Trump ties transportation funding to immigration compliance
The administration of President Donald J. Trump has informed
the Connecticut Department of Transportation it would, “to the maximum extent
permitted by law,” link federal transportation funding to policies on masks,
vaccines, tolls and immigration enforcement.
The four-page undated memo by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy states the
administration “shall prioritize projects and goals” that, among other things,
prohibit recipients “from imposing vaccine and mask mandates” and require
“local compliance or cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.”
It also would “give preference to communities with marriage
and birth rates higher than the national average” and places that “utilize
user-pay models,” which seemingly would include the congestion pricing in
Manhattan that Trump has denounced and highway tolls that Gov. Ned Lamont
proposed without success.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held the federal government can
impose conditions on federal funding, but those conditions must be germane to
the federal interest in the projects for which the money is used and cannot
cross the line from enticement to coercion.
Lamont said Thursday that DOT was one of at least three
state agencies getting directives establishing new ill-defined conditions for
federal funding that arrived after a chaotic 48 hours of vague and ultimately
conflicting advise regarding a pause in
a broad range of federal funding.
The Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday rescinded
a memo that indicated federal funding to state and local governments
and nonprofits would at least temporarily be frozen at 5 p.m. Tuesday. A
federal judge also issued a temporary injunction blocking the freeze.
“It’s a confusing mess. We thought we had clarity yesterday.
We thought OMB had pulled back their dictate. We thought the courts had said
that we’re going to put a pause on this at least through next week,” Lamont
said. “Now we’re finding that each and every one of the departments are
coming out with their own special set of restrictions and rules that could harm
us.”
The stakes are significant. Not only does Connecticut
typically receive hundreds of millions in federal transportation funding,
Trump’s threat comes just two months after Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration set
new goals to ramp up Connecticut’s rebuild of its aging network of highways,
bridges and rail lines.
Federal grants are one of the two chief ways Connecticut
pays for this construction, the other being state borrowing – which is repaid
using sales and fuel tax receipts in the budget’s Special Transportation Fund.
Though federal grant levels can vary annually by tens or
even hundreds of millions of dollars, support from Washington has been on the
rise since 2021, when President Biden and Congress enacted an aggressive, $1.2
trillion transportation infrastructure program.
Connecticut received $1.4 billion in federal construction
funding last fiscal year, pairing it with $875 million in state
borrowing. Lamont wants
to push state borrowing up gradually to $1.4 billion by 2026-27.
And while the DOT hasn’t announced how much federal funding
it expects to receive by the end of that effort, the hope is that aid from
Washington would continue to rise as well.
The memo by Duffy, a former congressman and Fox co-host,
raised as many questions as it provided guidance. For example, it did not
define what degree of compliance or cooperation would be required.
“I’m not the most hyperbolic of people, but you got to be
clear. You’ve got to be consistent. And this has been chaos the last 72 hours,”
Lamont said.
Connecticut has a state law, the Trust Act, that requires
federal immigration agents to obtain a judicial warrant for a detainer to be
honored. Lamont said he does not see that as failing to cooperate with Trump’s
stated goal of focusing on the deportation of immigrants who lack legal status
and have committed crimes.
Lamont has been waiting for a firm direction on the
Dreamers, the immigrants brought to the U.S. as young children and know no
other country as home. Some have reached college age and beyond.
“The question is, what do you do with the Dreamers? What do
you do with those folks who have been in this country for 18 years? They’re a
junior at high school? Do we work with them?” Lamont said. “We don’t ask
people’s immigration status. Our teachers are teaching. If ICE wants to go
after them, that’s not our business.”
In some ways, Duffy’s memo was a statement of principles: It
“updates and resets the principles and standards underpinning” DOT’s policies
to “mandate reliance on rigorous economic analysis and positive cost-benefit
calculations” to ensure its state contracts “bolster the American economy and
benefit the American people.”
The memo made clear that previous requirements by the Biden
administration that projects also be assessed for their “social cost of carbon”
and impact on climate change can be ignored.
Such calculations were “marked by logical
deficiencies, a poor basis in empirical science, politicization, and the
absence of a foundation in legislation,” Duffy wrote.
Lamont said the state Department of Public Health was told
it would lose funding for anything related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
“Not a big surprise there,” Lamont said.
But linking bridge, highway and rail funding to birth rates
and immigration was confusing, he said. He declined to say if he thought
linking immigration enforcement to highway spending crossed the line into
coercion.
“I don’t need to jump to conclusions, because it could be
different tomorrow. Let’s settle down and see what we should sort out,” Lamont
said.
Lamont was amused, however, by the Republican administration
pushing tolls and other user fees. The Democratic governor failed
to win approval for highway tolls in 2019, and the highway-use tax he
instead imposed on trucks is vehemently opposed by Republican lawmakers. They
have filed more than a dozen bills that would repeal it.
The push for higher marriage and birth rates, a long-time
goal of Trump’s adviser, Elon Musk, was similarly unexpected, Lamont said. At
one Trump rally, Musk urged Americans to have at least three children, saying
falling birth rates are a threat to developed countries. Musk has fathered 12
children.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, both Connecticut’s fertility rate and marriage rate were below the national average in 2022.
Keith Phaneuf contributed to this story.
Meriden residents demand relief from highway construction noise
MERIDEN — Residents on both the east and west sides of the
city say they live with intolerable traffic noise caused by
highway construction projects and hope state officials can help.
Christine Ivers of Preston Drive doesn't open her windows in
the summer anymore.
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"I need to sleep," she said. "It's
unbearable. I invite anyone to come sit in my backyard."
Ivers has lived in the neighborhood near the junction of
Interstates 691 and 91 on the city's east side for 20 years. She said the noise
levels worsened several years ago when the number of trucks braking at the hill
increased. Racing motorcycles with roaring pipes add to the decibel levels.
Two years ago, the state Department of Transportation
embarked on a $500 million highway project to reconfigure the interchange of
I-91, I-691 and Route 15 in Meriden to improve traffic flow and make it
safer.
Before the press conferences to announce the projects,
workers cleared trees and brush in the buffers between the highway and the
homes, and residents lost their noise barriers.
"They took the decibel readings before they did the
clear-cutting," Ivers said.
Dozens of Preston Avenue residents and those living along
the highway reconstruction zone have complained to Mayor Kevin Scarpati and
state Rep. Michael Quinn, D-Meriden. Scarpati referred his share of
complaints to Quinn, who met with groups of neighbors and gathered information.
Quinn recently introduced legislation
asking the General Assembly to authorize CT DOT to install sound barriers eastbound
on I-691 near the Steuben Street neighborhood, on I-91 southbound between
the Middletown line and Exit 18, Preston Avenue, for residents on Thurrott
Avenue.
Quinn's bill also calls for barriers on Route 15 northbound
from the Wallingford line to the Paddock Avenue overpass, providing a buffer
for residents on Beth Ann Circle, Royal Oak Circle and Elmwood Drive, and Route
15 southbound from the Paddock Avenue overpass to the Wallingford line,
for residents of Sterling Village and Prann Court.
He estimates the total coverage to be about 1.5 to 2 miles
and the cost between $1 million to $2 million per mile, depending on how it's
constructed. Noise barriers in those areas were not included in the state's
project.
"It’s not unreasonable," Quinn said. "I
understand there are federal noise standards that the DOT complies with. But
when you look at where the houses are, I'm not sure how exactly the noise was
measured to come up with a different conclusion."
Gail Hyde and her neighbors have a separate issue on the
city's west side. They lived on Steuben Street and Corrigan Avenue 50
years ago when I-691 was being built. At that time, they were told sound
barriers would be installed. More recently, workers clear-cut the buffer zone,
followed by widening and repaving of I-691. The clear-cutting made things
worse.
"It's awful up here," said Hyde, who has since
moved. "I'm 80 years old, but I'm here for the neighbors."
She started a petition, held meetings with 25 neighbors, and
got no response. The group even attended preconstruction meetings at the
library on the renovation project, only to learn they were outside the
construction area. But Quinn said despite that, the neighborhood has a
problem.
According to CT DOT, any engineering feasibility of
noise abatement measures must meet certain decibel levels of noise reduction
within a specified cost per square foot. A minimum of two-thirds of the
property owners must also support the noise abatement measure.
Quinn's bill is now before the General Assembly's
Transportation Committee, where it will receive a public hearing. He expects
some opposition but hopes the affected neighbors will testify.
Scarpati supports the bill.
"We've had a lot of discussion about poor quality of
life, noise and traffic," Scarpati said. "It really ramped up when
the 91 project started, and neighbors came out to inform us of their daily
issues and impact on daily life. The state should realize that although Meriden
is not one of the wealthier communities, Meriden is at the crossroads of
Connecticut and shouldn't be forgotten."