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

Authored by Frank Fang and Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

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, told The Epoch Times on Feb. 22.

In September 2024, the Turnpike Authority awarded the E-ZPass customer service operations to Nashville-based TransCore for $1.73 billion. TransCore beat out Conduent, based in Newark, New Jersey, and its more competitive bid of $1.48 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 Work Department—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 … the Treasury Department, making sure that our financial secrets are kept secret, not shared with other people.”

The senator said 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 will not 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,” he said.

Bipartisan Concern

The New Jersey E-ZPass is accepted by the transportation authorities of several regions, 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,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) wrote on social media platform X on Feb. 7. “Their newest target: Jersey families. 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,” Van Drew said in a statement at the time. “The New Jersey Turnpike Authority must reconsider this contract immediately and put American interests first.”

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

“There is no connection between TransCore, or its parent company ST Engineering (STE), with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” TransCore 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 2024.

“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 and adviser relations at Conduent, stated that in TransCore’s letter to Van Drew, the company failed to address Temasek’s role or mention that a high-ranking CCP member was a former chairman.

“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.”