California Republican leader: It's time to pull the plug on high-speed rail | Opinion

The Sacramento Bee and four other California newspapers owned by McClatchy published Senator Strickland’s op-ed calling for California to pull the plug on the high-speed rail boondoggle project.

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An “informational” hearing on a multi-billion project should bring clarity. 

But during the state Senate Transportation Committee’s informational hearing on California’s High-Speed Rail master plan on recently, we got the opposite. We heard words like “lacks transparency,” “risky”, “unrealistic,” and “incomplete” from the project’s inspector general Benjamin Belnap and the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. They were describing the high-speed rail’s updated business plan. Even a Democratic colleague, a self-described enthusiast of the high-speed rail, called the draft business plan a “disaster.” 

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Read the full article at the Sacramento Bee from May 17, 2026.