A legal settlement between the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the federal Securities and Exchange Commission blows a hole in Gov. Chris Christie’s original version of why he canceled a long-planned commuter-rail tunnel during his first year in office.
Announced just before the governor delivered his State of the State speech, the SEC’s order makes clear that Christie administration officials were eyeing money the authority had earmarked for the commuter tunnel, hoping to use it instead to solve state transportation funding problems. Ultimately, that’s exactly what happened.
