(The Center Square) – The California High-Speed Rail Authority missed the May 1 deadline to submit a report to the Legislature about the long-delayed project and its estimated cost of $126.2 billion.
The agency’s 2026 business plan, a draft of which was released in February, was due Friday.
“The authority now anticipates a revised timeline for adoption of the business plan, with board consideration at its planned June 1, 2026 meeting and transmittal to the legislature on that same day,” a spokesperson with the High-Speed Rail Authority wrote in an email to The Center Square on Friday. “This adjustment will allow the authority to better align the business plan with the fiscal year 2026-27 budget cycle. This alignment is particularly important given ongoing project delivery discussions that will help inform the final business plan.”
Among other pieces of required information, under a law passed in 2025, Assembly Bill 377, the High-Speed Rail Authority is supposed to include information in its final business plan that addresses gaps in funding for the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment of the high-speed rail. The authority is also supposed to address how the agency plans to acquire the money to pay for the segment that would span the middle of California’s agricultural heartland.
"When we passed AB 377, it was to make sure we had high accountability with the California High-Speed Rail," Assemblymember David Tangipa, R-Fresno and author of AB 377, told The Center Square on Friday afternoon. "It is what I like to describe as a 'Do your business or get off the pot' type of bill. It seems that what the High-Speed Rail Authority is failing to do and why they need more time is to come into compliance with that bill."
Officials with the agency should have had required information in the final business plan be ready to go, Tangipa said.
"For them to say that they need more time to just come into normal safeguards and compliance with state law, I think really should give the general population and every single person that pays taxes a large-scale worry," Tangipa said.
Agency officials have touted publicly that the High-Speed Rail Authority was allocated $1 billion a year of funds from California’s cap-and-trade program, often referred to as cap-and-invest. The high-speed rail would be the recipient of that amount of money every year until 2045. However, critics have expressed doubt that money will actually come through to finish building what has been described as a boondoggle.
Local officials who represent communities that would line the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment said they are concerned that despite previously-identified funding sources, there won’t be enough money to continue paying for the high-speed rail as construction moves forward. The communities include some in western Fresno County.
“When I look at the cap-and-trade program, I have major concerns with it,” Nathan Magsig, a member of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, told The Center Square on Friday. “Where that money comes from is businesses.”
Fees and costs imposed by the state’s cap-and-trade program have driven out many of California’s oil refineries, Magsig told The Center Square, which poses a problem for how the cap-and-trade program could keep generating revenue.
“I think any reliance on a continued funding stream through cap-and-trade is concerning for me, because I’m seeing the tax regulations that are being put on businesses that are driving them out of the state, and we may continue to see diminishing revenues in California because of some of the policies in place,” Magsig told The Center Square.
Local officials in Central California’s cities aren’t optimistic that $1 billion in cap-and-trade money will come through every year, either.
“That’s the concern right there, yes,” Kelly Smith, the mayor of Chowchilla, told The Center Square on Friday. The rail would go through Chowchilla, an agricultural city in Madera County. “Politicians change and policies change, and I’m in fear that that could dry up. In the budget shortfall the state is currently in, something’s got to give.”
The High-Speed Rail Authority board met on Wednesday to discuss the cost of the project and other matters. It was expected that members would discuss the 2026 draft business plan, as the plan was on their agenda that day. But the board delayed discussion on the plan for a future board meeting date.
According to that draft business plan, the entire San Francisco-to-Los Angeles segment is projected to cost $126.2 billion, well over the $9.95 billion bond that passed in 2008. The Merced-to-Bakersfield segment is expected to cost $34.76 billion, according to figures in the draft business plan. The completed high-speed rail project was initially projected to be finished in 2020. It is now expected to be finished in 2040.
