Feds seek to tack $1 billion for Penn Station revamp onto defense-spending request

Evan Simko-Bednarski, New York Daily News on Jun 24, 2026

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The federal Office of Management and Budget is requesting that $1 billion of an $87.6 billion defense funding package be earmarked for Penn Station, the Daily News has learned.

The funding request is one of several “urgent needs” outlined in a letter — obtained by the Daily News — from Trump’s budget director, Russell Vought, to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

While the exact cost is still unknown, President Donald Trump’s Penn Station Czar Andy Byford has previously said the plan to overhaul the nation’s busiest rail hub is expected to cost between $7 billion and $8 billion.

The project seeks to overhaul and beautify the existing Penn Station head house, and includes plans to purchase the Infosys Theater at Madison Square Garden from owner James Dolan in order to create a large station entrance on Eighth Ave.

The $1 billion earmark, if passed, “would be used to assist in the final design and construction of a modernized Penn Station in New York City,” the OMB memo reads.

“These supplemental funds, along with base resources, will ensure the project can proceed on an expedited schedule.”

As previously reported by the Daily News, securing funding for the project remains a work in progress. Byford has said the money is expected to come from some combination of federal grants and a public-private partnership value-capture scheme.

Byford has also said he hopes to sell New York State on contributing money — though Gov. Kathy Hochul has repeatedly described the project as fully federally funded.

Byford and the Trump administration have pledged to begin physical work on the overhaul by the end of 2027 — as Deputy Secretary of Transportation Steven Bradbury previously told the Daily News, the project will be expedited “on Trump time.”

Wednesday’s OMB request is the first indication that some federal funds will be allocated to the project.

Last month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told a Senate panel that the feds were “going to give $8 billion to rebuild Penn Station” — a statement the U.S. Department of Transportation quickly walked back, saying Duffy had simply been stating the estimated cost of the project.

Penn Station is not the only non-defense earmark in the OMB request.

Roughly $67 billion of the the $87.6 billion supplemental funding package is actually earmarked for the Defense Department. Another $2 billion is earmarked for the Department of Homeland Security.

In addition to $1 billion in Penn Station funding, Vought also asked lawmakers for $1.4 billion in funding to respond to an ongoing Ebola outbreak in Central Africa, $500 million for restoration and construction projects in Washington, D.C., and $11.1 billion in assistance for farmers.

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