The U.S. federal government will revoke a multi-million-dollar grant it previously promised for funding a high-speed railway connecting the metropolises of San Francisco and Los Angeles in the state of California, U.S. media reported Tuesday.
According to The Wall Street Journal's (WSJ) report citing a letter from Ronald Batory, head of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), to California state officials, the administration is planning to cancel a funding agreement with the California High-Speed Rail Authority, in which the federal government is expected to provide 928.6 million dollars to the state in the years through to 2022 for constructing the track.
The federal government's decision was widely believed to be a response to a lawsuit filed Monday by the state to challenge Trump's declaration on Friday of a national emergency over the security situation on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump's tweet on Tuesday lent further credibility to the assumption. "The failed Fast Train project in California, where the cost overruns are becoming world record setting, is hundreds of times more expensive than the desperately needed Wall!" the president said.
In addition to terminating the payment deal, the FRA is also seeking to let the state of California pay back the 2.5 billion dollars in federal funds that had already been spent on the project, according to the report.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said in his State of the State speech Thursday that instead of finishing the whole project, the state government will focus on completing the part of it linking the cities of Bakersfield and Merced, adding that he was "not interested in sending 3.5 billion dollars in federal funding that was allocated to this project back to Donald Trump," the WSJ reported.
In a press conference at the White House Rose Garden on Friday, Trump declared a national emergency over border security, confirming a threat he has been making since the beginning of the year and, through executive means, gaining access to an extensive amount of money Congress denied him for funding the border wall.
The move, which according to the National Emergency Act enacted in 1976 is within presidential power, has so far faced potential lawsuits intended by 12 states.
