New York — A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore financing for a new New York-New Jersey rail tunnel on Friday, ruling just as construction on the massive infrastructure project was scheduled to shut down.
The decision came months after the administration announced this Stopping support worth $16 billion for the project, citing the then-government shutdown and what a top federal budget official said were concerns about unconstitutional spending around the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion.
U.S. District Judge Janet A. Vargas in Manhattan granted a request from New York and New Jersey for a temporary restraining order preventing the administration from withholding the funds while the states seek a preliminary injunction that would keep the funds flowing while the lawsuit is heard in court.
“The court is also convinced that Plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiffs have sufficiently demonstrated that the public interest would be harmed by delays in a critical infrastructure project.”
The White House and the US Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment Friday night.
New York Attorney General Letitia James called the ruling “a decisive victory for workers and commuters in New York and New Jersey.”
“I am grateful that the court acted quickly to prevent this senseless funding freeze, which threatened to derail a project our entire region depends on,” James said in a statement. “The Hudson Tunnel Project is one of the nation’s most important infrastructure projects, and we will continue to fight to ensure construction continues without unnecessary federal interference.”
The committee overseeing the project, the Gateway Development Committee, said work would stop late Friday afternoon due to a freeze in federal funding, resulting in the immediate loss of about 1,000 jobs in addition to thousands of additional jobs in the future.
It was not immediately clear when work would resume. “Once the funds are released, we will work quickly to resume site operations and return our workers to work,” the committee said in an overnight statement.
The new tunnel is intended to relieve pressure on an existing, more than 110-year-old tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey for Amtrak and commuter trains, where delays can lead to backup operations up and down the East Coast.
New York and New Jersey File a lawsuit regarding stopping funding This week, as did the Gateway Development Committee, moving to regain the support of the Trump administration.
The comment was seen as a way for the Trump administration to put pressure on Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, whom the White House blamed for last year’s government shutdown. the Lockdown resolved After a few weeks.
Speaking to the media aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked about reports that he would freeze funding for the tunnel project if Schumer approved a plan to rename Penn Station in New York and Dulles International Airport in Virginia after Trump.
Trump responded: “Chuck Schumer suggested that to me, about changing the name of Penn Station to Trump Station. Dulles Airport is really separate.”
Schumer responded on social media: “Absolute lie. He knows it. Everyone knows it. Only one man can restart the project and he can restart it with the snap of his fingers.”
At a hearing in the states’ lawsuit earlier in Manhattan, Shankar Doraiswamy, of the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, told the judge that the states needed “urgent relief” because of the damage and costs that would occur if the project was halted.
“There is literally a massive hole in the ground north of Bergen,” he said, referring to the New Jersey city, claiming that abandoning the sites, even temporarily, “would pose a significant threat to public safety and health.”
The problem with the shutdown now is that even a short pause could cause longer delays because workers will be laid off and move on to other jobs and it will be difficult to remobilize quickly if funding becomes available, Doraiswami said. He added, “Any long-term suspension of funding could torpedo the project.”
Tara Schwartz, an assistant U.S. attorney defending the government, disagreed with the “parade of atrocities” described by the states’ attorneys.
She pointed out that the states did not even clarify how long the sites could be maintained by the portal development committee. So Justice Doraiswami asked, and he said they could maintain the sites for a few weeks and perhaps a few months, but the states would continue to suffer irreparable damage because trains would continue to be delayed because they depend on an old tunnel.
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Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut.