Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s out-of-control tax-and-spend leadership is under fire over what may be his biggest waste scandal: a runaway “butterfly bridge” project that’s ballooned to $114 million and still isn’t finished.
A hundred-million-dollar bridge for butterflies that is late, overbudget, and still not finished… all while the state faces a $3 billion deficit.
The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, an overpass for animals crossing over the 101 Freeway, was supposed to be done in 2025. The total bill was projected at $92 million. Now the completion date has been pushed to fall 2026, and the cost has soared $21 million past the original estimate.
California taxpayers are footing the massive bill to make sure animals and bugs can cross the road safely.
Newsom broke ground on the project in April 2022, signing away $54 million in taxpayer dollars and promising to “complete the job within another $10 million.” The California Transportation Commission has since quietly funneled an additional $18.8 million to the project.
The project’s public face, National Wildlife Federation regional director Beth Pratt, blamed the overruns on President Donald Trump.
He said “tariffs, inflation, [and] labor problems” were to blame, and there was nothing to see here.
“There’s no boondoggle,” she said. “Given the times we’re living in,” a $21 million overspend is “not that bad.”
Critics weren’t buying it. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took a direct shot at the governor.
Bridges to nowhere.
Trains to nowhere.Leave the building to us, @GavinNewsom https://t.co/KSUW5tbzix
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) March 18, 2026
Investigators at City Journal found the project has become a cash funnel to environmentalist organizations. The bridge’s native plant nursery — funded by the SAMO Fund and other nonprofit “partners” — has “prioritized hiring Indigenous team members to help steward the plants that will vegetate the bridge,” according to the National Wildlife Federation’s website.
A fungi specialist was contracted as a designer. A soil scientist was paid to assess dirt and “rebuild it… as close to nature as possible.” One nursery manager said she makes an “offering” after collecting seeds, sometimes including pieces of her own hair.
Pratt described the overpass as a crossing “for everything from monarch butterflies to mountain lions.”
That hasn’t stopped Newsom from demanding more. At the groundbreaking, he bragged that California had set aside $105 million more of taxpayer cash to “replicate projects like this all up and down the state.” Pratt said “hundreds more crossings are needed.”
California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office has projected the Democrat run state’s deficit could climb to $35 billion soon.
Only a few more butterfly bridges to go.