TRENTON — Gov. Christie said he has still not seen an official offer from the feds that would reduce the $271 million bill owed for the cancellation of the rail tunnel under the Hudson River. A week ago in a letter to U.S. Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez (both D-N.J.), federal Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood offered to return...
Gov. Chris Christie said today he has not gotten an official offer from U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to credit the state $128 million. TRENTON — Gov. Christie said he has still not seen an official offer from the feds that would reduce the $271 million bill owed for the cancellation of the rail tunnel under the Hudson River.
A week ago in a letter to U.S. Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez (both D-N.J.), federal Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood offered to return $128 million of the $271 million the feds are charging the state and deposit that money in a fund to be used for future New Jersey transportation projects.
In the week since, Christie said he has still not been contacted by LaHood — he's only seen letters forwarded by Lautenberg and Menendez's offices.
"They have made that offer to Sens. Lautenberg and Menendez, who through the Constitution of New Jersey are not empowered to make that decision," Christie said.
Christie said he is still awaiting a call from LaHood.
"When Secretary LaHood decides he wants to call me and make that offer we'll have a conversation," Christie said. "To this point, I haven't gotten a call from the secretary and I know he's got my number because during the whole ARC thing he was calling me at home."
Christie canceled the Access to the Region's Core, or ARC, tunnel, in October, citing potential cost overruns in excess of $1 billion. After the tunnel, which would have alleviated a bottleneck in rail traffic between New Jersey and New York, the feds informed New Jersey it would have to pay back the $271 million already spent by the DOT on the project.
Christie, calling the bill political, hired Washington D.C. power firm Patton Boggs at a rate of $485 an hour to fight the charge.
Previous coverage:
• U.S. Transportation Department extends deadline for N.J. to pay $271M for killed ARC tunnel
• Gov. Chris Christie says he will consider federal credit offer on killed ARC tunnel
• Gov. Christie says federal offer to credit N.J. $128M for ARC tunnel project is 'good start'
• N.J. can get back almost half of $271M owed to federal government for scrapped ARC tunnel
• U.S. relaxes demand on $271M ARC tunnel funds after N.J. Gov. Christie canceled project
• NJ Transit requests $75M from killed ARC tunnel funds for new train cars