The Cuomo administration has thrown in the towel on getting the feds to OK a dubious environmental loan the governor tried to use for the new Tappan Zee Bridge.
That’s sort-of-good news for taxpayers, who were shelling out $500 an hour for an outside law firm on the case. Bigger picture, it’s bad news — new doubt on the mysterious financing of the $4.2 billion bridge.
Team Cuomo just had no case — it wanted to use the $511 million loan for construction, rather than the clean-water projects it was meant for.
In the end, the Environmental Protection Agency nixed all but $29 million of the state’s proposal — plus another $1.3 million to restore an oyster bed and to help falcons nest.
Fine for the shellfish and the birds. Taxpayers, however, still don’t know how much they’ll be paying in higher tolls.
Gov. Cuomo has long insisted the rejected loan “was never part of the bridge financing.”
You’ll have to take his word on that — the state won’t release the financing documents it submitted to the feds, let alone offer a public explanation of precisely how it’s going to pay for the new Tappan Zee.
Give Cuomo credit for moving on a major project that had stalled for over a decade.
Too bad he seems to think the only way he can build a bridge the state needs is to keep secret just who’s going to wind up paying for it.