New Jersey’s E-ZPass Contract Raises Concerns About Potential China Ties, Lawmakers Say

Empty toll plazas are seen on New Jersey Turnpike/I 95 one of the busiest highways in the United States on April 14, 2020. Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images

Lawmakers have raised concerns about the New Jersey Turnpike Authority’s decision to award an 11-year E-ZPass contract to a Singaporean-owned company over its alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

“This is an issue that transcends politics, where we’re truly concerned for the deal and whether or not we can have safeguards to make sure that we were being properly protected,” state Sen. Joe Pennacchio, a Republican from Morris County, said in an interview with The Epoch Times on Feb. 22.

In September last year, the Turnpike Authority awarded Nashville-based TransCore to run the E-ZPass customer service operations for $1.73 billion, beating out Newark-based Conduent and its more competitive bid of $1.479 billion. TransCore’s parent company, Singapore Technologies Engineering (STE), is owned by Temasek Holdings, which is wholly owned by Singapore’s government.

Earlier this month, Pennacchio wrote a letter to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy asking him to use his executive power to void the contract. He explained that Fu Chengyu—a former chairman of China’s state-owned oil companies and a high-ranking CCP member with ties to China’s influence network the United Front—was a member of Temasek’s board of directors until recently.

“You have a foreign entity with a former member of the CCP who used to be on the board,” Pennacchio said. “So, I mean, that should be red flags.

“So that’s where we’re dependent on our own government to make sure that these deals that are going to happen are properly vetted, and they’ve gone through the proper circles of national defense, of Homeland Security, and, you know, the Treasury Department making sure that our financial secrets are kept secret not shared with other people.”

The senator explained that the E-ZPass system collects personal information such as driver’s license information, credit card numbers, and banking information, and can also track the movements of cargo and people.

Pennacchio questioned whether the deal was properly vetted during the Biden administration. He said he had received a response from Murphy directing him to reach out to the Turnpike Authority but noted that the port agency had not conducted the vetting.

“The only thing that I was able to find through one of the news articles was that the U.S. Treasury Department vetted the company,” he said.

According to Pennacchio, it is important to make sure that Temasek won’t use the collected personal information for nefarious means.

“We should have at least the Trump administration perhaps taking a second look and making sure that they’re comfortable ... that these people won’t share that information, and that there are no Chinese military or Chinese government ties to this organization.”

Bipartisan Concern

The New Jersey E-ZPass is accepted in several locations, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the South Jersey Transportation Authority, the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, and the Burlington County Bridge Commission.

The issue has drawn scrutiny from New Jersey lawmakers.

“China keeps trying to steal Americans’ data. Their newest target: Jersey families,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) wrote on social media platform X on Feb. 7. “We cannot allow our personal information and whereabouts to get into the hands of our number one adversary.”

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) sent a letter to the Turnpike Authority’s Board of Commissioners on Feb. 5, calling their decision to award the contract to TransCore “misguided.”

“Handing over critical infrastructure operations to a company tied to China is reckless and unnecessary when American-based companies are fully capable of handling these services. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority must reconsider this contract immediately and put American interests first,” Van Drew said in a statement at the time.

In a Feb. 11 letter to Van Drew, TransScore stated that it “delivers the most secure toll systems” in the United States, given that its national security agreement with the Department of Justice would ensure that data collected by its tolling systems is not accessible by or shared with any foreign entity or affiliate, including Singapore’s STE.

“There is no connection between TransCore, or its parent company ST Engineering (STE), with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” TransScore wrote. “Temasek, as a shareholder of STE, has no director appointed to the STE Board and has no role in STE’s business operations.”

Newark’s Conduent, which had the E-ZPass contract for eight years, filed a protest with the Turnpike Authority in October last year.

“There is no justification for awarding TransCore a contract that is over $251 million more than what Conduent offered,” the appeal document stated.

In response to The Epoch Times’ inquiry, Sean Collins, vice president of External Communications and Analyst Relations at Conduent, stated that TransCore failed to address Temasek’s role or bring up that a high-ranking CCP member was a former chairman in its letter to Van Drew.

“The response portrayed Temasek as merely one of many shareholders, rather than acknowledging it as the majority and controlling shareholder that consented to Singapore Technologies’ acquisition of TransCore,” Collins said. “Importantly, TransCore failed to comply with the statutorily required ownership disclosure requirement in its proposal.”

“Conduent’s proposal also provides for immediate implementation of AI-powered customer experience technologies, high-quality services, and more customer service agents—all without the substantial risks and delays of converting to a new vendor.”