Russell Vought, the Trump administration’s budget secretary, announced Friday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will immediately halt and consider canceling more than $11 billion in projects in response to the government shutdown.
“The Democratic shutdown has depleted the Army Corps of Engineers’ ability to manage multibillion-dollar projects,” Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told the X-Post.
Vought said the suspended funds are related to “low-priority projects” in cities such as New York, San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore.
The Army Corps of Engineers, which provides a wide range of public engineering services and is comprised of more than 37,000 civilians and soldiers, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Vought’s post.
Vought, co-author of a right-wing manual for major government reform known as “Project 2025,” was the first to announce federal job cuts and funding cuts that the Trump administration claims are a result of the government shutdown.
President Donald Trump and Vought also called the Congressional funding fiasco an “opportunity” to dismantle the federal bureaucracy. President Trump has repeatedly said only Democratic priorities are being targeted.
On the day the government shutdown began, Vought announced the administration would freeze about $18 billion in two major infrastructure projects in New York City and cancel about $8 billion more in climate-related projects in Democratic-leaning states.
Two days later, Vought announced that his administration had frozen an additional $2.1 billion in Department of Transportation funds earmarked for Chicago’s transit system.
The White House also claimed that thousands of federal workers would be laid off due to the government shutdown.
The administration announced last week that more than 4,000 troop reduction notices had been issued. Vought said Wednesday that the total layoffs would likely end up being “more than 10,000.”
But a federal judge on Wednesday afternoon temporarily blocked the government from firing the government employees.
