned rail line connecting the Bay Area to Los Angeles, which has become a political punching bag for Republicans amid construction delays and cost overruns.
The filing argues that FRA’s decision was “arbitrary” and an “abuse of discretion” that will cause economic damage to the state and the Central Valley, where the first leg of the route is being constructed from Bakersfield to Merced.
