As the federal government shutdown stretches into its second month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project that enables the monitoring unit, which has been operating on fumes since Sept. 30, could run out of funding by the end of the first week of November, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.
Potential blockages in obtaining permits are just another factor that could lengthen the list of already delayed or canceled infrastructure projects, some of which are already under construction, including the Gateway Development Commission’s $16 billion Hudson River Tunnel project that President Donald Trump said on Oct. 15 was “finished.” Work on this project has been ongoing on both sides of the tunnel in New York and New Jersey.
Eric Beightel, who was the Biden administration’s executive director of the Federal Permit Review Board, a special federal entity created to expedite permits for key infrastructure projects, said several U.S. agencies typically use “leftover” funds to pay operating costs for as long as possible, but those may eventually be reduced to zero.
The council’s current chief executive, Emily Domenech, was cited by Politico E&E News, stating that the council itself is also currently coordinating with different bodies to fund administrative work related to the council’s dashboard projects. The entity was established in 2015 under the Fixing America Surface Transportation Act to streamline permitting for major infrastructure projects through better coordination among federal agencies on environmental reviews.
The Corps did not respond to ENR’s request for comment, but sources familiar with the issues say the agency’s permitting office will soon run out of resources to operate.
“The vast majority of regulatory staff in all districts will be furloughed, and almost all regulatory decisions will be put on hold,” Mark Sudol, former head of the Corps’ regulatory program, told ENR. “Once the funding is gone, there may be a supervisor designated as ‘essential’. [who] it can finalize a very small number of permits that are about to be issued.” An example might be a finalized document for a permit decision that only needs one signature, he said
“But for most actions, once the funding runs out, my experience is that all but one staff will be furloughed and processing will stop nationwide,” said Sudol, now a senior adviser at environmental permitting consultancy Dawson & Associates.
Mother in project cancellations
The Corps also has not provided any additional information on potential cancellations as a result of BudgetOMB Director Russell Vought’s statements published in X that the administration would immediately pause more than $11 billion in funding for “lower priority” projects that he said included those in New York City, San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore.
In an Oct. 27 letter to the House, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, demanded that the list of projects potentially be suspended and that could be cancelled.
The Corps has not yet provided the list to lawmakers, a Murray aide confirmed to ENR on Oct. 31.
Jordan Howard, federal construction and regulatory affairs adviser for the Associated General Contractors of America, said in an interview that Vought asking the Corps to consider which projects are less critical suggests the administration is “taking a measured approach.”
Brian Turmail, AGC’s vice president of public and labor affairs, suggested some of the administration’s statements could be rhetoric used as a negotiating tactic. AGC has yet to hear of shutdowns on the Gateway project, he said, although “that could change.”
But Howard noted that the shutdown itself is creating challenges that extend beyond reopening the government. “It’s a disruption,” he said. “You can see that while contractors are still getting paid for work, things like processing and paying for change orders or contract modifications are delayed, and that affects everyone.”
Former permitting board director Beightel added that the number of days lost in permitting action doesn’t always directly correlate to the days needed to get the process back up to speed. He told ENR that project pauses and delays due to the shutdown or review for possible cancellation can have major cascading effects on permitting.
“A lot of projects have construction windows, or there are windows to do certain field surveys, and any delay just sets it back, and there are times when you can lose a whole year because you’ve missed a window of opportunity,” he said.
