Gov. Kathy Hochul accused President Trump on Tuesday of throwing a “temper tantrum” over his administration’s continued freeze on Gateway Tunnel construction funding, which led to the halting of all work on the vital rail project.
The Democratic governor, during an unrelated Feb. 10 press conference, laid blame for Gateway’s nearly five-day work stoppage squarely at the Republican president’s feet. The project ground to a stop on Feb. 6 because the Department of Transportation has refused to release $205 million of funding for it since October, and a line of credit keeping construction going ran out.
“It has come to a dead stop because Donald Trump is throwing a temper tantrum,” Hochul said of the $16 billion undertaking to replace a decaying rail tunnel that connects the Empire and Garden States beneath the Hudson River.
amNewYork reached out to the White House for comment and is awaiting a response.
The governor further suggested that Trump’s continued funding freeze may be tied to his desire to slap his own name onto Penn Station and Washington D.C.’s Dulles International Airport, referencing reports by multiple outlets to that effect.
The reports indicated that Trump would agree to release the funds if U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer — the Democratic Senate minority leader — agreed to rename the buildings after the president. Schumer was said to have refused.
“We’re not quite sure what he’s mad about right now,” she said of Trump. “It may have something to do with the naming of certain buildings. But here’s what I say: let’s worry about what to call it when it gets done. Let’s keep working on it. Keep building. Put people back to work.”
Hochul says Trump ‘doesn’t care about consequences’
Hochul said she and Trump have discussed Gateway several times in the months and weeks leading up to the work stoppage, but that her pleas to unfreeze the federal dollars fell on deaf ears. She contended that Trump is more concerned with exacting political retribution on Congressional Democrats, such as Schumer, than restarting Gateway.
“He’s hell bent on wreaking havoc here in the state of New York,” she said. “He doesn’t care about the consequences.”
Hochul further charged that Trump is responsible for 1,000 construction workers being out of a job since construction ceased on Feb. 6. Furthermore, she said the work stoppage puts the commutes of the roughly 200,000 people who take Amtrak and New Jersey Transit through the tunnels each weekday at risk.
The 116-year-old two-tube tunnel is in dire shape after decades of use and severe flooding from 2012’s Superstorm Sandy. Officials have warned that if the tunnel is not replaced soon it is at risk of shutting down and snarling transportation up and down the East Coast, as the tunnel is a vital piece of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
The governor said the Trump administration’s freeze on funds, appropriated by Congress under former President Joe Biden, is illegal. Trump’s DOT withheld the money at the beginning of the last government shutdown under the pretense that it needed to assess whether Gateway’s contracting with women-and-minority-owned vendors was in compliance with new federal rules.
Gateway officials have said they provided the Trump administration with the materials it requested.
Hochul referenced the joint lawsuit between New York Attorney General Letitia James and New Jersey Attorney General Jenifer Davenport seeking to force the feds to release the funds so that construction on Gateway can resume.
Jeannette Vargas, the Manhattan federal judge presiding over the case, initially granted a temporary restraining order last Friday, forcing the Trump administration to unfreeze the funds over this week and the next. But the feds appealed on Monday, compelling Vargas to pause her Feb. 6 decision pending a higher court’s decision on the appeal.
Meanwhile, the Gateway Development Commission, which is leading construction on the tunnel, filed its own lawsuit against the Trump administration in the Federal Court of Claims last week.
That suit appears to be moving much slower, with Judge Richard Hertling on Monday scheduling oral arguments in the case for March 12.
