WASHINGTON — Has funding for the Gateway Tunnel Project been “canceled” as President Donald Trump declared from the Oval Office two weeks into the now monthlong U.S. shutdown?
Not quite. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy clarified to reporters at an unrelated LaGuardia Airport news conference on Wednesday that funding for the yearslong effort to build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River remained “under review.”
Have dozens of state water and shoreline protection projects run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers come to a grinding halt? Trump’s top budget director announced in an Oct. 17 tweet that due to the shutdown the “corps will be immediately pausing over $11 billion in lower-priority projects & considering them for cancellation, including projects in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore.”
But not on Long Island, according to Nassau and Suffolk’s bipartisan U.S. House delegation, who told Newsday they reached out to the White House and were told of no impacted projects. As for the rest of the state, the Army Corps of Engineers and Office of Management and Budget has not released a list two weeks since the announcement was made.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- The Trump administration has threatened federal funding for billions of dollars in New York infrastructure projects, promising immediate action. But those projects cannot be paused as quickly as dispatching an online X post.
- New York Democratic officials including Gov. Kathy Hochul and constitutional scholars maintain the administration does not have the authority to halt previously approved funding without Congressional consent.
- The administration’s announcements are designed to put pressure on congressional Democrats, particularly Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of Brooklyn.
Over the course of the monthlong U.S. government shutdown, the Trump administration has threatened federal funding for billions of dollars in New York infrastructure projects, promising immediate action. But those projects, years in the making and with multiple funding streams from federal to local, cannot be paused as quickly as dispatching an online X post.
New York Democratic officials including Gov. Kathy Hochul and constitutional scholars maintain the administration does not have the authority to halt previously approved funding without Congressional consent. Hochul has threatened to sue the administration over the pauses.
“Once Congress appropriates funds for a project, like the Gateway Tunnel or an Army Corps project, the executive branch is legally obligated to carry out the appropriation in good faith, unless Congress later changes the law,” said James Sample, a constitutional Law professor at Hofstra University.
Work continues
With Congress at an impasse over a short-term spending bill to fund the government, the Trump administration has made no formal rescission request of lawmakers regarding the blue-state projects it is looking to pause, and work has continued on the projects despite the threats of funding freezes.
“In a world of checks and balances, without going through the formal rescission process … the president, or OMB does not have the legal right to cancel, pause, or put under review appropriated and obligated funding merely for policy or political reasons,” Sample told Newsday in a phone interview.
Beyond the legal questions surrounding the funding pauses, there are also practical questions like which Army Corps of Engineers projects are on the pause list. Congressional staff on Capitol Hill have complained that there are scant details about which projects are at risk, according to a report in Roll Call.
An Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson, in an email statement to Newsday, did not answer when asked what New York projects were being paused, only broadly stating “To enable continued oversight of the most critical projects throughout the nation, we will pause and review other projects to see if we can deliver them more efficiently.”
Pressure on Democrats
The Trump administration’s announcements are designed to inflict political pain and pressure on congressional Democrats, particularly Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of Brooklyn, who have been urging their rank-and-file members to not vote for a short-term spending deal unless it includes an extension of soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies, said Mitchell Moss, professor of urban policy and planning at New York University.
“I think it certainly is a way for the president to show he can make life harder” on Schumer and Jeffries, said Moss. He added that Trump, a native New Yorker, will undoubtedly face pressure from business leaders and labor leaders to not disrupt the Gateway Project, which employs some 11,000 construction workers across New York and New Jersey.
“Gateway will endure,” Moss said, noting all the economic activity tied to the project that is funded by a mix of federal, state and regional transit dollars.
Officials with the Gateway Development Commission declined to comment for this story, referring Newsday to an Oct. 1 statement by the commission’s CEO Thomas Prendergast, who said “we remain focused on keeping the project on scope, schedule, and budget.”
‘A massive hole’
Carlo A. Scissura, CEO of the New York Building Congress, a group that advocates on behalf of the construction industry, said leaders of all stripes from Washington to Wall Street “have been very clear to the White House, to the President, Gateway is a critical project.”
“If Gateway collapses, it’s a massive hole literally and figuratively, in our nation’s economy,” Scissura said. “It’s billions and billions of dollars in economic development. Thousands and thousands of jobs. Billions of dollars in steel and other materials, a lot of it sourced right from the U.S. It’s a massive undertaking.”
Scissura said it’s a promising sign that work has not stopped outright, adding: “People are working, life is moving forward and so far there’s no stoppage. I think for whatever the rhetoric may be, the project will continue.”
Newsday’s Billy House contributed to this story.
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.