Port Authority's press conference on post-'Bridgegate' reform suddenly cancelled

FORT LEE, N.J., May 30 (UPI) -- Lawmakers from New York and New Jersey have a cancelled a press conference intended to announce new efforts to reform their states' shared Port Authority.

The reforms were to address issues that may have enabled the recent George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal. With just an hour notice, the Friday news conference held in Fort Lee was nixed. At the time, no explanation was given.

"We just got word that something happened in New Jersey," a spokeswoman for Brooklyn Assemblyman Jim Brennan told the New York Daily News. "The legislation will be moving. We're not sure what the hangup is, as far as we know everything is moving along."

In New Jersey, however, things were not going as smoothly.

"We have one very complex bill and another we haven't even started yet," New Jersey state Senator Loretta Weinberg explained to the statewide Star Ledger. "We didn't even have the bills printed and ready to go. We just determined it was too rushed."

The press conference will be postponed to a yet-undetermined date.

Earlier today, New Jersey state Senator Bob Gordon and Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle issued a joint statement, saying, "We are committed to implementing effective binding reforms that will make the Port Authority operate with more transparency and greater accountability."

"The time has come for change [in] the Port Authority."