Kevin Kiley: “I will provide an update on the nonexistent high-speed rail project in California. As I have noted on this floor before…”

“I will provide an update on the nonexistent high-speed rail project in California. As I have noted on this floor before, I have introduced a resolution or legislation to cut off all future Federal funding for California High-Speed Rail. I was with Secretary Duffy when he announced an investigation into where the recent Federal funding has actually gone and I have called upon the FBI Director Kash Patel to launch an investigation into what happened to the $17 billion that has already been spent. At this point, the cost of the project is estimated to be about $100 billion more than it was initially sold to the public. But we did get some news this week and maybe I have been a little too unkind to high-speed rail. The new CEO--and, by the way, this is the fifth CEO--so there have been five more CEOs than there have been riders. Five CEOs, zero riders. But the new CEO came out with some exciting news. He announced that he has a goal by the year 2045 of completing the line going from Palmdale to Gilroy. So let's parse that statement, a goal of by 2045 going from Gilroy to Palmdale to Gilroy. Well, 2045 is, of course, 20 years from now. I will note that when the project was passed in 2008, it was supposed to be done, the entire thing, by 2020. So the whole thing was supposed to be done 5 years ago, but now the CEO is saying I have got an exciting ambitious plan. We are going to have Palmdale to Gilroy completed in 20 years. And this is just the goal.…”