CHICAGO — The White House on Friday froze $2.1 billion in federal funding for Chicago infrastructure projects in the latest move targeting Democratic cities and states amid the federal government shutdown.
Federal budget director Russ Vought announced on social media that the money has been put on hold “to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting.” He specified that the pause applied to funds earmarked for Chicago’s Red Line extension and Red and Purple Line modernization projects.
In a follow up statement, the U.S. Department of Transportation said it had sent letters to the Chicago Transit Authority to indicate that the two projects were under review to determine the constitutionality of their contracting requirements.
The Chicago Transit Authority confirmed receipt of the letters, saying it was reviewing them late Friday afternoon. Earlier in the day, the Office of the Secretary of Transportation issued a ruling to remove race and sex as elements for inclusion in small business initiatives intended to level the playing field for disadvantaged groups, particularly women and people of color.
The U.S Department of Transit’s statement referenced the Chicago Transit Authority’s past commitment to meeting disadvantaged business contracting goals, with 21% of spending on the Red-Purple Modernization projects going to 119 firms that qualified under the disadvantaged business criteria as of last November.
“Illinois, like New York, is well known to promote race- and sex-based contracting and other racial preferences as a public policy,” the DOT’s statement said. “The American people don’t care what race or gender construction workers, pipefitters, or electricians are. They just want these massive projects finally built quickly and efficiently.”
Illinois Democrats said freezing the funds will cause delays in a Red Line extension project that was expected to bring economic growth.
“This project will expand transit access to 100,000 people. It will be an economic boost for the city and create tens of thousands of jobs for working families,” Sen. Dick Durbin said on the Senate Floor on Friday.
Democratic leadership also called the move a vindictive abuse of power, with Gov. JB Pritzker accusing President Trump of “holding bipartisan funding hostage.”
“It’s attempting to score political points but is instead hurting our economy and the hardworking people who rely on public transit to get to work or school,” Pritzker said in a statement posted on social media.
The funding pause for Chicago projects followed an announcement Wednesday that the administration would withhold $18 billion in funds previously awarded to New York City for major infrastructure projects. The White House also announced Friday that Trump had directed his team to identify potential cuts to federal aid for Portland, Oregon, another Democratic stronghold.
The Chicago Tribune also reported on Thursday that the federal government froze $583 million in funding to Illinois for energy projects. U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth said in a statement that 33 projects were canceled, with funds withheld from energy giant Exelon, the University of Illinois and Northwestern University among others.
The funding would have gone to grid reliability projects, carbon capture technology and other grid modernization, according to a spreadsheet released by Duckworth.
“President Donald Trump wants to punish states like Illinois, and the people who live there, because they didn’t vote for him in the last election,” Durbin said from the floor. “Freezing funds for these projects is a blatant abuse of power by a president and an administration that would rather settle petty personal scores than actually help people.”
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has had some success in court challenging Trump administration cuts to funding that had been allocated by Congress. Recently, he won two injunctions against the administration for trying to withhold funding based on the state’s immigration policies.
Jerry Nowicki contributed to this story.
Maggie Dougherty is a freelance reporter covering the Chicago area. Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
