Trump administration appealing loss in Gateway tunnel funding case

The Trump administration told a federal judge Friday that it is appealing a court order that barred it from freezing funding for the $16 billion project to build new rail tunnels under the Hudson River.

The news elicited predictions of another loss for the administration from officials from New Jersey and New York, which prevailed in the lawsuit, and from U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-05), who has criticized the White House’s push to end funding for the project, known as Gateway.

Gottheimer called the Gateway tunnel project the “most important infrastructure project in the country” and condemned the Trump administration for wanting to “slam the brakes” on it.

“Mr. President: keep the project on track, and support the hundreds of thousands of hard-working Americans who rely on this train line each and every day to get to work, appointments, and see friends and loved ones. There’s nothing partisan about that,” Gottheimer said in a statement.

Sean Higgins, a spokesman for Gov. Mikie Sherrill, noted that her administration has already won the case in court four times.

“Thousands of workers and 200,000 daily riders are relying on the Gateway Tunnel project, and Governor Sherrill will keep fighting Trump’s illegal attempts to stop it,” he said.

A spokesman for New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said President Donald Trump’s attempts to fight the funding freeze will likely fail again.

“Every time this administration has tried to stop Gateway, they’ve lost. If they try again, they will lose again,” said Hochul spokesman Gordon Tepper.

The Gateway project is intended to modernize the busiest stretch of the northeast corridor between New Jersey and New York, and would build two rail tunnels to eventually replace the existing 116-year-old tunnel currently used by Amtrak and NJ Transit to ferry hundreds of thousands of commuters daily in and out of New York Penn Station.

The Trump administration has given shifting explanations for its push to freeze federal funding for the project. The Department of Transportation last year said it was halting federal aid in a bid to stop money from flowing to “unconstitutional DEI principles.” Meanwhile, Trump indicated last year that he froze the funding to punish Democrats over a budget impasse with U.S. Senate Democrats that fueled one of the longest government shutdowns in the country’s history.

After New Jersey and New York sued the feds to resume funding earlier this year, U.S. District Court Judge Jeannette Vargas ruled June 29 that the funding freeze violated federal law and prohibited the Department of Transportation from blocking the money again. Friday’s filing from the Trump administration says it will appeal Vargas’ ruling to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Construction on the project halted briefly in February but resumed after Vargas issued a temporary order in the states’ favor.