{"id":47121,"date":"2026-06-30T03:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T03:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/47121\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T03:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T03:07:11","slug":"judge-orders-trump-to-end-efforts-to-kill-hudson-tunnel-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/47121\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Orders Trump to End Efforts to Kill Hudson Tunnel Funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to permanently abandon its efforts to suspend funding for a $16 billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River, describing those attempts as \u201cflagrantly\u201d illegal.<\/p>\n

Judge Jeannette A. Vargas of the Southern District of New York said that the administration violated federal guidelines when it stopped<\/a> reimbursing the tunnel\u2019s builders for their expenses in September. The suspension forced a shutdown of the construction project and led to a brief layoff of about 1,000 workers in New York City and New Jersey in February.<\/p>\n

Federal officials said that the payments were stopped while the project\u2019s hiring practices were reviewed. But Judge Vargas noted that President Trump had indicated in interviews that there were political reasons for stopping the tunnel project, which was a favorite of Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader from New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re cutting a $20 billion project that Schumer fought for 15 years to get, and I\u2019m cutting the project,\u201d the judge quoted Mr. Trump as saying in October. \u201cThe project is gonna be dead. It\u2019s just pretty much dead right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project, known as Gateway, would supplement two 116-year-old single-track tunnels under the Hudson between Manhattan and New Jersey. Mr. Schumer had called it the most critical infrastructure project in the United States.<\/p>\n

The project ran out of money about five months after the federal government stopped making payments. The states of New York and New Jersey jointly sued the Trump administration in federal court in Manhattan, seeking an emergency order to end the suspension.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 6, the day that work on the tunnel stopped, Judge Vargas granted<\/a> a temporary restraining order. The Trump administration opposed that order and continued to press its case but never disputed that the suspension \u201cflagrantly violates federal law,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

In declaring the suspension of funding illegal, Judge Vargas also said that the federal government could not attempt to suspend payment of the federal grants again.<\/p>\n

Catherine Rinaldi, executive vice president of the Gateway Development Commission, which oversees the project, said that before federal funding was frozen, the tunnel project \u201cwas on schedule and on budget, and we have made significant progress since federal funding for the project resumed in February.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to the judge\u2019s decision, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York and Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, both Democrats, released a joint statement with Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, and Jennifer Davenport, the attorney general of New Jersey.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are grateful that a federal court has once again agreed that the Trump administration\u2019s decision to freeze billions of dollars in grants for the Gateway Tunnel Project is flagrantly unlawful,\u201d their statement said. \u201cThis victory sends a clear message: The Trump administration\u2019s attempt to halt Gateway funding will not stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal Department of Transportation said that it remained \u201ccommitted to ensuring hard-working taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly and do not fund unconstitutional, discriminatory contracting practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision on Monday did not complete litigation over the suspension. The development commission is still suing<\/a> the Transportation Department for monetary damages resulting from the forced shutdown of the project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to permanently abandon its efforts to suspend funding for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[20350,14012,21471,12992,6238,13108,12673,12782,26212,8,14550,26216,26211,13082,15407,26215,21472,14551,26213,19617,1131,2097,12113,9,14011,19616,7,1553,13122,1071,11259,26214],"class_list":["post-47121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-bridges-and-tunnels","tag-charles-e","tag-davenport","tag-decisions-and-verdicts","tag-donald-j","tag-federal-aid-us","tag-federal-courts-us","tag-federal-state-relations-us","tag-gateway-development-commission","tag-headlines","tag-hochul","tag-hudson-river","tag-hudson-river-tunnels-project","tag-infrastructure-public-works","tag-james","tag-jeannette-a","tag-jennifer-1975","tag-kathleen-c","tag-letitia","tag-mikie","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-state","tag-news","tag-schumer","tag-sherrill","tag-top-stories","tag-transportation","tag-transportation-department-us","tag-trump","tag-united-states-politics-and-government","tag-vargas"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}