Two months after the California High-Speed Rail Authority sued the Trump administration over its cancellation of $4 billion of federal grants, little has happened on the legal front. And, if experience is a guide, the Authority will not be seeing this money before January 20, 2029, if ever. It is extremely unlikely that courts will order the Federal Railroad Administration to restore the funding, nor is there much chance of an out-of-court settlement.

Thus far, the legal trajectory is following the same path as it did when the first Trump administration rescinded a $929 million high-speed rail grant in 2019. During the legal dispute that followed, California and the Department of Transportation entered into a stipulation agreement: the Federal Railroad Administration promised not to give

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