{"id":270081,"date":"2025-10-01T20:41:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T20:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/270081\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T20:41:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T20:41:17","slug":"white-house-freezes-18-billion-in-nyc-funding-as-shutdown-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/270081\/","title":{"rendered":"White House freezes $18 billion in NYC funding as shutdown hits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russell Vought, the director of the US Office of Management and Budget, cited the \u201cunconstitutional DEI principles\u201d as the reason for the funding freeze in a post on X<\/a> on Wednesday. \u201cSpecifically, the Hudson Tunnel Project and the Second Ave Subway<\/a>,\u201d he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The move comes as President Donald Trump and Republicans are pitted against congressional Democrats, including New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, over funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New York Governor Kathy Hochul was in the midst of holding a press conference with other elected officials in front of the Statue of Liberty to protest the government shutdown when she received news of Vought\u2019s tweet.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know as I stand here, the bad news just keeps coming,\u201d Hochul said, adding that the administration is using culture wars as a pretext for its actions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCulture wars, over the tens of thousands of jobs that we\u2019ve created, with these infrastructure projects that were literally talked about for decades, that we finally could get moving, create jobs and opportunity and take care of infrastructure challenges that others were too timid to take on in the past,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In a subsequent statement, Hochul said she will use \u201cevery tool available\u201d to restore the funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The US Department of Transportation said the two major infrastructure projects were under review to determine whether any awarded funding violated a new rule that barred race- and sex-based contracting requirements.<\/p>\n

Staff working on the inquiry were furloughed due to the shutdown, causing a delay, the department said in an emailed statement, which blamed Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a social media\u00a0post<\/a>, Schumer said the White House\u2019s decision is \u201ccounterproductive\u201d because both the Second Avenue Subway and the Hudson River Tunnel projects create thousands of jobs and support the local economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s not clear which provisions the Department of Transportation is targeting, New York \u2014 like many cities and states across the US \u2014 has programs that support minority and women-owned businesses when awarding contracts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the 2024 fiscal year, $2.8 billion or one-third of eligible state contracts were allocated to minority or women-owned business enterprises, known as MWBEs, according to state data. There are separate requirements under the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program for contracts funded by the FTA.<\/p>\n

Transit Projects<\/p>\n

New York is investing significantly in transit-related projects to ease congestion and facilitate necessary upgrades to aging systems, with federal funding providing key support.<\/p>\n

The Second Avenue Subway project is a $7.7 billion development run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that will connect the 96th Street station to 125th Street and provide subway service to East Harlem residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2023, the Federal Transit Administration gave the project a $3.4 billion full funding grant agreement. Other funds will come from MTA debt sales repaid with revenue from a congestion pricing toll that charges motorists to drive on Manhattan\u2019s busiest streets. The Trump administration and the MTA are in a legal challenge over congestion pricing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal government wants to immediately \u2018review\u2019 our compliance with rules they told us about moments ago,\u201d John J. McCarthy, the MTA\u2019s chief of policy and external relations, said in a statement. \u201cIt looks like they\u2019re just inventing excuses to delay one of the most important infrastructure projects in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s actions are \u201cblatant efforts to punish New York,\u201d Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, said in a statement. \u201cTens of thousands of jobs hang in the balance and hundreds of billions in economic activity are at stake should these projects fail to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separately, the Hudson Tunnel project is meant to ease congestion underneath the Hudson River by adding a new tunnel and making upgrades to the current rail tunnel, which is more than 100 years old. The new tunnel is expected to be in service by 2035 and the full rehabilitation of the existing tunnel will be complete by 2038.<\/p>\n

The Gateway Development Commission, the bi-state authority created to build the Hudson Tunnel project, said in a statement that it complies with all federal laws and regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain focused on keeping the project on scope, schedule, and budget,\u201d said Thomas Prendergast, the commission\u2019s chief executive officer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year, the Federal Railroad Administration provided the commission\u2019s program with $3.8 billion in aid \u2014 the last portion of a $12 billion federal contribution granted to the Hudson Tunnel project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department is focusing on these projects because they are arguably the largest infrastructure initiatives in the Western Hemisphere, and the American people want to see them completed quickly and efficiently,\u201d the Department of Transportation said in its statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell Vought, the director of the US Office of Management and Budget, cited the \u201cunconstitutional DEI principles\u201d as…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":270082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,9157,69,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-270081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dei","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115300852521407874","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}