House bill would provide $900 million to jump start Amtrak tunnel, bridge replacement

Herb Jackson
NorthJersey
Although Amtrak was spared deep cuts in its budget plan, the House and Senate bills differed on Gateway, a $29 billion project that includes a new tunnel under the Hudson River.

Rejecting Amtrak cuts proposed by President Donald Trump, a House spending bill would provide more than $900 million that could start the massive Gateway project, which includes replacing the 106-year-old Portal Bridge in the Meadowlands and digging a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.

The funding, which Gov. Chris Christie credited to the work of House of Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen, could face revision in the Senate, because projects sought by other states were zeroed out. And it is unclear whether the Trump administration will support it.

But transportation experts said it was a notable achievement for Frelinghuysen in the current budget climate.

"It’s hard to direct money to individual projects in light of Congress's earmark ban," said Jeff Davis, a senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation, a Washington think tank. "He threaded the needle nicely."

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To get around the ban, the 2018 budget for transportation released by the Appropriations Committee on Monday night directed funding to budget line items that could theoretically be open to projects around the country, but for practical purposes would be available almost exclusively to Gateway.

For example, one line item funded with $400 million is targeted to projects that serve both intercity railroads, such as Amtrak, and commuter lines, such as NJ Transit.

Davis said the $900 million amounts to one-sixth of all non-aviation discretionary spending in the transportation budget for 2018.

The entire Gateway project is estimated to cost nearly $27 billion, and would be built over a decade or more. New Jersey and New York have jointly pledged to cover half the cost, with the other half to come from Amtrak or the U.S. Department of Transportation. There has been no agreement signed, however, on how that money would be raised.

President Trump had proposed cutting Amtrak’s funding from nearly $1.4 billion this year to $756 million.

The first phase, which calls for replacing the Portal Bridge for $1.7 billion and building a new tunnel for $11 billion, could be launched with the $900 million in the House bill, which was due to be considered by an appropriations subcommittee Tuesday night.

“If the Trump administration is willing, it would allow both of them to get going in fiscal year 2018,” Davis said.

To make that happen, however, Frelinghuysen's committee cut to zero the Transportation Department's TIGER grants, a competitive program open to projects in every state. It also would bar funding to other transit projects that had been hoping to reach agreements with Washington, including those in California, Maryland and Minnesota.

Those cuts may cause friction with the Senate.

"Look, I don't want to rob Peter to pay Paul," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "We need money for Gateway, but we need money for TIGER as well."

Trump had proposed cutting Amtrak’s funding from nearly $1.4 billion this year to $756 million. His budget also said capital improvement grants could go only to projects that already had full funding agreements with Washington in place, which Gateway does not.

The House bill, which was posted for a vote in a subcommittee on Tuesday night, rejects both of Trump's proposals. It would provide Amtrak with $1.4 billion, of which $328 million is for Northeast Corridor capital grants that could support projects related to Gateway, Frelinghuysen's office said.

It also would provide $500 million for "rail state of good repair grants," a program authorized primarily for the Northeast Corridor. And the $400 million from mass transit capital grants could also go to cover work on the Portal Bridge, on which NJ Transit is serving as the lead agency.

"It is not an overstatement to say that Gateway is critical to the nation's economy," Frelinghuysen, R-Harding, said in a statement. "Rebuilding the Hudson tunnels is of vital importance to my home state of New Jersey and our region."

Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the subcommittee that oversees mass transit programs, said he helped write a provision of the law making Gateway eligible for grants from the mass transit account.

"The House proposal builds on this work through the addition of the first tranche of dedicated appropriations, and is a step in the right direction," said Menendez, D-Paramus. "I intend to continue fighting for a robust appropriations bill that supports Gateway and all of New Jersey’s transportation priorities."

Frelinghuysen, a 12-term incumbent, has been under pressure this year from constituents who have staged regular protests at his offices demanding that he reject Trump's policies.

Political handicapping websites downgraded his chances of being re-elected after he switched his position and voted for a health insurance overhaul crafted by House Republican leaders. Several people have come forward saying they want to compete to oppose him in next year's election, and he may also face a challenger in the Republican primary.

During the first quarter of this year, Frelinghuysen raised more than $500,000 for his re-election campaign, about five times what he raised during similar quarters in past election cycles. .

One Democrat considering a run against him, Assemblyman John McKeon of West Orange, issued a statement criticizing Christie for his praise of Frelinghuysen because Christie had canceled a project in 2010 that would have built a new two-track tunnel for NJ Transit trains.

"The temerity to try and take a bow for funding that’s far from a certainty thanks to President Trump is an outrage, but not a surprise," McKeon said. "As to Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen, he has many more billions to go to make amends for his health care vote.”