LOS ANGELES (MCT) — The Obama administration Wednesday gave the first formal regulatory approval to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plan to construct a bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco, clearing a major legal hurdle to starting the project in the Central Valley.

The action allows the rail authority to begin acquiring the first of nearly 1,000 parcels of land that will be needed between Merced and Bakersfield to construct about 130 miles of rail by 2017, rail officials said. The deadline is a requirement of federal stimulus funding that the state has received.