Appeals Court Rules Against Trump Administration on Gateway Funding Freeze

The Trump administration will have to release over $200 million in funding for work to resume on the stalled Gateway Tunnel project, a federal appeals court ruled late Thursday.

The White House appealed a judicial decision last week ordering the federal government to disburse the funding, and now it would seem that the federal government’s political and legal defeat in the effort to use the congressional-approved financing as political leverage is not complete.

On Feb. 6, funding for the project dried up and 1,000 workers on the $16 billion transit project building tunnels under the Hudson River were sent home indefinitely, a period without wages that may have been prolonged by the appeals process.

“The court’s order directing the re-establishment of federal funding to the Gateway tunnel project is now in effect; the law is clear, and the U.S. Department of Transportation must immediately release the Gateway funds that have been improperly frozen by President Trump, so we can get 1,000 union workers back on the job,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer said in a statement. “These dollars were congressionally appropriated and contractually committed years ago. There is no excuse and no justification for holding them back another minute.”

The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Gateway Development Commission (GDC), which directly manages the project, has separately filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against the Trump administration, which will see its day in court on March 12, according to Schumer’s office.

“While this is a positive step, we need consistent, reliable access to the Hudson tunnel project’s federal funding moving forward,” the commission said in a statement Thursday evening. “GDC continues to pursue all avenues to regain access to all the federal funds for this urgent project, including our lawsuit.”

The funding freeze was the result of what started as a political battle over additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement between President Donald Trump and Democrats on Capitol Hill, partly led by New York lawmakers.

The project, designed to keep train traffic moving reliably through the Northeast Corridor, is regarded as economically significant on a national level. Not only will the project replace the existing 116-year-old tunnels leading into Pennsylvania Station, but it will also provide a redundancy in case they fail.

The Laborers’ International Union of North America, which represents the workers who experience a work hiatus, also rallied to unlock the funding to avoid an extended lapse in pay.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.