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A federal judge has mandated the Trump administration to reinstate funding for a vital rail tunnel project connecting New York and New Jersey, just as construction faced an imminent halt. The ruling, issued on Friday, marks a significant development in the ongoing saga of this major infrastructure initiative.
This decision follows the Trump administration’s earlier move to withdraw $16 billion earmarked for the project. The administration had justified the funding cut by pointing to the government shutdown at the time and expressing concerns over spending related to diversity, equity, and inclusion principles, as stated by a senior federal budget official.
In Manhattan, U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas granted a temporary restraining order requested by New York and New Jersey. This order prevents the federal government from withholding the funds as the states pursue a preliminary injunction to secure continued financial support while their legal case unfolds.
“The Court is convinced that Plaintiffs would face irreparable harm without an injunction,” Judge Vargas emphasized in her ruling. “The plaintiffs have convincingly demonstrated that delaying this crucial infrastructure project would adversely affect the public interest.”
As of Friday night, both the White House and the U.S. Department of Transportation had not issued any statements in response to inquiries regarding the court’s decision.
New York Attorney General Letitia James called the ruling “a critical victory for workers and commuters in New York and New Jersey.”
“I am grateful the court acted quickly to block 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 most important infrastructure projects in the nation, and we will keep fighting to ensure construction can continue without unnecessary federal interference.”
The panel overseeing the project, the Gateway Development Commission, had said work would stop late Friday afternoon because of the federal funding freeze, resulting in the immediate loss of about 1,000 jobs as well as thousands of additional jobs in the future.
The new tunnel is meant to ease strain on an existing, over 110-year-old tunnel that connects New York and New Jersey for Amtrak and commuter trains, where delays can lead to backups up and down the East Coast.
New York and New Jersey sued over the funding pause this week, as did the Gateway Development Commission, moving to restore the Trump administration’s support.
The suspension was seen as way for the Trump administration to put pressure on Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, whom the White House was blaming for a government shutdown last year. The shutdown was resolved a few weeks later.
At a hearing in the states’ lawsuit earlier Friday in Manhattan, Shankar Duraiswamy, of the New Jersey attorney general’s office, told the judge that the states need “urgent relief” because of the harm and costs that will occur if the project is stopped.
“There is literally a massive hole in the earth in North Bergen,” he said, referring to the New Jersey city and claiming that abandoning the sites, even temporarily, “would pose a substantial safety and public health threat.”
Duraiswamy said the problem with shutting down now is that even a short stoppage would cause longer delays because workers will be laid off and go off to other jobs and it’ll be hard to quickly remobilize if funding becomes available. And, he added, “any long-term suspension of funding could torpedo the project.”
Tara Schwartz, an assistant U.S. attorney arguing for the government, disagreed with the “parade of horribles” described by attorneys for the states.
She noted that the states had not even made clear how long the sites could be maintained by the Gateway Development Commission. So the judge asked Duraiswamy, and he said they could maintain the sites for a few weeks and possibly a few months, but that the states would continue to suffer irreparable harm because trains would continue to run late because they rely on an outdated tunnel.
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Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut.