Gateway Project "back on track" after withheld funding is released. The fight isn't over, however.
The Gateway Tunnel Project is poised to get back on track after more than $200 million in funding that had been withheld is now back.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other officials say construction work will resume next week.
Hochul posted on social media that the Trump administration has released the remaining $127 million they were waiting on. A court ordered the Trump administration to release the funds.
The legal battle is not yet over. An appeals court hearing on the matter is set for Feb. 23.
New York Attorney General Letitia James called the president's funding freeze unlawful from the beginning.
CBS News New York has reached out to the White House and Department of Transportation but has not heard back.
Gateway Commission hopes "to resume work as soon as possible"
The Trump administration previously announced it was halting funding for the new rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey. Both states sued. Last week, a deadline passed for an appeals court to allow President Trump to continue holding the funds, so the administration had to release them. Some of the money came in on Friday, some more was released earlier this week, and officials say the rest of it was released Wednesday.
Construction of the tunnel stopped more than a week ago, which resulted in the loss of about 1,000 jobs, according to the Gateway Commission.
"We are working with our contractors to deploy these funds to resume work as soon as possible. Letters will be sent to contractors today, and construction activities are expected to resume next week. We continue to pursue all avenues to secure access to the full amount of federal funding for the Hudson Tunnel Project, including our lawsuit," the group said in a statement.
"This is a huge win"
"This afternoon, the Gateway Development Commission will notify contractors to prepare to resume work next week. Many of the 1,000 union workers I stood with yesterday, whose livelihoods were put at risk by the President's actions, will soon be back on the job," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said. "I have told the president repeatedly that when he targets New York, we will fight back and we will not back down. Today's progress is significant, but we need certainty that Gateway funding will remain in place for the duration of the project. The federal government has a legal obligation to fully fund Gateway, and New York will accept nothing less."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted about the released funding on social media.
"It includes all of December's and now part of January's money—more than we expected. Workers will be coming back to work very shortly. This is a huge win for New York, New Jersey, hundreds of thousands of commuters, thousands of union workers, and the economy of the entire region. Gateway is back on track," Schumer wrote.
"So, the fact that the president of the United States, who, you know, has some pretty big economic and jobs challenges that he's facing, would then further hit the economy like this, was bewildering and illegal," New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said. "So, I took him to court: we won. He fought it again: we won. We have seen the funds released, and he continues to remain in court – but we're just seeing again and again that what he's doing is illegal. And the worst part about it is now, he's probably cost the project, which was on time and on budget, millions of dollars by halting all this work."