Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Jeff Denham (R-CA) will convene a field hearing in San Francisco on Monday to monitor the status of California’s high-speed rail project.
California’s high-speed rail project was funded through the administration’s High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail program using funds mostly appropriated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Voters in California approved a bond measure in 2008 to help finance a multi-billion high-speed rail project that aims to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco. Since that time, however, the project has undergone substantial changes, with its price tag rising from an estimated $33 billion to as much as $118 billion.
The project’s plans no longer call for full high-speed rail service from San Francisco to Los Angeles, while expected revenue from the state’s cap and trade program needed to finance the project is not meeting expectations.
Denham will convene the hearing, titled “Continued Oversight of the California High-Speed Rail Project,” to establish what levels of state and federal support would be needed to see the project through to completion.
To date, the project has received approximately $4 billion in federal funding.