NEW YORK — Officials in New York and New Jersey filed suit against the Trump administration on Tuesday evening, Feb. 3, over funds being withheld for the Hudson River Tunnel project, the second action in as many days to try to free funding before the project must shut down.
New Jersey’s acting Attorney General, Jennifer Davenport, and her New York counterpart, Letitia James, have filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, saying the administration is illegally withholding $15 billion in federal funds for the project, and seeking emergency relief to end the Department of Transportation’s freeze on tunnel funding that began last Sept. 30.
“The President’s decision to freeze funding for the Hudson Tunnel Project jeopardizes safe and reliable infrastructure and puts thousands of jobs at risk,” Davenport said in a press release. “The Federal Government has left us no choice: we must challenge this illegal action in court, and demand emergency relief that will protect us from these unlawful harms.”
Said James in another release, “We are taking the administration to court to prevent a shutdown that would ripple far beyond New York and New Jersey.”
The action is separate from the suit filed on Monday by the Gateway Development Commission [see “Gateway Commission sues …,” Trains.com, Feb. 3, 2026]. The states say they are taking their own action because they would suffer damages independent of those affecting the commission, in terms of jobs lost, significant new costs, and the loss of benefits of the funding and land they have provided to the project. The two states are sharing 30% of the cost of the project, while the federal government has committed to 70%.
While the commission’s suit claims the federal government is in breach of contract for an agreement signed by the Biden Administration, the states’ suit argues that the funds are being withheld “because President Trump is engaged in political retribution,” citing two social media posts by the President that said Russell Vought, director of the federal Office of Management and Budget, was “terminating tremendous numbers of Democrat projects” and that “we’re cutting Democrat programs that we didn’t want.”
The suspension of funding “based on the President’s desire to punish political rivals violates the Administrative Procedure Act many times over,” the suit contends.
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