Democrats seek funding details on Cape Cod bridges, port projects

Valerie Yurk, CQ-Roll Call on Nov 3, 2025

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WASHINGTON — House Democrats are worried that two bridges to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a flood mitigation project on the South San Francisco Bay shoreline, water and wastewater infrastructure in Queens, New York, and navigation projects on both coasts could fall victim to an administration threat to pause Army Corps of Engineers funding.

The lawmakers are seeking details after Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said two weeks ago the administration would pause $11 billion in corps funding and consider canceling the projects because of the partial government shutdown. Vought said the “low-priority projects” were in New York, Boston, Baltimore and San Francisco but provided no more details.

House Transportation and Infrastructure ranking member Rick Larsen, D-Wash., and 30 other Democrats on the panel pressed the corps in a Friday letter for updates about four areas “mentioned by an OMB spokesperson” on the day of Vought’s announcement: the Bourne and Sagamore bridges to Cape Cod; navigation improvements in New York-New Jersey, Long Beach, California, and Baltimore; the South San Francisco Bay Shoreline project; and water and wastewater infrastructure in Queens.

“This Administration’s comfort for halting projects approved by Congress is an aggressive power grab that should concern every American, and will increase project costs, threaten infrastructure jobs, and harm communities across the country,” the Democrats wrote.

Spokespeople from the offices of Democratic Govs. Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Wes Moore of Maryland and Kathy Hochul of New York said Friday they haven’t received any information about pauses in corps project funding in their states.

David Turner, a spokesman for Moore, said it’s hard to know which projects they should be worried about without any guidance.

“There are a number of projects there,” he said in an email. “So all of them?”

The OMB didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The House Democrats’ letter also said emails “from or attributed to the Office of the Assistant Secretary” also said the list is “‘fluid’ and may change over time.”

Among the projects cited by the Democrats is one to deepen the channel at the Port of New York and New Jersey, the busiest container port on the East Coast. The federal government is authorized to contribute $2.4 billion to a project estimated by the corps to cost $6.3 billion.

Vought blamed the partial government shutdown for the funding pause, saying it had “drained the Army Corps of Engineers’ ability to manage billions of dollars in projects.”

In a statement Monday, the office of the assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works said the pause would enable oversight of the “most critical projects.”

“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,” the statement said.