Proponents of the state’s plan to build Moynihan Station say further postponement of a final vote scheduled for next week could cost New York about $130 million in federal funds.

The $900 million project, which would remake the Farley Post Office building on Eighth Avenue between 31st and 33rd streets into a transit hub, is named after Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late Democratic senator. It has been in the works since the late 1990s. Governor Pataki wanted to begin construction this fall, but last month the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, postponed final approval based on unanswered questions.

Development analysts say the Pataki administration, which is eager to push the project forward before the governor leaves office at the end of the year, is using the threat of lost funds to usher the project through. Democrats, they say, are stalling with the hope that the front-runner to be the next governor, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, will take control over the plan.

The project is tentatively on next week’s agenda of the Public Authorities Control Board, but Mr. Silver has given no indication that he will now approve it, and he recently told the New York Observer he would not do so until the Moynihan Station project is incorporated into a larger, unfinished plan to move Madison Square Garden.

The president of the Municipal Art Society, Kent Barwick, said the threat is real that Congress could take back federal monies that were appropriated a long time ago.

“It has been eight and half years and we are really worried,” Mr. Barwick said. “New York is a graveyard of big ambitions that never got off the ground.”

Mr. Silver’s objections to the current plan are tied to a letter the state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, a Democrat, wrote to the representatives on the Public Authorities Control Board. It raises concerns about cost overruns, the amount of contingency funds available, and long-term operational expenses for the state. Mr. Hevesi also said the impact of moving Madison Square Garden required an additional comprehensive plan.

Mr. Spitzer has said he opposes approval of the plan based on the financing questions raised by Mr. Hevesi.

A director of the state’s development agency, Robin Stout, said those questions have been answered.

“The functional heart of Moynihan can be built regardless of what happens to the rest of the Farley Building,” Mr. Stout said. “Moynihan Station will have its own new independent utility even if a new Penn Station is built between Seventh and Eighth avenues.”

Yesterday, the offices of Messrs. Silver and Hevesi acknowledged that opinion but were not moved to update their stances on Moynihan Station.

The president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, Peg Breen, said Mr. Silver should move the project forward. Any further delay, she said, would rob New York of a valuable transportation project.

“The last thing this needs is to be caught up in party politics,” Ms. Breen said. “There is plenty of glory to go around here.”

The Moynihan Station project seemed to be coasting toward final approval until the state’s chosen developers, Vornado and the Related Companies, earlier this year began circulating grander plans to relocate Madison Square Garden from its current location over Penn Station, into the western side of the Farley Post Office building.

The move would allow the existing Penn Station, the largest transit hub in the United States, to be expanded and opened up to daylight. Many elected officials and civic organizations see the arena’s relocation as an unprecedented opportunity to right one of the city’s worst planning nightmares.

Robert Gottheim, an aide to Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes the potential site of Moynihan Station, said that he was not immediately aware of any signs that the federal funding is in jeopardy.

“The congressman met with Vornado and Related, he was intrigued very much and he thinks that site should be judged holistically. It shouldn’t be done piecemeal,” Mr. Gottheim said.

A spokeswoman for the Federal Railroad Administration, Dede Cordell, said the federal funding is not in danger.

“It has been appropriated. The money will sit in that pot until they use it,” Ms. Cordell said.