Staff Reports
Penn Station just went from a New York headache to a federal project with teeth. The U.S. Department of Transportation and Amtrak have tapped Penn Transformation Partners (Halmar & Skanska) as the master developer and rolled out designs. At the same time, Rep. Nick Langworthy is pushing federal legislation to carve out federally funded projects from New York’s 141‑year‑old Scaffold Law. This is a rare moment when bold infrastructure action and common‑sense legal change can meet — if the political will is there.
Federal Takes the Lead on Penn Station
The Department of Transportation and Amtrak have stepped into the lead role on the multibillion‑dollar Penn Station transformation. Selecting a private master developer and releasing renderings signals the project is now a federal priority. That gives the administration leverage to insist projects be built on time and on budget — and it opens the door to asking whether an arcane state rule should keep soaking taxpayers and killing jobs.
Scaffold Law vs. Common Sense
New York’s Scaffold Law (NY Labor Law §240) makes owners and contractors strictly liable for many construction injuries. Every other state uses comparative fault. Industry groups say that absolute‑liability rule drives up insurance costs, chases insurers out of the market, and makes New York wildly expensive to build in. Rep. Langworthy’s bill (H.R. 3548) would preempt the Scaffold Law for federally funded projects — the very projects now being led by the federal government at Penn Station and other big jobs.
What the Numbers Say
Industry studies commissioned by the Building Trades Employers’ Association and done by HR&A model Penn Station savings in the low hundreds of millions — roughly $280–$560 million on that one project. A coalition of developers and trade‑employer groups puts potential Highway Trust Fund savings at about $2.3 billion over five years if federal projects in New York shift to comparative‑fault rules. Those are coalition estimates, not CBO scores, but they explain why business leaders and members of Congress want change.
Politics, Safety and the Road Ahead
Unions and trial‑lawyer groups warn that changing the law would weaken worker protections and make job sites less safe. That’s the political playbook: safety rhetoric to block reform. Industry counters that other states reformed decades ago without turning job sites into death traps, and that higher costs have cost New Yorkers jobs and affordable projects. The fight now is whether the White House and Congress will attach preemption language to the surface‑transportation reauthorization and use federal muscle to cut costs, speed delivery, and pull insurers and contractors back into New York. If President Trump wants to make a visible difference in mobility, jobs and budgets, this is the hill to climb — and it won’t hurt the skyline to finally build something without paying a ransom to trial lawyers.
