{"id":482518,"date":"2026-10-02T07:28:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T07:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/482518\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T07:28:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T07:28:15","slug":"newsom-vetoes-bill-to-increase-california-high-speed-rail-oversight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/482518\/","title":{"rendered":"Newsom vetoes bill to increase California high-speed rail oversight"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Yue Stella Yu<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""An\"
\n\t\t\t\tA construction site for a segment of high speed rail in Fresno on Oct. 20, 2023. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters\/CatchLight Local<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that aimed to boost oversight of California\u2019s High-Speed Rail Authority.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Assembly Bill 1608<\/a> by Assembly Transportation Committee Chair Lori Wilson<\/a>, a Suisun City Democrat, would have allowed the Office of Inspector General that oversees the high-speed rail project to hire more skilled workers and given the agency the power to sign contracts under $1 million.<\/p>\n

Newsom\u2019s veto comes two weeks after the investigative office released a scathing report in which its auditors found<\/a> that the high-speed rail authority approved nearly $600,000 in unallowable travel expenses for its consultants. It found they flew first class, took luxury rides and visited a nightclub on taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n

The auditing agency was created in 2022 to conduct independent reviews and investigations of the long-delayed bullet train project. But it has never been fully staffed because it doesn\u2019t have the authority to hire the expert staff necessary for audits, said Inspector General Ben Belnap<\/a> in recent public hearings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project needs timely oversight right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspector General of the California High-Speed Rail Authority Ben Belnap<\/p>\n

As of last month, three of the agency\u2019s eight full-time positions tasked with audits and reviews remained vacant, Belnap told CalMatters. His office planned to dive into<\/a> how the high-speed rail authority approves change orders \u2014 contract adjustments that often come with hefty price tags<\/a> \u2014 in the spring, but had to table it until the fall due to limited staff, Belnap said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don’t think we can afford any more delays,\u201d he said. \u201cThis project needs timely oversight right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belnap said his office also wants more authority to purchase software or other services without first having to clear the requests with other state agencies that oversee things such as general contracting or tech projects, which he said has taken months to years.<\/p>\n

Once, Belnap said, his office wanted to spend $300,000 on a software to allow tipsters to submit complaints confidentially. But going through the state\u2019s contracting process cost his office an additional $1 million and took more than a year, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve got to figure out how to get around these processes, not because I don’t respect the guardrails, but those guardrails \u2026 are expensive and, in this case, completely unnecessary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In his veto message<\/a> Wednesday, Newsom urged the inspector general\u2019s office to work with what it has. He said his office has supported the inspector general \u201cthrough targeted actions\u201d and noted that his administration approved another measure earlier this year<\/a> to shield the agency\u2019s sensitive records and whistleblower information from public disclosure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Office should continue working with the appropriate state agencies to address its operational needs through existing processes rather than receive broad, permanent exemptions from generally applicable statewide administrative safeguards,\u201d Newsom wrote.<\/p>\n

Belnap said he was disappointed about the veto. But he said the governor\u2019s staff offered to help clear some of the hurdles and he plans to take them up on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s just more of the same, then I\u2019ll have to think outside the box,\u201d Belnap said. \u201cI\u2019m just not going to allow the veto of AB 1608 to affect this office any longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson was not immediately available for an interview Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Yue Stella Yu, CalMatters A construction site for a segment of high speed rail in Fresno on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,1843,8,457,26969,1967],"class_list":["post-482518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-legislature","tag-california-news","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-high-speed-rail","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}