The Trump administration said Wednesday it is putting on hold roughly $18 billion in federal funding for two major New York infrastructure projects — a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River and an extension of Manhattan’s Second Avenue Subway.
The partial government shutdown was the reason given.
President Donald Trump announced the decision during a wide-ranging White House news conference, saying his administration was using the shutdown to cut federally funded projects championed by Democrat lawmakers.
That included the $16 billion Gateway Tunnel Project, The New York Times reported.
“It’s billions and billions of dollars that Schumer has worked 20 years to get,” Trump said, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a longtime supporter of Gateway. “Tell him it’s terminated.”
Trump’s news conference aired live on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 free online streaming platform.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought later wrote on X that Gateway was part of $18 billion in infrastructure projects based on “unconstitutional diversity, equity, and inclusion principles.”
In a statement to WABC-TV, the Transportation Department said it had been reviewing whether any “unconstitutional practices” were occurring in the two projects but that the government shutdown forced the furlough of staffers conducting the review.
“This is another unfortunate casualty of radical Democrats’ reckless decision to hold the federal government hostage to give illegal immigrants benefits,” the statement said.
Schumer blasted Trump’s announcement as “vindictive, reckless, and foolish.”
“Gateway is the most important infrastructure project in America — period,” Schumer told the Times. “Donald Trump trying to kill it again is pure spite and stupidity.
“It’s petty revenge politics that would screw hundreds of thousands of New York and New Jersey commuters, choke off our economy and kill good-paying jobs.”
Work has been underway at several sites in New York and New Jersey to build a new rail tunnel connecting New Jersey with Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, the busiest rail corridor in the country.
The existing tunnels, about 115 years old and damaged during Hurricane Sandy, carry hundreds of thousands of daily passengers on Amtrak and NJ Transit trains, the Times reported.
The White House referred questions to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not immediately respond to a Times request for comment.
Steve Sigmund, spokesman for the Gateway Development Commission, which oversees the tunnel project, declined to comment on Trump’s remarks.
John J. McCarthy, chief of policy and external relations for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said his office had not been contacted before Trump’s announcement.
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