Trump’s Admin Says It Froze Blue State Infrastructure Projects. The States Don’t Know If That’s True.

Russell Vought announced via a post on X that the Trump administration was “immediately” pausing infrastructure projects in several blue states across the country.

That was two weeks ago.

Several of those states say they still don’t know which projects Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, was referring to, and Democrats on Capitol Hill say they have been “stonewalled” in their efforts to find out what’s going on.

“So far, we are unaware of any details,” a spokesperson for Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said on Thursday. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office said the same, as did a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

Vought’s Oct. 17 post said that the administration was freezing over $11 billion of Army Corps of Engineers infrastructure projects “including projects in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore,” blaming the shutdown for the pause. He said the Army Corps would release further information about which projects were impacted.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats have been unable to get a list of those projects from the administration, as first reported by Roll Call. And state officials, local leaders and congressional staff interviewed by NOTUS have yet to find any evidence that the work has been paused.

After many requests for information, Army Corps officials told Democratic Senate aides that there is no concrete list of projects and that many projects are being evaluated in a dynamic process, a staffer familiar with the exchange told NOTUS.

On Wednesday, an OMB spokesperson insisted to NOTUS that the projects have been paused. When asked what those projects were, they ignored the question.

“Not true. The Army Corps projects in the states that Director Vought tweeted about are on hold,” said Rachel Cauley, the OMB’s communications director.

The Army Corps of Engineers did not respond to multiple NOTUS queries about any evidence that projects had been paused.

Shortly after Vought’s post, Republican staffers held a call with administration officials to discuss the plan to pause projects, Democratic Senate aides familiar with the matter told NOTUS. Senate Republican staff on the Committee for Environment and Public Works, which oversees the civil works arm of the Army Corps of Engineers, did not respond to a request for comment from NOTUS.

Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the Democratic ranking members on the Senate and House subcommittees that oversee Army Corps funding, published a letter earlier this week decrying that Congress has still not been given a list of projects.

“The American people deserve transparency about how their taxpayer dollars are being spent—and how this administration is hurting public safety in their own communities,” they wrote in the letter.

California Sen. Alex Padilla accused the administration of diverting funds only to Trump’s supporters.

“Donald Trump’s use of the government for political retribution against blue cities and states is not only dangerous and un-American, it’s illegal,” the senator said in a statement to NOTUS.

Democratic staffers said that even without any pauses on specific projects or an actual list, the threat from Vought further added pressure on the Army Corps to deprioritize projects in states led by Democrats. They said they view it as part of a broader strategy from OMB; without a specific list of work at risk of being canceled, Democrats don’t have any way to defend the individual projects.

Vought’s threat was the fourth such post he had made during the shutdown; the first three also announced cuts to federal programs targeted specifically at states and cities led by Democrats.

Those three posts also induced confusion in their aftermath, but none that has lasted as long as the ongoing questions stemming from the Army Corps post.

After Vought announced in early October that billions of dollars in energy grants would be cut from a list of states led by Democrats, it took the states about 24-48 hours to receive official notices from the Department of Energy.

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This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and The City.