Citizens Against Government Waste Names Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff June 2025 Porkers of the Month

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) its June 2025 Porkers of the Month for wanting to continue to throw away billions of taxpayer dollars on California’s failed high-speed rail project.

On June 4, 2025, the Trump administration pulled the brakes on $4 billion for the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA). Since the project was approved in 2008, the CHSRA has been off track, wasting more than $11 billion for incomplete segments in the Central Valley that won’t be done until 2030. Sens. Padilla and Schiff have a long history of pouring federal taxpayer dollars into this massive boondoggle. In 2024, they begged former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for $536 million in federal funds. In 2023, they supported $3.35 billion in grants for this failing project. Sens. Padilla and Schiff said in a joint statement that “high-speed rail is the future of transportation.”

CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Sens. Padilla and Schiff are tricking taxpayers into thinking that California’s high-speed rail project is going somewhere but it has always been far off track. The project was billed as fast, affordable, and transformative but it has been an epic failure of transparency, planning, management, and fiscal accountability. Sens. Padilla and Schiff do not care that it’s the most expensive and wasteful high-speed rail project in the country. For continuing to guzzle taxpayer dollars for a train to nowhere, Sens. Padilla and Schiff were an easy choice for June Porker of the Month.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. For more than two decades, Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers and government officials who have shown a blatant disregard for the taxpayers.