>>1219448The Feds won't likely back out. In order to do so they'd have to rewrite the PRIIA and pass it, a thing that is unlikely because few people in Congress (other than Denham and McCarthy) want to tamper with how pork money is spent. Trump himself is the most HSR-neutral Republican available (see how he had Sec Chao authorize the Calmod grant, even if late) so we're not getting activism from the oval office. At any rate this fight isn't nearly as important as the one in the state senate.
>And what even is the Republican position on any transportation for the matter?Most (in the state senate) are now at least partially supportive of transit, and their main attack vector onto CAHSR is that it will sap money from local transit projects. This is how Cannella (R-Ceres) could justify his vote for SB-1, because the $3-4 billion being dumped on ACE isn't HSR. But even here, ACE is expanding down to Merced where CAHSR's tracks begin until CAHSR can expand up to Sacramento, just as ACE is doing through SB-1. ACE's tracks were also the original proposed route of CAHSR, so basically the CA GOP ensured CAHSR's survival by giving them a cheap plan B.
The Governor's office is more complicated since Newsom has voiced opposition to the project before (and would readily kill it if he felt he could benefit from that) while Cox wants to kill it outright, a power the Governor doesn't have since CAHSR was passed as Prop 1A. However, Cox also styles himself as a clone of Illinois's Bruce Rauner who himself is mildly pro-HSR in regards to IL's projects.
