The Senate Legislative Oversight Committee began hearings into how New Jersey received such a paltry amount of federal disaster aid. Watch video
TRENTON -- State lawmakers and residents expressed frustration and anger Thursday over New Jersey's meager share of federal storm protection funding that a top U.S. Cabinet official said was the result of a "weak" application from the state.
The state Senate Legislative Oversight Committee convened the first of its hearings to examine why New Jersey was granted only $15 million of its $326 million request for flood protection projects through the National Disaster Resiliency Competition awards announced last month.
That award was in stark contrast to New York, which got $212 million through the same competition which had guaranteed the two states -- the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 -- at least some federal funding.
Why did N.J. miss out on $300M in federal Hurricane Sandy aid?
When the awards were announced last month, federal Housing and Urban Development Director Julian Castro said New Jersey received such a small amount because it submitted a "weak" application.
The committee's members said they want to know why the application was considered weak and where improvements could have been made.
"When you look at the issues, there's a lot of questions and we really deserve to get the answers so we don't repeat it again," said state Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester), the first to testify. "This isn't the first time that we came up weak in an application process. It's not the fist time. And New Jersey's economy cannot afford to pass up hundreds of millions of dollars over and over and over again."
In 2014, the federal government converted $1 billion in Sandy aid primarily earmarked for New York and New Jersey into a national competition for the funds.
Despite being invited to testify, members of the state Department of Environmental Protection did not attend, raising the ire of state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) who said she wanted the committee to seek the power to subpoena staffers with knowledge of how the department prepared the grant application.
But Sweeney, the head of the lawmaking body that could give the committee the subpoena power, said he would rather try to convince the department of the importance of its presences at the hearing.
State Sen. Bob Gordon (D-Bergen), the committee's chairman, opened the hearing with a recitation of other instances -- including the cancelation of the trans-Hudson River ARC Tunnel project in 2010 -- where New Jersey was either shut out of federal funding or left money on the table that it should have rightfully claimed.
"This failure of our state government to compete successfully for federal funding is just the latest in a series of decisions and missteps that have cost the state billions of dollars over the past six years," he said.
State Sen. Thomas Kean Jr. (R-Union) shot back by accusing Gordon of politicizing the issue. He called Gordon's opening comments "frustratingly partisan" and "wildly off-topic." He said the DEP has no answers from HUD, so it would be premature for department representatives to attend the hearing.
State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth), whose district is still recovering from Sandy, laid the problem at the feet of the state and federal governments and made reference to what's now become known as Gov. Chris Christie's "hug" with President Obama before a tour of the areas devastated by Sandy.
Kyrillos said the legislature didn't do a good enough job overseeing how the state spent its federal Sandy aid but also that federal officials could have helped guide the state through the application process.
"We all felt comfortable that the federal and state governments working well together -- I guess because the president and the governor hugged each other in the hours or days after Superstorm Sandy hit -- that everything would work out well. And for so many people and so many businesses it hasn't," he said.
Joelle Farrell, a spokeswoman for Christie's office, said the investigation should not be about how the state handled the application process, but about how HUD arrived at its findings.
She said HUD has not told state officials how it ranked the applications and won't do so until the end of a 30-day waiting period. She said the scoring process and criteria were "highly subjective" and that the state's application included leverage funding greater than or equal to other projects that received higher awards from HUD.
She also disputed HUD claims that part of the criteria was the ability of the proposed projects to be scaled back if enough funding wasn't available, which is known as "scalability."
Because of that lack of available information, Farrell questioned the timing of the hearing.
"It's hard to view this hearing as anything but political, given the lack of information from HUD on their questionable treatment of New Jersey," she said. "All we've been given from HUD at this point are vague and unsubstantiated comments made during a press conference concerning a lack of leverage funding and scalability."
"In light of these facts, HUD's explanation makes no sense whatsoever and only raises more questions that demand answers and an investigation by Congress or the Inspector General," she continued. "Rather than conduct political committee hearings, the legislative Democrats should be seeking answers from HUD."
Gordon said he hopes to have representatives from HUD and the DEP at a future hearing.
New Jersey's application for the resiliency funding included a $236 million proposal for flood prevention at the Meadowlands and a $75 million plan to build a storage facility for NJ Transit buses there.
Sweeney noted that while the application process required some type of housing plan, New Jersey's proposal did not include a housing component.
The application has drawn criticism from Shore residents whose homes remain damaged from Sandy.
And Bill Sheehan, executive director of the Hackensack Riverkeeper, said he's still not gotten an answer to one burning question: "how building a bus station in the middle of the Meadowlands protects anyone from flooding."
MaryAnn Spoto may be reached at mspoto@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto. Find NJ.com on Facebook.