California sues Trump administration over cancelled $1bn rail project grant

Bloomberg

California sued the Trump administration over the government’s decision to withdraw a grant of almost $1 billion that would have funded a high-speed rail project, suggesting the move was a political response to the state’s challenge of the president’s declaration of an emergency on the southern border.
The Federal Railroad Authority announced it would cancel the grant on February 19, one day after California and 15 other states sued to invalidate President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration. The FRA carried out the threat on May 16 while signaling it planned to reallocate the money to other “inter-city” rail projects.
California claims the FRA’s “sudden decision” violates its own procedures, and has asked a a judge in San Francisco federal court to block the government from transferring the money elsewhere.
The agency’s administrator said in a May letter to
his California counterpart that the state had failed to show progress on the project and failed to meet the requirements under funding agreements.
California Governor Gavin Newsom had scrapped initial plans for a high-speed line connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles, instead focusing on construction in the Central Valley. But the state says that’s a red herring. “The decision was precipitated by President Trump’s overt hostility to California, its challenge to his border wall initiatives, and what he called the “green disaster” high-speed rail project,” the state said in the lawsuit.
State attorney general Xavier Becerra and 15 other states sued February 18 to block Trump from reallocating about $6 billion to a fund for the construction of a border wall.