President Donald Trump is about to snatch $4 billion away from California’s high-speed rail project — and all that’s doing is reinforcing Democrats’ iron-willed support for the beleaguered venture.
The Trump administration said Wednesday — in the form of a 300-page report — that it’s on the verge of nixing Biden-era grants for the planned rail line from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, a conclusion state officials have feared since the president put the project in his crosshairs in February.
Rather than being a death knell for a project that’s years behind schedule and has a price tag that’s ballooned from $33 billion to as much as $128 billion, Trump’s attacks are fortifying state Democrats who hold the purse strings to its largest funding source — the state’s emissions trading program for greenhouse gases.
“We’ve seen this coming and we’re going to do everything we can to prevent it,” said state Senate Budget Chair Scott Wiener. “Regardless of what happens here, we’re committed to making this project a reality.”
