Construction continues on the Fresno Trench section of the California High Speed Rail Project on April 16, 2019, in Fresno, Calif. The state’s high-speed rail agency announced Tuesday it’s suing the federal government over the Trump administration’s decision to terminate a $929 million grant for the bullet train. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

LOS ANGELES — California’s high-speed rail agency announced Tuesday it is suing the U.S. Department of Transportation and its senior officials over the Trump administration’s decision to terminate a $929 million grant for the state’s beleaguered bullet train.

In a 20-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court, the state effectively accuses the administration of playing politics with a decision that contradicts federal regulations and makes faulty allegations about the project’s lack of progress.

The decision this month by the Federal Railroad Administration, a part of the Transportation Department, was made “in violation of its own procedures and policies, was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law, and threatens to wreak significant economic damage on the Central Valley and the State,” the complaint says.

The lawsuit further escalates the conflict between California and the Trump administration over a project that aims to make the state a leader in advanced transportation but has been hobbled by lengthy delays and massive cost overruns. The suit names as defendants Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and FRA chief Ronald Batory.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said the state will also seek a temporary restraining order that will argue that “the real motive underlying FRA’s action was political: to punish California for opposing President Trump’s proposed border wall.”

The complaint filed Tuesday details the sequence of events on Feb. 19, a day after California and 15 other states sued to invalidate Trump’s border emergency declaration. The complaint notes that Trump tweeted that the lawsuit was led by California, “the state that has wasted billions of dollars on their out of control Fast Train, with no hope of completion.” The complaint notes, “Later that same day, in a curt, three-page letter, the FRA abruptly notified the authority of its intent to terminate the grant agreement.”

The suit argues that the federal action contradicts the grant terms and federal practice, which requires that both parties work to help correct problems within grants, take modest initial steps to withhold funds and only terminate a grant as a last resort.

The lawsuit, filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on behalf of Newsom and the California High-Speed Rail Authority wasn’t completely unexpected, since Newsom vowed last week to commence legal action after the FRA announced it was terminating the $929 million grant.

The grant has not been paid out and the state had not expected to begin tapping the money until about 2021.

Newsom, after holding a news conference in Oakland on homelessness, blasted Trump on Tuesday as a “petulant president” who is only concerned about ginning up fodder for his political rallies. Newsom noted that the courts have blocked many of the president’s actions, and he expects that to happen again regarding the funding for California’s high-speed rail system.

“The money’s been appropriated. Basically, it puts every large-scale infrastructure project in the United States of America at risk. You would have no trust or confidence in an appropriation,” Newsom said.

The FRA had justified its termination in a 25-page letter to state officials, outlining what it believed were a wide range of violations of a 2010 agreement with the state. It noted that the agency had rejected the projects budgets and funding plans since 2016, because they were flawed.

But California rail officials said the FRA had failed to make the state aware of any problems in its execution of the project or its relationship with federal regulators.

The suit asks for a decision setting aside the termination of the grant and a permanent injunction against the possibility that the money could go to another project, which the FRA had threatened in its termination letter.

The Trump administration has vowed to also claw back a $2.5 billion grant for the bullet train, which was fully spent by the state by 2017. Chao criticized California in a speech earlier this year, calling Newsom’s plan to scale back the project a “classic bait and switch.” </s> California’s high-speed rail agency announced Tuesday it is suing the U.S. Department of Transportation and its senior officials over the Trump administration’s decision to terminate a $929-million grant for the state’s beleaguered bullet train.

In a 20-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court, the state effectively accuses the administration of playing politics with a decision that contradicts federal regulations and makes faulty allegations about the project’s lack of progress.

The decision this month by the Federal Railroad Administration, a part of the Transportation Department, was made “in violation of its own procedures and policies, was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law, and threatens to wreak significant economic damage on the Central Valley and the State,” the complaint says.

The lawsuit further escalates the conflict between California and the Trump administration over a project that aims to make the state a leader in advanced transportation but has been hobbled by lengthy delays and massive cost overruns. The suit names as defendants Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and FRA Chief Ronald Batory.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said the state will also seek a temporary restraining order that will argue that “the real motive underlying FRA’s action was political: to punish California for opposing President Trump’s proposed border wall.”

The complaint filed Tuesday details the sequence of events on Feb. 19, a day after California and 15 other states sued to invalidate Trump’s border emergency declaration. The complaint notes that Trump tweeted that the lawsuit was led by California, “the state that has wasted billions of dollars on their out of control Fast Train, with no hope of completion.” The complaint notes, “Later that same day, in a curt, three-page letter, the FRA abruptly notified the authority of its intent to terminate the grant agreement.”

But the FRA has argued that Newsom, in his State of the State speech in February, substantially curtailed the scope of the project to focus on a Central Valley operating segment, and pushed the original goal of a Los Angeles-to-San Francisco system into the indefinite future. Chao later called Newsom’s plan a “classic bait and switch.”

The state complaint, however, argues that Newsom “confirmed that he shared the ambitious vision for high-speed rail” of prior governors.” The suit also says that the federal action contradicts the grant terms and federal practice, which requires that both parties work to help correct problems within grants, take modest initial steps to withhold funds and terminate a grant only as a last resort.

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The lawsuit, filed by California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra on behalf of Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California High-Speed Rail Authority wasn’t completely unexpected, since Newsom vowed last week to commence legal action after the FRA announced it was terminating the $929-million grant.

The grant has not been paid out and the state had not expected to begin tapping the money until about 2021.

Newsom, after holding a news conference in Oakland on homelessness, blasted Trump on Tuesday as a “petulant president” who is concerned only about ginning up fodder for his political rallies. Newsom noted that the courts have blocked many of the president’s actions, and he expects that to happen again regarding the funding for California’s high-speed rail system.

“The money’s been appropriated. Basically, it puts every large-scale infrastructure project in the United States of America at risk. You would have no trust or confidence in an appropriation,” Newsom said.

The FRA had justified its termination in a 25-page letter to state officials, outlining what it believed were a wide range of violations of a 2010 agreement with the state. It noted that the agency had rejected the project’s budgets and funding plans since 2016, because they were flawed.

But California rail officials said the FRA had failed to make the state aware of any problems in its execution of the project or its relationship with federal regulators.

The suit asks for a decision setting aside the termination of the grant and a permanent injunction against the possibility that the money could go to another project, which the FRA had threatened in its termination letter.

The Trump administration has vowed to also claw back a $2.5-billion grant for the bullet train, which was fully spent by the state by 2017.

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Separately, the state Assembly’s Transportation Committee held a three-hour hearing on the Newsom plan Tuesday, taking in testimony from eight witnesses. Rail authority Chairman Lenny Mendonca said the accounting firm KPMG and the German rail firm Deutsche Bahn would further review the ridership and business assumptions of Newsom’s plan to build a high-speed-rail operating segment from Bakersfield to Merced by 2027.

Members of a state-appointed peer review panel and the Legislative Analyst’s Office said the Newsom plan faces a wide range of risks that could affect its construction cost, funding and future ridership. Lou Thompson, chairman of the peer review panel, noted that the plan would require a large bridge loan to complete construction by 2027, since some of the funds for the work would not arrive until 2030. The loss of the $929-million grant is another unknown.

“We are all making decisions on imperfect information, but the more information we get, the more the project seems imperfect,” said Assemblyman Vince Fong (R-Bakersfield), a critic of the project.

Times staff writer Phil Willon in Oakland contributed to this report.

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @rvartabedian </s> The California state government Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. federal government for canceling a nearly 1-billion-U.S.-dollar fund contracted to support the state's high-peed rail project.

The lawsuit, filed with the federal court in San Francisco, attempted to recover money from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), which has announced that it would end its 928-million-U.S.-dollar contract with California because the state "failed to make reasonable progress on the project."

However, the California government argued in the lawsuit that the FRA's action "to abruptly terminate" the 2010 agreement rather than work with the California High-Speed Rail Authority is "a sharp departure from ordinary agency practice."

The Golden State charged that the federal government's decision to ax the grant "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 lawsuit noted that California Governor Gavin Newsom on Feb. 18 criticized Trump's effort to build more barriers at the Mexico border as a "manufactured crisis."

The next day, Trump on Twitter criticized California's high-speed rail plan, the lawsuit said.

The state also planned to file a request for a temporary restraining order, asking a judge to block the federal government from using the high-speed rail money for other purposes, according to the local Sacramento Bee newspaper.

In 2008, California voters approved nearly 10 billion dollars in bond money for the construction of the high-speed rail system linking Los Angeles and San Francisco, but the project has been plagued by delays and cost overruns.

Construction is underway on the first leg of the project, which has been cut down to a 119-mile section connecting Central Valley cities Merced and Bakersfield, and 6 billion U.S. dollars have been spent on it. </s> California is suing the Trump administration after the federal government canceled a nearly $1 billion funding contract for the state’s high-speed rail project. The state is arguing the federal government’s action was improper and politically motivated.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office says his administration filed a lawsuit Tuesday morning challenging the decision in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The state also plans to file a request for a temporary restraining order, which will ask a judge to block the federal government from using the high-speed rail money for other purposes.

The Federal Railroad Administration announced Thursday it would end its $928 million contract with California because the state hadn’t kept up its end of the agreement and “has failed to make reasonable progress on the project.” It also said California “abandoned” its initial plan to build the high-speed train from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Newsom insists he has not abandoned the ultimate goal to connect the two major cities, although he generated widespread confusion during his February State of the State speech when he announced there “simply isn’t a path” for that part of the project. Instead said he would focus in the short-term goal of connecting Central Valley cities Merced and Bakersfield.

“While this project has long been a political football, our determination to get the work done and bring high-speed rail to California is undaunted. This project is the right thing to do from a mobility, environmental and economic standpoint. It’s right for California and the nation,” High-Speed Rail Authority Chairman Larry Mendonca said Tuesday at a board meeting.

In the temporary restraining order the Newsom administration plans to file, the state argues the Trump administration’s decision to claw back the money was spurred by a desire for political retribution.

“The real motive underlying FRA’s action was political: to punish California for opposing President Trump’s proposed border wall,” the state plans to argue. “There is no reasonable alternative explanation for FRA’s abrupt and unprecedented action or the manner in which it disregarded its own practice and established principles of fairness and due process.”

The lawsuit links Trump’s decision to restrict California rail funding to Newsom’s criticism of Trump’s immigration plan.

For instance, the lawsuit notes that Newson on February 18 criticized Trump’s effort to build more barriers at the Mexico border as a “manufactured crisis.” California also filed a lawsuit to block Trump’s plan to pay for the project with money that Congress had allocated for military projects.

The next day, the lawsuit notes, Trump on Twitter criticized California’s high-speed rail plan.

“As I predicted, 16 states, led mostly by Open Border Democrats and the Radical Left, have filed suit in, of course, the 9th Circuit! California, the state that has wasted billions of dollars on their out of control Fast Train, with no hope of completion, seems in charge,” Trump write.

He added in another message on Twitter, “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.” </s> FILE PHOTO - California Governor Jerry Brown's name and others are pictured on a railroad rail after a ceremony for the California High Speed Rail in Fresno, California January 6, 2015. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - California on Tuesday sued the Trump administration in U.S. District Court after the U.S. Transportation Department confirmed it would withhold $929 million in high-speed rail funding awarded to the state in 2010.

The state later on Tuesday plans to seek a temporary restraining order request asking a judge to prevent the U.S. Transportation Department from repurposing the money for other transit projects, the governor's office said.

The state argues that the withholding is aimed at punishing California for opposing President Donald Trump's proposed wall along the southern U.S. border. The suit also names Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)and FRA chief Ron Batory.

The Trump administration moved to end funding after California Governor Gavin Newsom said in February the state would scale back the planned $77.3 billion high-speed rail project after cost hikes, delays and management concerns, but would finish a smaller section.

The FRA said last week it was still considering "all options" on seeking the return of $2.5 billion in federal funds the state has already received for the project.

Trump has repeatedly criticized the project. In a speech last week, Trump called the project a "disaster" and "totally out of control" and recounted that he had said "Elaine, it’s over for them" to Chao about the California project.

The move marked the latest in an ongoing battle between the Trump administration and California over a series of issues including immigration, vehicle emissions standards and internet policy.

The most populous U.S. state has repeatedly sued the Trump administration and federal officials had expected the state would sue over the rail funding.

The Trump administration first said it planned to withhold the money on Feb. 19, which California noted in its suit was one day after it joined 15 other states in suing Trump over his decision to declare an emergency at the southern border.

The U.S. Transportation Department declined to comment on the suit Tuesday.

The FRA, the U.S. railway regulator said last week it had canceled the funding agreement after it said the state failed to make "reasonable" progress on the project.

The state said in its suit the FRA's decision was in "violation of its own procedures and policies was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law, and threatens to wreak significant economic damage on the Central Valley and the state"

California high-speed rail authority chairman Lenny Mendonca said on Tuesday that "while this project has long been a political football, our determination to get the work done and bring high-speed rail to California is undaunted."

"This project is the right thing to do from a mobility, environmental and economic standpoint. It’s right for California and the nation," he said.

The traffic-choked state had planned to build a 520-mile (837-km) system in the first phase that would allow trains to travel at up to 220 miles per hour (354 kph) from Los Angeles to San Francisco and begin full operations by 2033.

Newsom said in February the state would instead complete a 119-mile high-speed link between Merced and Bakersfield in the state's Central Valley, what Trump derided last week as "from this tiny little town to another tiny little town."

The Obama administration awarded California $3.5 billion in 2010 and California voters in 2008 approved nearly $10 billion in bond proceeds.

In March 2018, the state forecast project costs had jumped $13 billion to $77 billion and warned costs could be as much as $98.1 billion. </s> California sues to block Trump administration from cancelling nearly $1 billion for high-speed rail project

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California sues to block Trump administration from cancelling nearly $1 billion for high-speed rail project. </s> A billboard sign promoting High Speed Rail prominently displayed along the 99 Golden State Highway in Bakersfield on January 28, 2015. (Photo by Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES — California on Tuesday filed a legal challenge to the Trump administration's plans to terminate a grant of nearly $1 billion for the state's high-speed rail project.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, follows the Federal Railroad Administration last week pulling a 2010 grant for $1 billion for the high-speed rail project and charging that California's rail authority "failed to make reasonable progress on the project." In addition, the FRA indicated last week that it is continuing to explore "all options" concerning another $2.5 billion in funds already awarded to the state's high-speed rail agency.

The complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and challenges the Trump administration's decision to pull the nearly $1 billion in funding for the California high-speed rail project. In the court filing, the state notes that it has already committed billions of dollars to the program.

In February, President Donald Trump called for California to return $3.5 billion in federal funds for the high-speed rail line planned between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The Department of Transportation followed by announcing its intention to cancel $929 million in grant funds awarded previously but not yet paid out.

Trump's call for the return of money followed California Gov. Gavin Newsom at his first state of the state address on Feb. 12 announcing a reeling in of the state's high-speed rail project, saying the current plan "would cost too much and take too long." He added, "There simply isn't a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to LA."

According to the lawsuit, the FRA's action "to abruptly terminate" a 2010 agreement rather than work with the California High-Speed Rail Authority is "a sharp departure from ordinary agency practice." In announcing its termination of the agreement last week, the FRA said California's rail authority "repeatedly failed to comply with the terms of the FY10 agreement."

In addition, the lawsuit charges that the federal government's decision to ax the grant agreement "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."

Construction is underway on the first leg of the bullet train, a 119-mile section in the state's Central Valley. More than $6 billion has already been spent on the California high-speed rail project.

"The Trump administration's action is illegal and a direct assault on California, our green infrastructure, and the thousands of Central Valley workers who are building this project," Newsom said last Thursday after the FRA terminated the nearly $1 billion grant.

In 2008, California voters approved Proposition 1A, authorizing nearly $10 billion in bond money for the construction of the high-speed rail system. Since the vote, though, the project been plagued by delays and cost overruns.

The DOT declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. </s> California sues to block Trump administration from cancelling nearly $1 billion for high-speed rail project. </s> California’s high-speed rail agency remains determined to complete about 119 miles of bullet-train construction in the central San Joaquin Valley, even as a confrontation with the Trump administration over promised federal funds escalates into a lawsuit.

“We are looking for a ramp-up in activity for construction,” said Tom Richards, vice chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, adding that he expects the pace of work to accelerate this summer. Richards, a Fresno businessman, said Tuesday at the agency board’s meeting in Sacramento that the state remains mindful of “the requirement to abide by all of the commitments we have” under a pair of federal grant agreements dating to 2010 and 2011 for about $3.5 billion to support engineering and construction in the Valley.

Tuesday’s board meeting came on the heels of California filing suit challenging the Federal Railroad Administration’s termination of the grant agreements. …

Click here to read the full article from the Fresno Bee
The California High-Speed Rail Authority sues the U.S. Transportation Department to block the cancelling of $929 million federal grant for the California High-Speed Rail project. The suit comes after the Trump administration canceled the federal grant for California's bullet train on May 16, 2019.