Commission sues Trump administration over refusal to restore NY tunnel funding

The commission overseeing a massive $16 billion Hudson River tunnel, the linchpin of rail travel between New York and New Jersey, filed suit to force the Trump administration to restore funding just days before construction is set to halt on Friday.



U.S. President Donald Trump said in October he had terminated the project and the Transportation Department has refused to release any funding for the project approved during the prior administration.



The Gateway Development Commission, created by New York and New Jersey in 2019 to oversee the project, filed suit late Monday in the U.S. Court of Claims, saying the U.S. Transportation Department breached its contractual obligations by withholding more than $205 million without any legal basis and was seeking to punish Democrats over last fall's government shutdown.



The commission's suit said that, without federal funding this week, it "will be unable to pay its contractors to continue construction activities, causing work on this critical project to grind to a halt—leaving unfinished work sites with massive holes in the ground, threatening the livelihoods of the many hundreds of construction employees working on the project, burdening GDC with astronomical costs in delays and penalties, and putting into question the future viability of the project."