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(The following appeared on the Bergen Record website on June 7, 2011.)

The cost of fighting the federal government over a shuttered commuter $1 million, records released Monday show.

Attorneys for NJ Transit billed New Jersey’s taxpayers $72,588 for work done in March, and $54,000 for legal work performed in April, according to invoices released by the state Attorney General’s Office.

That is in addition to the more than $950,000 the state was billed between December 2010, when the Washington, D.C.-based firm Patton Boggs was hired, and February.

NJ Transit hired the firm to fight the Federal Transit Administration’s demand that the transit agency return $271 million in federal money that was used toward building a Hudson River commuter tunnel before Governor Christie shut it down in October.

Full story: www.northjersey.com