Obama diverts $1 billion in Sandy funds away from New Jersey

Kyrillos and Holzapfel cry foul

By Art Gallagher | MoreMonmouthMusings.com

kyrillos talkingPresident Barack Obama announced that he is diverting nearly $1 billion in Hurricane Sandy recovery funds away from New Jersey and New York to fund a nationwide resiliency competition that will ostensibly help the winning communities build infrastructure to deal with the impacts of climate change.

Obama announced the competition last weekend at the University of California Irvine’s commencement, according to The Star Ledger:

“In some parts of the country, weather-related disasters like droughts and fires and storms and floods are going to get … harsher and they’re going to get costlier,” Obama said during the speech. “That’s why today I’m announcing a new one billion dollar competitive fund to help communities prepare for the impacts of climate change and build more resilient infrastructure across the country.”

State Senators Joe Kyrillos (R-Monmouth)and Jim Holzapfel (R-Ocean)l condemned the diversion of recovery funds away from their constituents.

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Art Gallagher
About Art Gallagher 432 Articles
Art Gallagher is a Highlands businessman, former President at Northern Monmouth Chamber of Commerce and the force behind the very popular Central Jersey political blog MoreMonmouthMusings.com.

8 Comments

  1. The Sandy Funding Debacle shows why it’s important for the state legislature and the United States Senators to have a constant communication. States cannot speak directly to the executive branch – they are not represented there. The State of New Jersey is represented in the United States Senate, and it is in that forum that our outrage must be heard.

    Where’s Booker? Tweeting to Hollywood? Actually he’s visiting churches in the Raleigh-Durham area. Maybe he should be spending some time trying to help churches who face bankruptcy because their congregations have been dislocated for years.

    At least Menendez held a press conference and chastised the idea of sending New Jersey’s disaster relief off to a think tank for an idea contest.

    Democrats are finally upset to see Obama using his Pen and his Phone to ignore the law and spend as he sees fit. They created the monster, now they realize they cannot control it.

    Note how they strut and fret before the press, but fail to act as legislators and call him to account.

    They are, to continue from Macbeth, “Full of sound a fury, signifying nothing”.

  2. Maybe, just maybe, the diversion of funds is because Christie hasn’t moved on them or dispersed them to the communities and instead used them as a political bargaining chip.

    Restoring the shore took a back seat to lining the pockets of friendly contractors and lawyers.

  3. Carefully calling attention to CC’s failures without having to say so directly, this effort punishes the victims of Sandy, and scarpers off with the money, leaving the inept leaders holding the bag.

    Well played, BHO…but the public sees through this, and won’t only punish the R Governor for this – you can bet the D Senators will pay a price.

    Voters are more savvy than you give them credit for – out of necessity, and nature’s efforts to fill the vacuum created when all the journalists retired, leaving the media to the spin doctors.

  4. I’m confused here. If the money was set for Sandy recovery, how can it be diverted? Isn’t it put into a special fund that cannot be messed with?

    Sorry for my lack of knowledge about how this works…

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