Let me remind you what happened.

The FTA got its arm twisted by the then powerful Sen Inouye to give money to this dog of a project.

They agreed to provide $1.5 billion or so, but knowing Hawaii' penchant for making a mess of public works projects, they were adamant from day one that they would not be subsidizing Hawaii institutional waste any more than than Sen Inouye had already forced them to, and made it clear from the beginning that they would not subsidize all the "unexpected" massive cost overruns that would inevitably appear. 

THEN Mayor Caldwell and HART made such a mess of the project and were unwilling or unable to provide the FTA with proper accounting that they made the unusual decision to withhold funding until HART started acting more like a public project and less like a burning dumpster of money. 

Do you really not remember?

If anyone has lacked commitment to this rail project, it's been Caldwell and HART who allowed it to run out of control like this.