It is not just the $1 billion pending, the state apparently got $2.5 billion already that is owed back to the federal government.
I believe Obama allocated $3.5 billion but maybe all the money hasn’t been transferred. That would explain the difference between your $2.5B and the $1B Trump is cancelling.
I gotta admit, he’s really playing the politics of the Electoral College very well. The blue states that are governed by those who hate him so much and try to thwart his every move are at risk from the SALT deduction caps and pushing money out of the states. While we didn’t get everything from the first 2 years of GOP control of DC, the House and Senate engineered that pretty skillfully since they were mostly in states unharmed or beneficiaries of the reform. High tax states like IL, CA, NY etc now must reconcile the economic cost of their high taxes without a blanket subsidy from Red States.
And now this revocation of funds. Trump is right of course - that money was allocated for the train. If the train is cancelled the FedGov should get it back. Did Newsome think he could just keep it and budget it for something else at his or the state’s whim?
U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) sent a letter to the California High-Speed Rail Authority, informing it that it was terminating its agreement with the state and therefore would refuse to provide the state with $928,620,000 allocated to the high-speed rail project...[Snip]
...The Los Angeles Times reported additionally that the Department of Transportation said it was “actively exploring every legal option” to recover the other $2.5 billion granted by the federal government to California for the project.