New Audit Announcements
Audit Initiated of FRA’s High-Speed Rail Grant Risk Mitigation and Oversight of Expenditures
Since 2009, Congress has appropriated over $10 billion for the High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail (HSIPR) Program. As of December 2017, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) had disbursed $8.6 billion of those funds. Nearly 39 percent of HSIPR program funding to date has been dedicated to California’s high-speed rail corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles, managed by the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA). Given the significant funds provided to the CHSRA for high-speed rail, Congress requested that we review FRA’s risk mitigation and oversight of expenditures. Accordingly, we plan to initially focus our work on California’s high-speed rail project and specifically assess FRA’s (1) risk analysis, assessment, and mitigation efforts—particularly regarding the availability of non-Federal matching funds, business plans, and financial reporting—and (2) procedures for determining whether Federal funds expended complied with applicable Federal laws and regulations.