The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will immediately pause, and consider canceling, over $11 billion in projects due to the government shutdown, Trump administration budget chief Russell Vought said Friday.
“The Democrat shutdown has drained the Army Corps of Engineers’ ability to manage billions of dollars in projects,” Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said in an X post.
The paused funds pertain to “lower-priority projects” in cities including New York, San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore, Vought said.
The Army Corps of Engineers, which provides a wide range of public engineering services and comprises more than 37,000 civilians and soldiers, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment on Vought’s post.
Vought, a co-author of the right-wing manual for major government overhaul known as Project 2025, has been the first to announce federal layoffs and funding pauses that the Trump administration says are consequences of the shutdown.
President Donald Trump and Vought have also described the congressional funding lapse as an “opportunity” to slash the federal bureaucracy. Trump has repeatedly said that only Democrats’ priorities are being targeted.
On the day the shutdown began, Vought announced that the administration was freezing about $18 billion for two major infrastructure projects in New York City and canceling roughly $8 billion more for climate-related projects in Democratic-leaning states.
Two days later, Vought said the administration froze another $2.1 billion in Department of Transportation funding earmarked for the Chicago transit system.
The White House has also insisted that the shutdown will cause thousands of federal workers to be laid off.
The administration said last week that more than 4,000 reduction-in-force notices had been issued; on Wednesday, Vought said the total job cuts would likely end up being “north of 10,000.“
But a federal judge on Wednesday afternoon temporarily blocked the administration from firing government workers.
Source : CNBC