Several GOP lawmakers are fighting to retroactively slash funding in the spending bill signed last month that could impact a series of rail programs in New York and New Jersey. The move comes as the White House weighs removing sections of funding that were included in the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill by sending a rescission package to Congress.
Led by Rep. Ted Budd of North Carolina, a total of 27 Republican House members sent a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney last month urging him to advise President Trump to withdraw federal funding that could go toward the $30 billion Gateway Program, a group of projects designed to repair rail connections between New York and New Jersey.
“We just think, with so many pressing needs for our country, it is not a good place to spend federal dollars, especially when New York and New Jersey are not stepping up,” Budd told the Washington Examiner.
Proponents of using federal funding for the Gateway Program point to the fact that there are only two rail tunnels beneath the Hudson River that link New York’s Penn Station to New Jersey’s Penn Station. The Gateway Program would increase capacity on tracks and tunnels and ultimately establish four new tracks, including a Hudson River tunnel.
But GOP lawmakers are bucking providing federal funding that could be used for the Gateway Program for three reasons: New York and New Jersey are not contributing enough to the projects; the cost estimate of the Gateway Program has increased from $13.5 billion in 2011 to $29.5 billion in 2017; and construction would “occur in the most expensive rail construction environment in the world.”
Lawmakers want $225 million removed from the Federal Transit Administration’s State of Good Repair partnership account, $388 million from the Northeast Corridor Grants, and “such other amounts” from the State of Good Repair Grants, provided the amount doesn’t “unduly” affect mass transit expenditure on other projects in the U.S.
Although the omnibus does not explicitly name funds for the Gateway Program, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said last month there was a “firm” $540 million that could be accessed for the projects.
Budd, who has pushed back on including federal funding for Gateway projects since funding language first emerged in the transportation appropriations bill last July, said he didn’t take issue with the project itself, but added that he does not believe taxpayers in North Carolina should help fund projects that primarily benefit those in New York and New Jersey.
“North Carolina and my fellow North Carolinians paying for this without New York and New Jersey chipping in — that’s a problem,” Budd said.
Rep. Dave Brat of Virginia, who signed the letter and said that he and other lawmakers were motivated to send it due to their constituents’ overall disapproval of the spending measure, said New York and New Jersey were “passing the bill off to the rest of the country.”
“It doesn’t have to do with the project, it has to do with the states,” Brat told the Washington Examiner.
“States and localities ought to build transportation projects and tunnels … good for them, that’s not the issue,” Brat added.
But Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., said the Gateway Program should be a national priority and called recent efforts to rescind funding “outrageous.”
“It should anger anybody who cares about economic growth and building infrastructure that creates jobs and makes sense,” Maloney told the Washington Examiner. “This is not some New York priority, this is a priority for the country.”
According to the Northeast Corridor Commission, 7 million jobs are within five miles of a Northeast Corridor rail station. Additionally, commuter and intercity rail services of the Northeast Corridor provide transportation for 750,000 people daily. The commission claims the workforce that uses the Northeast Corridor rail network adds $50 billion each year to the U.S. economy.
Furthermore, Maloney said the funds included in the omnibus package are not enough, and noted appropriations that would benefit the projects were already scaled back in the omnibus.
“They were already severely rolled back in the budget,” Maloney said. “It’s not nearly what we should be committing to the project. It was done begrudgingly.”
Maloney also urged Republicans from New York to speak out in support of the program.
“It would be great if we heard from some of the Republicans from New York; who, for once, might stick up for their own state in the face of this administration’s assault on everything we need and care about,” Maloney said.
In order to remove funding, a president can offer a rescission in a spending bill through the 1974 Impoundment Act. Congress then must approve or deny the requests within 45 days of continuous session. Additionally, only a simple majority is needed to approve a rescission package in the Senate.
According to Justin Bogie, a senior policy analyst in fiscal affairs at The Heritage Foundation, rescissions have historically been fairly common.
“Everyone is going crazy, like this is some radical idea,” Bogie said. “But it’s really not. Up until Clinton, lots of presidents used it, so it’s not a foreign thing.”
Bogie said that if the White House puts forth a rescission package, one will emerge in the next few weeks. Bogie said it is likely funds that would affect the Gateway Program will be included in a rescission, given that Trump railed against providing federal funding for the projects this spring.
Bogie also noted that if the White House submitted a rescission package to Congress that included funding for the Gateway Program, Congress could remove the language.
“If that was in there and enough members didn’t like that it risked sinking the whole package, they could always take that out,” Bogie said.
Although Budd said it was difficult to determine if Congress would pass a rescission package that affected the Gateway Program, GOP lawmakers must try to remove them.
“It’s hard to tell, but we know that it won’t happen if we don’t fight for it,” Budd said. “That’s why we’ve been very vocal from the time we first saw this back in the transportation bill.”
