INTERVIEW: Rep. Vince Fong on Reagan's legacy in the OBBB, Gavin Newsom's transportation boondoggle, and Pete Buttigieg's DEI billions

In 2025, California is an example of how not to run a state, Rep. Vince Fong (R., Calif.) told the Washington Reporter in an interview — but it wasn’t always like this. Fong and his fellow House Republicans are leaning on one of California's greatest statesmen in making the case for the One Big, Beautiful Bill (OBBB).

Fong, alongside Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, recently held a field hearing at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to pitch the OBBB; Fong told the Reporter that “the Ronald Reagan legacy certainly is the model I think that a lot of us are taking when we're focusing on trying to Make America Great Again.”

“When you look at Reagan's legacy — his ability to unleash the economy, to foster economic growth — that was what we were trying to do with the One Big, Beautiful Bill,” Fong said. “This legislation will help unlock the next generation of American dominance. And when you look at the president's focus on emerging technology when it comes to AI, to quantum, his focus on commercial space, the things that we need to really harness, that’s important. A lot of it's going to be focused on can we get investment in America? Can we deregulate and attract these new businesses away from China and back to America? All of that is done, the framework and the foundation of it is in the One Big, Beautiful Bill.”

The bill is filled with wins for Americans, he said — “the investments, the energy production, the military focus, and then, of course, border security, that's hugely important for our state and across the country,” he said. But there are also wins for his constituents specifically.

“This bill is huge for the Central Valley in many ways,” Fong explained. “Let’s start with the economy. Extending the Trump tax cuts provides certainty to the residents of my community and provides certainty to our small businesses. The R and D tax credits and the permanent extension of the death tax exemption certainly help my farmers struggling to pass on their farms to the next generation. There are huge investments when it comes to water storage infrastructure, conveyance facilities, which, as the food production capital of California, is significant, because water is life for us.”

“When it comes to energy,” he continued, “my community produces 70 percent of the state's oil and gas. We know how expensive gasoline is in our state. We need more domestic production. So the permitting streamlining, the investments in oil and gas exploration, those are critically important. I've got four military installations in my district that are the tip of the spear in defending our nation. So the investments in new military technology are going to be huge for the men and women in uniform. I've got installations that test these new, cutting edge advancements, so that's important.”

Reagan’s distant successor as Governor of California is Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.), who Fong described as the model for how to not run a state.

“If there are any lessons to be learned from California, it's what not to do,” he said. “Whatever Gavin Newsom does, we should do the exact opposite, especially when it comes to energy and regulation by taxes.”

The Trump administration, led by Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, recently dealt Newsom a huge blow in canceling billions of dollars allocated to California’s failed experiment in high-speed rail.

“On high speed rail,” Fong said, “I've been advocating for decades that this high speed rail nightmare had to be put to an end, and President Trump and Secretary Sean Duffy are finally prioritizing the taxpayer. They're bringing common sense to California, and they're pulling the plug on this boondoggle and protecting taxpayers.”

Fong described the project as “the most glaring example of government waste in our state's history. This project has wasted billions of dollars with absolutely no progress. It was supposed to be completed in 2020 at a cost of $33 billion, and that was supposed to go from LA to San Francisco, and now we're five years past the 2020 completion date. There has not been one inch of track laid. The entire project has ballooned over $128 billion; this is madness, so I'm glad that President Trump and Secretary Duffy pulled the plug on the $4 billion.”

Fong, who serves on the Transportation Committee, is eager to “finally reinvest these dollars and these resources into real infrastructure that not only hopefully will benefit California. We're working on that to try to fix Highway 99, expand Interstate Five, deal with a lot of these supply chain choke points throughout our state in Southern California.”

That would be the opposite tack that Duffy’s predecessor, Pete Buttigieg, did.

“My question is, what did Secretary Buttigieg accomplish?” Fong asked. Buttigieg may be planning a 2028 presidential campaign, and Fong’s advice to Democrats is to steer far away.

“Everything that I think he's going to tout have all proven to be just misplaced priorities,” he said. “You're looking at an air traffic control system that doesn't work. We are now cleaning up his mess. You have his focus on a boondoggle in California that is wasting billions and billions of dollars that could be going into building new bridges, modernizing our supply chain. You look at the regulations that he put on the rail industry, the trucking industry, that was going to decimate not only the supply chain across the country, but the supply chain in California. He supported all of these unrealistic mandates that were going to electrify our trucking industry and our rail industry when modern technology doesn't allow that to happen.”

Policies from Buttigieg and President Joe Biden that would have decimated America’s trucking industry are “why we had to lead the fight to pass these Congressional Review Acts,” Fong said — emphasizing that unrealistic vehicle mandates jeopardized America’s food and national security.

“Imagine every train that's carrying the products and the goods that we enjoy in our stores, in our homes, in our grocery stores, that they have to stop at the California border because they're all mandated to be electric, even though the engines don't exist,” he said. “This was Pete Buttigieg’s agenda, and we had to undo it. And I think a lot of people were like, ‘how do we allow that to happen?’ And it was just because the Biden administration and Pete Buttigieg were driven by their ideology instead of by common sense.”

Following reports that Buttigieg steered billions of dollars to DEI initiatives, Fong said that he’d also like to “pull back some of those resources that are going there” should there be another rescissions package.

Instead of modernizing America’s air traffic control system, “Pete Buttigieg and the Biden administration’s judgment was so clouded by their woke agenda [and that] is one of the biggest reasons why President Trump won his election,” he said. “We're realizing the damage is so extensive that the Biden administration has imposed on so many industries and on so many systems in our federal government, and it's going to take a tremendous amount of work and resources to fix everything.”

Below is a transcript of our interview with Rep. Vince Fong, lightly edited for clarity.

Washington Reporter:

You were just doing a field hearing with other top Republicans about the One Big, Beautiful Bill, and obviously now you're back home with your family for recess. How is this bill going to help California's 20th District specifically?

Rep. Vince Fong:

This bill is huge for the Central Valley in many ways. Let’s start with the economy. Extending the Trump tax cuts provides certainty to the residents of my community and provides certainty to our small businesses. The R and D tax credits and the permanent extension of the death tax exemption certainly help my farmers struggling to pass on their farms to the next generation. There are huge investments when it comes to water storage infrastructure, conveyance facilities, which, as the food production capital of California, is significant, because water is life for us. And when it comes to energy, my community produces 70 percent of the state's oil and gas. We know how expensive gasoline is in our state. We need more domestic production. So the permitting streamlining, the investments in oil and gas exploration, those are critically important. I've got four military installations in my district that are the tip of the spear in defending our nation. So the investments in new military technology are going to be huge for the men and women in uniform. I've got installations that test these new, cutting edge advancements, so that's important. There's a whole host of other things we could probably focus on. Those are the big ones economically, for our local community, the investments, the energy production, the military focus, and then, of course, border security, that's hugely important for our state and across the country.

Washington Reporter:

The hearing you were at was held at the Reagan Presidential Library. Some of your colleagues have described the OBBB as the most consequential conservative piece of legislation passed in a generation. Is there anything about this bill that you feel like channels Reagan’s legacy?

Rep. Vince Fong:

When you look at Reagan's legacy, his ability to unleash the economy, to foster economic growth, that was what we were trying to do with the One Big, Beautiful Bill. I think this legislation will help unlock the next generation of American dominance. And when you look at the president's focus on emerging technology when it comes to AI, to quantum, his focus on commercial space, the things that we need to really harness, that’s important. A lot of it's going to be focused on can we get investment in America? Can we deregulate and attract these new businesses away from China and back to America? All of that is done, the framework and the foundation of it is in the One Big, Beautiful Bill. So the Ronald Reagan legacy certainly is the model I think that a lot of us are taking when we're focusing on trying to Make America Great Again.

Washington Reporter:

One of Reagan’s successors, obviously, is your current governor, Gavin Newsom, and you've really focused a lot from your role on the Transportation Committee on oversight and accountability of the high speed rail boondoggle. What is the latest going on there? And do you think this will ever be done? Do you think it should ever be done?

Rep. Vince Fong:

If there are any lessons to be learned from California, it's what not to do. Whatever Gavin Newsom does, we should do the exact opposite, especially when it comes to energy and regulation by taxes. But on high speed rail, I've been advocating for decades that this high speed rail nightmare had to be put to an end, and President Trump and Secretary Sean Duffy are finally prioritizing the taxpayer. They're bringing common sense to California, and they're pulling the plug on this boondoggle and protecting taxpayers. This project is the most glaring example of government waste in our state's history. This project has wasted billions of dollars with absolutely no progress. It was supposed to be completed in 2020 at a cost of $33 billion, and that was supposed to go from LA to San Francisco, and now we're five years past the 2020 completion date. There has not been one inch of track laid. The entire project has ballooned over $128 billion; this is madness, so I'm glad that President Trump and Secretary Duffy pulled the plug on the $4 billion; we can finally reinvest these dollars and these resources into real infrastructure that not only hopefully will benefit California. We're working on that to try to fix Highway 99, expand Interstate Five, deal with a lot of these supply chain choke points throughout our state in Southern California; we should be reinvesting that money into projects that really matter for our state and for our country.

Washington Reporter:

You are working on getting that money reinvested into projects that are important for your state and country, both in terms of road construction and in terms of fire recovery. How is that going? And how is working with the Trump Department of Transportation going from your standpoint?

Rep. Vince Fong:

Well, we finally have an administration that wants to build things again, that wants to focus on highway capacity, that wants to modernize our supply chain. We didn't have that with the previous Secretary of Transportation; he was more focused on his woke agenda. He wanted to build bike lanes. He wanted to do things that just made no sense when we talked about how we improve California's highway infrastructure. So Secretary Duffy and his team and our delegation have been great to work with. We're in communication and conversations about how we can hopefully reinvest that money. We had a hearing recently with Secretary Duffy and we brought up the hope that you can use some of his authority, and we'll see what will transpire. But I think he understands that if we're going to invest in California, we’ve got to invest in better projects that really matter.

Washington Reporter:

On the flip side of that is, I'm sure you saw the reports of Pete Buttigieg spending tens of billions of dollars from DOT on DEI programs. Is there anything from a congressional standpoint that can be done on getting that money back, or doing more oversight on that, or is that just unfortunately out the door and there's nothing we can do about it?

Rep. Vince Fong:

We absolutely have to do oversight. I think a part of the conversation, if there is another rescissions package, is, can we pull back some of those resources that are going there? But you know that report is just truly maddening, when you look at the challenges that we have when it comes to the modernization of our air traffic control systems. These are basic things that we should have been investing in, and the fact that Pete Buttigieg and the Biden administration’s judgment was so clouded by their woke agenda is one of the biggest reasons why President Trump won his election. But now we've got this huge mess that we're trying to fix. And I think now that we've taken the majority back in the House and the Senate and the White House is now there, and we're now uncovering so much. We're realizing the damage is so extensive that the Biden administration has imposed on so many industries and on so many systems in our federal government, and it's going to take a tremendous amount of work and resources to fix everything.

Washington Reporter:

You and I have talked about Newsom and his podcast in the past, but for Pete Buttigieg, should he run for president in a couple of years, his time helming the Department of Transportation would have to be a key part of that campaign, because there's not much else for him to lean on. Do you think that that is a record outside of just what you were talking about with the woke DEI tens of billions of dollars a thing that Democrats should look to for success in trying to take back the White House?

Rep. Vince Fong:

My question is, what did Secretary Buttigieg accomplish?

Washington Reporter:

Well, there's a movie. He did a movie premiere.

Rep. Vince Fong:

Everything that I think he's going to tout have all proven to be just misplaced priorities. You're looking at an air traffic control system that doesn't work. We are now cleaning up his mess. You have his focus on a boondoggle in California that is wasting billions and billions of dollars that could be going into building new bridges, modernizing our supply chain. You look at the regulations that he put on the rail industry, the trucking industry, that was going to decimate not only the supply chain across the country, but the supply chain in California. He supported all of these unrealistic mandates that were going to electrify our trucking industry and our rail industry when modern technology doesn't allow that to happen. This is why we had to lead the fight to pass these Congressional Review Acts. Imagine every train that's carrying the products and the goods that we enjoy in our stores, in our homes, in our grocery stores, that they have to stop at the California border because they're all mandated to be electric, even though the engines don't exist. This was Pete Buttigieg’s agenda, and we had to undo it. And I think a lot of people were like, how do we allow that to happen? And it was just because the Biden administration and Pete Buttigieg were driven by their ideology instead of by common sense.

Washington Reporter:

And on the flip side of that, one of the pieces of legislation you've been leading the way on is on autonomous vehicles, trucks, the AMERICA DRIVES Act; what do you think that industry is going to look like?

Rep. Vince Fong:

This is why it's important to have a national framework, so that we don't have a patchwork of laws and mandates across the country. We need to put guardrails in to protect the drivers and to allow the supply chain to be modernized, but to allow a uniform system that allows technological innovation to happen, is critical, and President Trump has been very active. You hear his focus on AI and emerging technology. All of this emerging technology is impacting every industry, and it is currently, certainly impacting the transportation sector, but we just can't have Texas having one set of rules, California having another set of rules. You've got 35 states, all of them putting in different regulations and mandates, we should have one cohesive approach to facilitate the safe development of autonomous trucking so that we can modernize the trucking safety measures and ensure that our supply chain is improved across the country.

Washington Reporter:

You just helped launch the modern agriculture caucus. You are the vice chair of smart irrigation. What are you hoping to accomplish with this latest venture?

Rep. Vince Fong:

The ongoing conversation in Congress is how does America stay ahead of the curve when it comes to technology? Whether it's in transportation and even in agriculture, I think a lot of folks across the country, when they think of agriculture, they think of a legacy industry. But you look at our farmers and ranchers today, they're using precision technology when it comes to their equipment. We talk about autonomous technology; that's being used in agriculture extensively, and we should facilitate that. But when it comes to irrigation and water, you and I talked about our water challenges in California in the past; water is life for us in the Central Valley. Our farmers are using cutting edge technology when it comes to irrigation, to stretch every drop of water to make sure that we can be the most productive agricultural region, not only in California, but across the country. I represent the food production capital of California. We produce 40 percent of America's fruits and vegetables right here, in my community. So Chairman Adrian Smith, who's leading the caucus, has put together this modern agricultural caucus, with a focus on advancing innovation and technology in American farming. And I think that's an important piece of education that we can provide to the public, of how agriculture is cutting edge and we're utilizing technology for the betterment of our food supply.

Washington Reporter:

And you mentioned a personal hobby horse of mine: bike lanes. I said to Sean Duffy's team that if he'd like to be president, he should abolish bike lanes. That is a policy that most normal people on earth could get behind. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on how those have been playing out in your home state.

Rep. Vince Fong:

This is the most frustrating policy debate that we've had, especially in California. California has imposed, because of their extreme environmental agenda, these road diets. So you've got communities from Sacramento down to Fresno to Bakersfield, even down to Southern California. They're getting rid of actual lanes, and they're putting in bike lanes in these major thoroughfares. So the previous administration, and Gavin Newsom, who's advocating for these road diets, are taking tax dollars that were supposed to be used and dedicated to dealing with traffic congestion and expanded highway and road capacity, and they're actually creating more congestion. They're eliminating roads and putting bike lanes in. I mean, this makes no sense, actually, no sense.

Washington Reporter:

I totally agree with you. We saw Kamala Harris not running for governor. She's released a book called 107 Days, which to me, sounds more like an excuse than a book title. I'm curious if you're going to read it during recess, and if you would have any better title suggestions for her, instead of just that.

Rep. Vince Fong:

I only have so much time in my day, I want to focus on my family. I probably won't be reading her book, but I look forward to someone giving me the CliffNotes version. I know what happened. I know the results of the election, and that's all I need to know.

Washington Reporter:

Thanks so much for chatting, Congressman Fong.