Pascrell Marks Eighth Anniversary of Sandy Superstorm

PATERSON, NJ – U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) today memorialized the eighth anniversary of Superstorm Sandy hitting New Jersey and causing catastrophic damage to the Garden State.

“All New Jerseyans remember those terrible days in 2012. I will never forget them,” said Rep. Pascrell, who has helped lead efforts in Congress to provide storm relief to the state. “Our state had never seen anything like that terrible storm. Sandy was so powerful, even today, eight years later, many of our neighbors are still dealing the wreckage and loss.

“Our work in Congress to make our state whole goes on. This past summer, Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Albio Sires, and I were able to win an extension in the FY21 House appropriations bill of $395 million in soon-to-be expiring federal funding to rebuild from Sandy, pushing back arbitrary deadlines that hurt New Jersey. We are looking forward to it become law in a final appropriations bill. With the advancement of climate change, we must prepare ourselves for future superstorms, and to that aim Chairman Frank Pallone and I continue to demand major reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program. Our legislation would improve affordability and help our state and homeowners prepare for future storm damage. And on the Ways and Means Committee I am pushing my bipartisan bill creating a tax credit to encourage homeowners and businesses to build resilient structures. It is not enough to remember this terrible storm, we must learn from it too.”

A lead cosponsor of the National Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2017, Rep. Pascrell has consistently led the fight to provide federal relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy, securing various federal grants for New Jersey as the state continues to rebuild. In May of this year, he helped secure $1.3 million in federal dollars to aid Bergen County’s ongoing recovery process. In June 2019, Rep. Pascrell joined with state and local officials to unveil the new Moonachie Borough Hall after Pascrell helped secure $4.58 million for repairs to the storm-damaged facility. The following month, Rep. Pascrell helped lead bipartisan legislation to extend the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) for five years while instituting a series of sweeping reforms to address the waste, abuse, and mismanagement plaguing the system that led to delayed recovery for Superstorm Sandy survivors.

Earlier this year, Rep. Pascrell joined with Reps. Watson Coleman and Albio Sires (D-NJ-08) to extend of the expiration date for funding to rebuild New Jersey and ensure resilience in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. He also lent his support for the New Meadowlands Project in its successful bid for the federal Rebuild by Design project, a federal initiative to develop ideas capable of improving the ecological resilience of coastal areas. And in 2018, he excoriated Donald Trump and congressional Republicans in 2018 after they  sought to redirect $107 million in disaster relief funds from New Jersey to pay for their deficit-funded tax scam bill ratified in 2017. Rep. Pascrell earlier this year introduced H.R. 7979, the Disaster Savings and Resilient Construction Act, to create a tax credit for homeowners and commercial businessowners who rebuild after a disaster in compliance with resilient building codes.

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