Government
Army Corps of Engineers Pausing $11B in Projects, White House Official Says
The Cape Cod Bridges Program in Massachusetts, which is planned to replace a pair of aging bridges owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is entering its procurement phase.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is pausing more than $11 billion in what the agency calls lower-priority projects amid the government shutdown, according to Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. The impacted works reportedly include Massachusetts' Cape Cod Bridges Program and water infrastructure in New York, though neither the White House nor the Corps have shared a list paused projects.
Vought did not specify which projects were being impacted in his social media post announcing the funding pause. He added that the Corps is also “considering them for cancellation” and said the list includes projects in New York City, San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore.
Blaming Democrats for the shutdown—though the Senate has failed to pass stopgap spending bills brought by either party—Vought wrote that the lapse “has drained the Army Corps of Engineers’ ability to manage billions of dollars in projects.”
More information would follow from the Corps, Vought wrote. Representatives from the Corps did not immediately share specifics on the impacted projects, but the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works said via email that “the Corps may be unable to provide adequate oversight of all the projects currently in the portfolio, which includes projects essential to life and safety” because of the government shutdown that started Oct. 1.
“To enable continued oversight of the most critical projects throughout the nation, we will pause and review other projects to see if we can deliver them more efficiently,” the assistant secretary’s office said in its statement. “Once the lapse and review are over, the administration may consider taking further actions allowable under the law that limit, cancel or reprioritize resources in a manner that is consistent with these reviews and with the administration’s stated priorities.”
Citing an OMB spokesperson, Reuters reported the projects include $7 billion worth of work in New York, including water and wastewater infrastructure in New York City.
The pause also impacts $600 million for the Cape Cod Bridges Program in Massachusetts, Reuters reported. The project is planned to replace the 90-year-old, Corps-owned Sagamore and Bourne bridges, which cross the Cape Cod Canal. Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement that the state had not received any official notice about a pause, and the project is continuing to move forward with funding appropriated by Congress.
Work on the San Francisco waterfront is also impacted, according to the report. It did not specify the affected projects, but the Corps has planned 7.5 miles of coastal flood prevention infrastructure in collaboration with the city and Port of San Francisco.
The pause is also affecting projects in Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island, according to the report, which noted the states all voted against President Donald Trump in last year’s election.
“Yet again, the corrupt Trump administration is weaponizing government against its political opponents, this time by threatening to terminate water infrastructure projects in blue states,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, said in a statement.
Since the start of the shutdown, the Trump administration has targeted funding for projects. The U.S. Dept. of Transportation paused $18 billion of funding for transit projects in New York—at least one of which Trump said has since been “terminated”—and $2 billion for Chicago transit projects. The Dept. of Energy announced hundreds of grant terminations totaling $7.6 billion. And Vought has directed the firing of thousands of federal workers, though a judge has temporarily blocked the so-called “reduction-in-force” amid a lawsuit brought by unions.
