WASHINGTON — The New Jersey congressional delegation secured more than $1 billion for the state since Congress revamped a once-banned federal funding process that now allows lawmakers to channel money to their home states and districts.
Since 2021, members of the delegation have 936 community-specific portions of funding, known in congressional lingo as “earmarks,” spread across four federal budget cycles.
All together, lawmakers who represent New Jersey on Capitol Hill have obtained a total of $1,117,806,627 in earmarks, according NJ Spotlight News, which has tallied the projects since Congress revived the earmarking process in 2021. That tally is based on records from the Senate and House appropriations committees and other public sources, including the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
During the latest annual earmark process, each House member was allowed to pick 15 projects, though that number increased to 20 for the current budget cycle, which is underway. Senators are allowed to submit hundreds of earmarks.
“All of the projects are important,” Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-10th) said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News, adding that it is very difficult to narrow down a final list of projects. “I definitely can’t pick and choose.”
The more than 900 earmarks spread over four years underscore a state where demand for housing, environmental and public health projects is robust. More than half of the earmarks, 528, came from three federal agencies: the Department of Housing and Urban Development (274), the Environmental Protection Agency (149) and the Department of Health and Human Services (105).
An outsize portion of funding came from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the data show.
Spread over just 30 earmarks, lawmakers folded $147,170,000 for Corps projects into law, and projects in South Jersey and the New York and New Jersey Harbor are a dominant theme.
The biggest earmark, $32 million, obtained by Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), is for a multi-county Corps clean up project in Ocean and Cape May counties. And five Corps projects concern construction in the harbor.
Of the 10 most expensive New Jersey earmarks, seven are for Army Corps projects. Two of those will go to construct sea walls to guard against rising water levels due to human-fueled climate change. Booker and Menendez obtained $15.5 million for a sea wall and beach nourishment project in Avalon and North Wildwood, and they obtained $10 million in a separate project with Van Drew for a North Wildwood sea wall.
Twenty-three earmarks through the EPA will fund efforts to remediate lead pipes in sewer systems across New Jersey. Overall, about $172 million in EPA projects are slated or underway in the state, specifically through this earmarking system.
Other common objects include urban planning projects about pedestrian and cyclist safety (at least 23 projects); local water pump stations (16 total); and community and senior centers. Money for police departments, including the New Jersey State Police, and local fire departments are common, too.
Once Congress passes funding legislation that contains earmarks, that money flows to federal departments and agencies specified under that new law, then to states, counties, towns and local groups, often non-profits, who requested money months prior.
The process begins every spring when state agencies, counties and community groups submit funding requests to Senate and House lawmakers.
Though some Republicans eschew earmarks — Texas Republican Ted Cruz views them as “gateway drugs” to federal debt — everyone who has represented New Jersey in Congress since 2021, either Democrat or Republican, has requested and received earmarked funding.
Congress that year reestablished the earmarking system, which some lawmakers had abused by funneling money to donors or questionable projects in decades prior.
Today, the federal process is more transparent than the state equivalent, known as “Christmas tree” items. Federal politicians, for example, must disclose what projects they want funded months before Congress votes on spending bills that include their projects, unlike the state Legislature, which slips in funding in last-minute spending bills
Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, has pushed to make the budget process in Trenton, where members of the Legislature fold in funding for favorite projects, more transparent.
Sherrill obtained about $55 million across 54 earmarks during her time in Congress. The woman who won her seat, Rep. Analilia Mejía (D-11th), is the only sitting member who has not experienced this process. Mejía was sworn in too late to file for her own projects.
