{"id":120975,"date":"2026-02-03T05:09:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T05:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/120975\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T05:09:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T05:09:28","slug":"gateway-development-commission-sues-trump-for-breach-of-contract-over-hudson-river-tunnel-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/120975\/","title":{"rendered":"Gateway Development Commission sues Trump for breach of contract over Hudson River Tunnel cash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Gateway Development Commission<\/a> sued the federal government late Monday, after months of the Trump administration\u2019s refusal to distribute money approved by Congress for the construction of the Hudson River Tunnel.<\/p>\n

The suit, filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, comes just days before work on the $16 billion tunnel project is expected to come to a halt for lack of funds, and alleges the federal government is in breach of contract by holding up billions in already-promised dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite its contractual commitments to fund the project, the federal government has suspended the release of its contractually obligated funds since October 1, 2025,\u201d the GDC said in a statement Monday night. \u201cThe lawsuit makes clear that the shifting explanations the administration has provided for this breach are plainly unlawful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tunnel project, which seeks to build two new rail tubes under Jersey City and the Hudson River \u2014 linking train tracks in the New Jersey Meadowlands to Penn Station \u2014 is the single largest piece of a massive Gateway project meant to double rail capacity between the Empire and Garden states.<\/p>\n

Work on the tunnel is expected to generate over 70,000 jobs and ultimately increase potential capacity at Penn Station, the nation\u2019s busiest train station.<\/p>\n

Work has been ongoing since the October freeze, with a massive tunnel-boring machine nearly ready to start digging through rock under Jersey City. But Gateway officials said last week work will halt indefinitely on Friday if the feds don\u2019t end their funding freeze<\/a> \u2014 a stoppage that will endanger the project and axe about 1,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Manhattan skyline looms in the distance facing east from the area where the Gateway Tunnel connecting to New York Penn Station will be built, Wednesday, July 6, 2022, in North Bergen, N.J. (AP Photo\/John Minchillo)<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump has illegally frozen congressionally appropriated and contractually obligated funding for Gateway,\u201d said Sen. Chuck Schumer, New York\u2019s senior senator and the body\u2019s minority leader. \u201cThis lawsuit would be unnecessary if President Trump did the right thing for New York and New Jersey and lifted his arbitrary freeze.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. Hochul called the funding pause a \u201cbrazen act of political retribution\u201d on Trump\u2019s part, \u201cintended to hurt New Yorkers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hochul\u2019s cross-Hudson counterpart, N.J. Gov. Mikie Sherrill, said she\u2019d \u201cmade a commitment to fight for Gateway and New Jersey\u2019s economy,\u201d and was \u201call in\u201d to fight for the state\u2019s economic opportunity.<\/p>\n

Over the past five months, the Trump administration has linked the funding freeze to a grab bag of grievances, offering three unrelated justifications.<\/p>\n

The freeze was first announced just hours into the federal government shutdown<\/a> on Oct. 1, supposedly over \u201cunconstitutional DEI principles\u201d in the selection of contractors.<\/p>\n

At that time, Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought and U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy claimed the project, along with the MTA\u2019s long-awaited Second Ave. subway extension, no longer complied with contracting rules the government had changed just hours before the shutdown.<\/p>\n

Duffy told reporters<\/a> the feds were \u201cnot trying to shut down these projects \u2014 to the contrary, we\u2019re trying to make sure these projects move forward, move forward fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

But within weeks, the president took to gloating that he\u2019d \u201cterminated\u201d the project for good \u2014 not because of contracting rules, but because it was a favorite of Schumer\u2019s. The New York Democrat has been a longtime advocate for the tunnel\u2019s construction, and was the president\u2019s foil in the ongoing shutdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cBillions and billions of dollars that Schumer has worked 20 years to get \u2014 it\u2019s terminated,\u201d the president said in October<\/a>. \u201cTell him, \u2018It\u2019s terminated.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials at GDC have insisted the bistate body has worked to remain in compliance with federal requirements, even as the Trump administration has changed its rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor months, GDC has worked cooperatively with its federal partners to meet their requirements for restoring funding,\u201d the commission said in its statement Monday. \u201cGDC responded thoroughly and promptly to each request for information about the project\u2019s federally mandated Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program and provided documentation that the project is in compliance with the administration\u2019s latest regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Daily News last week asked the USDOT if similar claims by GDC CEO Tom Prendergast were true \u2014 and, if so, why the funding hadn\u2019t been restored \u2014 a spokesman directed the inquiry to the White House.<\/p>\n

White House spokesman Kush Desai then offered a third explanation as to why Congress\u2019 money wasn\u2019t getting to the tunnel \u2014 lack of Democratic fealty to the Trump administration\u2019s historically unpopular immigration efforts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Chuck Schumer and Democrats who are standing in the way of a deal for the Gateway Tunnel Project by refusing to negotiate with the Trump administration,\u201d Desai claimed. \u201cThere is nothing stopping Democrats from prioritizing the interests of Americans over illegal aliens and getting this project back on track.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Gateway Development Commission sued the federal government late Monday, after months of the Trump administration\u2019s refusal to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[85,267,75,84,83,9,24,264,10,12,63,608],"class_list":["post-120975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-new-york-news","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}