This is far slower than many high-speed rail services in other countries. This changed with passage of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA, Division B of P.L. 110-432 ) in the fall of 2008. Congress approved the passenger rail program in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, P.L. 111-5 ), which appropriated $8 billion for grants to states to develop high-speed and intercity passenger rail services. This priority was reflected in the FY2010 Department of Transportation Appropriations Act (Division A, Title I, P.L. 111-117 ), in which Congress appropriated $2.5 billion for high-speed and intercity passenger rail grants to states. Since that time, Congress has not appropriated further amounts for the HSIPR program, although the Administration has repeatedly requested billions of dollars in additional funding for intercity passenger rail development. Although high-speed rail grabbed the headlines, Congress directed that the ARRA funding was also to be used for other intercity passenger rail service and for grants to relieve congestion on the railroad network. In its program guidance FRA combined the grant programs authorized in PRIIA, the funding in ARRA, and the FY2009 DOT appropriations act to produce four categories ("tracks") of grants: 
Track 1—Projects: for small-scale construction that could be completed within two years; Track 2—Programs: for a set of interrelated projects that improve all or a portion of a corridor; Track 3—Planning: to support work needed to advance a project to the point of applying for funding under Tracks 1 or 2 to create a pipeline of future construction projects; and Track 4—FY2009 Appropriations Projects: an alternative to Track 1, using the FY2009 funding (which required a 50% match, while the ARRA funding did not require a match). Status of Major HSIPR Grants

Congress provided that the $8 billion appropriated for high-speed and intercity passenger rail development in ARRA, which made up the majority of the HSIPR grant funding, had to be expended by the end of FY2017. California High-Speed Rail Project

The California High-Speed Rail Authority proposes to build a 520-mile dedicated rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles that will allow trains to reach speeds up to 220 mph. Passenger service is provided by Amtrak's Wolverine route. Several of the components have been completed, including improvements to existing stations. The largest and most complex of the HSIPR projects, the California High-Speed Rail Corridor, illustrates the challenges involved. The project has been in development for many years. The impact on the HSIPR program of the change from the 111 th Congress to the 112 th Congress was dramatic: After having been appropriated $10.6 billion over a span of 10 months, the program received no further funding over the next six years, as well as having $400 million of the funding already appropriated to it rescinded. Supporters of passenger rail service have long called for a dedicated funding source for rail projects, and the Obama Administration has echoed such calls. High-speed rail lines are considerably more expensive. This poses both a financial and political challenge to a federal program that would support development of high-speed rail: not only must significant amounts of funding be provided over a long period of time, but there must also be a willingness for large portions of that funding to be granted to a small number of projects in relatively few states. Others have objected to funding intercity passenger rail in general, contending that it is economically inefficient, requires larger per-passenger subsidies than other modes of travel, is not suited to the economic geography of the United States, and may be superseded by future technologies.
Since 1964, when Japan opened the first rail line allowing trains to travel safely at speeds greater than 150 miles per hour, several European and Asian countries have built high-speed rail lines. There have been frequent calls for the United States to develop similar high-speed rail services, but none have been built. The financial challenge of building high-speed rail lines, which requires many billions of dollars to be spent over a lengthy period before service opens and revenues begin to be collected, makes government financial support unavoidable. Governments in other countries have provided such support, but over many years efforts to get federal support for the construction of high-speed rail lines have, with the partial exception of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, been unsuccessful. In fact, Congress provided little funding even for expansion of non-high-speed passenger rail service. Opponents of increased funding for intercity passenger rail have contended that it was economically inefficient compared to other modes of travel.
For a brief period in 2008-2009, it appeared that the situation had changed. The 110th Congress authorized several programs to make grants to states for intercity passenger rail development in the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (Division B of P.L. 110-432). The following year, in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, P.L. 111-5) and the FY2010 Department of Transportation Appropriations Act (Division A, Title I, P.L. 111-117), the 111th Congress appropriated $10.6 billion to develop both high-speed and conventional intercity passenger rail services. The Federal Railroad Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation used this money to award 158 grants under the new High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail (HSIPR) Grant Program. Some 80% of the funding went to a relatively small number of large-scale projects. These included multi-billion-dollar grants to California and Florida for high-speed rail lines; Florida subsequently turned down its grant.
This dramatic change in policy ended just as suddenly, as the 112th Congress rescinded $400 million of the $10.6 billion previously appropriated and rejected the Administration's requests for additional funding. Succeeding Congresses have also not responded to requests for HSIPR funding. In addition, several states declined significant grants for improvements to their intercity passenger rail lines. That funding was reallocated to other states. All but two of the HSIPR projects are expected to be complete by 2017, but the most ambitious and expensive, the California High-Speed Rail project, will not enter service for many years.
Congress's creation, then abandonment, of the HSIPR program illustrates the challenges of funding major construction projects that take years to complete without a stable source of financing. At the beginning, the federal and state governments lacked the expertise and program framework to implement the program. Now that the expertise and program framework have been developed, they are at risk of disappearing due to the lack of continued funding. Also, such funding spurts make long-term project planning and implementation very difficult.
A challenge facing the future of the HSIPR program is the large amount of funding required for high-speed rail development, combined with the lack of a dedicated funding source and the funding shortages facing other federal transportation programs even with their dedicated funding sources. Another challenge is contending with arguments against intercity passenger rail. Critics assert that it requires larger per-passenger subsidies than other travel modes, that it is not well-suited to the economic geography of the United States, and that near-term technologies may provide better alternatives.