Trump’s Infrastructure Plan: Bad for NJ, Bad for Gateway Tunnel

Today President Trump announced his Infrastructure Plan. The plan reduces public funding, especially federal funding, for these projects. This could make it more difficult for the Gateway Tunnel to be built because it puts a premium on states and localities willing to pay a larger share of the cost for construction projects. The original funding agreement included the federal government to pay 50 percent of the $30 billion cost of the project.

“This plan is just another way to scam the American people and put more money in the pockets of millionaires and billionaires. Privatizing our infrastructure and mass transit just gives more control and money to hedge funds and Wall St. while the people end up paying more tolls and taxes. This is especially concerning for the Gateway Tunnel project, which is supposed to get half of its funding from the federal government,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Streamlining really only means getting rid of environmental reviews. That means we won’t be considering climate change or sea level rise in our infrastructure and all that money can be washed away.”

Other problems with Trump’s Infrastructure Plan include:

• Sell off public lands to the fossil fuel industry and other special interests in order to finance its limited spending program.
• Be a huge handout to Wall Street banks, whose privatization of roads, bridges, water systems and other public assets will require charging Americans big tolls and fees.
• Give the Secretary of the Interior the ability to unilaterally authorize the construction of pipelines in our National Parks and public lands, rather than Congress.
• Fails to include provisions that secure prevailing wages for workers and omits provisions to encourage and prioritize domestic-manufacturing
• Weaken the Clean Water and Clean Air acts in an attempt to usurp power from the states and hastily approve pipelines.
• The overwhelming majority of delay in infrastructure projects is due to inadequate funding, and this scam plan will only make that worse.

“This is not about investing in America’s infrastructure needs. It’s a scam to privatize public lands and increase taxes to the detriment of the people and environment of the United States. Under the guise of streamlining, the Trump Administration is farthing their anti-environmental agenda and now attacking our public infrastructure,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.