GOP Rep. pushes $900M for NY/NJ railroad infrastructure

WASHINGTON » A huge railroad and transit project to build new bridge and tunnel capacity for travel between New York and New Jersey would receive a whopping $900 million next year if a senior New Jersey Republican has his way.

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen is moving to boost the New York and New Jersey’s Gateway project in large part by eliminating a popular $500 million infrastructure grant program championed by former President Barack Obama. That program funded transportation projects nationwide, including set-asides for rural areas.

Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., also would earmark $400 million in mass transit grants toward a new tunnel under the Hudson River to service Amtrak and a New Jersey commuter rail line.

The move by the 12-term Republican is reminiscent of pork barrel politics of the recent past, when powerful lawmakers like Sen. Robert Byrd used the annual appropriations bills that fund the government to move billions of dollars into their states.

Frelinghuysen faces challenges from the right with a potential primary and on left from Democrats in his bid for another term next year in a competitive northcentral New Jersey district. It’s his first potentially competitive election cycle since entering Congress in 1995.

“Rebuilding the Hudson Tunnels is of vital importance to my home state of New Jersey and our region, Frelinghuysen said in a statement confirming the $900 million setaside. “New Jersey residents have been plagued by perpetual delays and decaying infrastructure.”

The move by Frelinghuysen may receive its strongest backing from powerful Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York.

“The No. 1 infrastructure project in all of America is the gateway project,” Schumer said recently. But elimination of the Obama-sponsored TIGER grant program, which was created by the 2009 economic stimulus measure but has won bipartisan support since, is likely to face opposition in the Senate.

The Gateway project would construct two new rail tunnels under the Hudson River and rebuild a bridge over New Jersey’s Hackensack River. All told, it’s expected to cost $20 billion. The project would replace aging tunnels that are nearing obsolescence.

The money is contained in a $56.5 billion transportation and housing funding bill that’s slated for a vote by an appropriations subcommittee Tuesday evening. It’s one of 12 long-overdue spending bills that Frelinghuysen and other lawmakers are working to advance, despite intra-GOP quarreling and a dysfunctional budget climate in Washington.