Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D) has been an active force in New York politics for decades. Over his 16 years in the Assembly and 16 years in Congress over his 32 years in elected life, he has established himself as an authority on many issues, including transportation and the judiciary, as well as becoming a leading advocate for Ground Zero, which sits within his district.

On May 29, Nadler joined City Hall for an On/Off the Record breakfast held at the flagship Commerce Bank location at 42nd Street and Madison Avenue for a wide-ranging discussion about things on the agenda in Washington, the fate of the rail-freight tunnel he has long championed, and his thoughts on both Sen. Hillary Clinton's and his own political future.




Q: This has been an interesting few months in New York politics. From your conversations in Washington with people from around the country, what do they think of all the revelations about the personal lives of our politicians?

A: Well, I think they think New York is entertaining. I don't think it's done anything fundamental, about having New York, I mean, these are three very disconnected things that just happened to happen in, not in the same place, but the same state and around the same time. I mean, the thing with Eliot Spitzer was so completely unexpected and out of the ordinary and completely sui generis and Vito Fossella is not the first congressman—or senator for that matter—to be in a situation like that, so I don't think it's done anything fundamental about the viewing of New York. It’s provided a lot of amused commentary, but not much more than that.




Q: With Ground Zero in your district, you have fought to bring more attention to the air quality at Ground Zero, to Homeland Security money, to all sorts of other things in response to that. Do you think that Washington has responded in a way in line with the kind of sympathy we saw pouring out after the Sept. 11 attack?

A: No, I do not. A lot of that sympathy has dissipated just because of the passage of time and because that degree of sympathy for New Yorkers is only produced by a really traumatic event and will not last. No. Certainly we have not, yet. We've been fighting, as you know, for medical monitoring coverage for the first responders, many of whom are sick, and for the residents and students in the area.




Q: Do we get to a point where too much time has gone by to do anything?

A: No, unfortunately. The problem is only going to grow. There are two separate problems. I would say there were two cover-ups. One is unraveled, one is still covered up, and we still have to deal with that, we haven't dealt with it at all.
    



Q: You have long advocated a rail-freight tunnel connecting Brooklyn to New Jersey. Where do you think things stand on that? Is your dream ever going to get realized?

A: I think there is a very good likelihood. The Port Authority, as you may know, has restarted it. They should be finished with the final Environmental Impact Statement before the end of the year, and Governor Paterson has been a supporter of the rail-freight tunnel for the last 20 years, at least. And we're going to go, if the state supports it and the governor supports it, we're going to try to get very large funding for it in the next transportation bill. And I do think that ultimately, it has to happen, because as Winston Churchill said, “The government will always do the logical thing once it has exhausted all the other alternatives.” And, we are coming there. I mean, if you assume an average economic growth rate in New York City and Long Island of 2 percent or 3 percent a year, and that's a conservative assumption—you could assume 3.5 percent—but on that conservative assumption, the amount of freight by volume, and by freight we mean everything from grapefruit and Xerox machines, the amount of freight by volume coming into New York and Long Island is going to increase in 20 years by over 80 percent. Eighty percent. You're going to have 80 percent more tractor trailers on the roads and streets in New York? Where are you going to put them? The city's paved over. You're not going to increase them. You're not going to substantially increase highways in Long Island. We have a major rail network that is basically unused mostly because there's no connection to the continent closer than below a bridge 12 miles from Albany.




Q: Mayor Bloomberg has not always been a major fan of this. Have you spoken to him again about the idea since congestion pricing died?

A: No, I haven't spoken to him about that since congestion pricing. The mayor made very clear, starting back in 2005, that he didn't think the city should be the lead agency on this and I agreed, frankly. The City of New York cannot build a rail-freight tunnel into New Jersey. It has to be a bi-state agency, they need the Port Authority. The mayor's administration, to its credit, within the last year cooperated in all the legal legerdemain that had to be accomplished between the city and the Port Authority and the state and the federal administration in transferring the project from the city to the Port Authority. And the Port Authority has now picked it up and is now running with the ball.




Q: So, when would you predict we might see a train pull out from New Jersey, go into the tunnel and get to Brooklyn?

A: 2016-17 range, optimistically.




Q: To get it built, will there need to be allocations of money from existing tax bases, or would you say that perhaps we should have new taxes to fund transportation projects or maybe a fare raise?

A: Well, first of all, the whole rail-freight question is in a completely separate boat from everything else ‘cause it's not a transit project. It does not get funding from the Federal Transit Administration. It's not in competition with the MTA. The MTA, you know, we have various taxes that the legislature enacted back in the mid-80s that are dedicated. We pay 8.25 percent, or 8.375 percent sales tax, a quarter percent of that goes to the MTA. None of that goes to freight, which is a completely separate thing.



 
Q: Moving to politics—are you one of the people who supports the idea of Hillary Clinton being put on the ticket with Barack Obama?

A: I think when you look at a vice presidential nomination…there are two paramount questions you have to ask. One, would this person be a good president? Could he or she be a good president? And my answer, as a supporter of Hillary Clinton, is yes. And second of all, does putting this person on the ticket maximize the odds of the winning? Now, I think that the answer to that is yes, too, more than anybody else. Now, for example, I've seen a lot of speculation, said, “Well, you've got to unify the party so take someone who supported Hillary, someone from the Hillary wing of the party, who can deliver something. So, let's say Ted Strickland, the governor of Ohio, he's a friend of mine, served in Congress, nice guy, and would be a good candidate. He would certainly help the ticket in Ohio. But nobody knows him in New York, well, New York we don't have to worry too much, but nobody knows him in Pennsylvania. And that same thing is true of anybody, almost anybody you can think of. The only person I can think of who would help the ticket around the country with Obama as the nominee is Hillary. So I would certainly recommend that, for what it's worth.

Q: Do you think it matters to have a person from New York on the national ticket and perhaps in the administration, on things like the rail-freight tunnel, on things like the Ground Zero funding?
A: Well, I think it won't hurt. It might very well help.