New York has confirmed that the federal government released another $77m for new tunnels and bridges connecting the state to its neighbour New Jersey, amid a feud with United States President Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul appeared at a construction site alongside union leaders to push for the release of the remaining funds, which were frozen in October amid a record-breaking government shutdown.
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“It cannot continue like this,” Hochul, a Democrat, told workers at the site.
“The workers need to know that that job is going to be there: the one they signed up for, the one they trained for, the one they’re so proud of. It has to be there year after year, until this project is done.”
At stake is the fate of the Northeast Corridor project, a central part of the Gateway Program, an interstate initiative to expand and renovate the aging tunnels that the link metropolitan hubs between New York and New Jersey.
The federal government had pledged billions in support for the project, considered to be vital for transportation and safety reasons.
But on October 1, one day into a historically long government shutdown, the Trump administration announced it would suspend $18bn in funding for the project that had already been granted.
The move was designed to pressure Democrats — and Democrat-aligned jurisdictions — to comply with Republican demands to end the shutdown.
But Trump hinted at the time that some of the programming cuts could be permanent. The shutdown ended after 43 days in November, and still, the funding for the New York City tunnel project remained frozen.
Democrats decried the freeze an act of political revenge. “It should concern every American that the Trump Administration is willing to harm working families and our nation’s economy to punish Democrats,” Representative Jerry Nadler of New York said in response to the funding suspension.
But Trump has continued to withhold the funds. On February 3, the states of New York and New Jersey announced they were suing the Trump administration to release the funds.
“After four months of covering costs with limited operating funds, the states warn that construction will be forced to completely shut down as soon as February 6 unless federal funding resumes,” attorneys general L