- Well, the Jersey Shore is getting ready to wrap up another strong summer, but some beach towns are facing a future of uncertainty after Hurricane Erin stripped away large chunks of the coastline.

Local leaders say a lack of federal support is putting the shore, tourism, and the local economy at risk.

Congressman Jeff Van Drew, whose district includes much of South Jersey's coast, met this week with shore town leaders and the Army Corps of Engineers to talk about beach projects and resilience funding amid mounting pressure as Congress scales back federal dollars to pay for it.

Representative Jeff Van Drew joins me now for more.

Congressman, it's good to see you.

We appreciate your time.

Let's start with Hurricane Erin.

Yesterday you met with several mayors of shore towns and other state officials.

What concerns did they share with you about how this storm battered coastal communities and what assurances did you give them that the federal government will be able to help provide some protection?

Well it was a great meeting.

We had I guess about 30, 35 people there, mostly mayors, council people, but we had some administrators, engineers.

We had the Army Corps of Engineers, their engineers, as well as the Department of Environmental Protection from the state of New Jersey.

I wanted to do a comprehensive meeting where people could really get a sense of where we were, where we are now, and where we want to go, which I think is important with any situation or project.

So let me say about Aaron, first of all, yes, it was a storm, absolutely, and thank God it didn't hit land because that was a big storm.

Our mayors are used to this part of living at the shore.

And let me say, I have, you know, the largest district in the state of New Jersey.

It is actually bigger than the state of Delaware.

And I have a really big chunk of the Jersey shore.

We had folks from Ocean County, which is in my district, all the way down to Cape May County and everything in between.

And we talked about, you know, the effects of Aaron.

And of course, in some areas, they were virtually untouched.

Other areas had some hotspot erosion and some problems that existed.

Some had exacerbated some conditions.

Some it was new.

But they're used to it.

But the big issue is, you know, how is it funded and what do we do?

And there is an erroneous belief out there sometimes that this is funded in budgets.

For years, it's never been funded in budgets straight out.

And in fact, in New Jersey, for years, we have done continuing resolutions.

We've had some rescissions.

We've had some other forms of funding, but we haven't actually done that.

And we've done reconciliation, which is different as well.

The money that we got for all these big projects that have taken place in the past, and we'll talk about the past first, was money that came from supplemental funding, money that came from earmarks that I did, money that came from the transportation and infrastructure bill which I voted for supported because I knew it would do a great deal for New Jersey and that was very important as well.

And it came from even a little bit of sandy funding that was left over.

So we were able to do a lot.

Congressman, if I can just have you to be clear, to clarify for viewers, because Republicans in the House Appropriations Committee did vote to reduce funding for beach replenishment projects from the usual $200 million to $60 million.

So what's the discrepancy here that you're talking about?

The discrepancy is there hasn't been money in any budget in years now that actually got out of appropriations.

It usually isn't done there.

It is done in reconciliation in some parts, but this reconciliation didn't do that.

It's done by supplemental funding.

It's done by earmarks.

It's done in other ways.

All the money that's come in over the most recent years, there was no cut.

It was never in any budget.

What a committee does is far different than what the final product does.

And many years, it's been cut or has not been in there.

Nothing was cut because nothing was in there, which is not unusual.

We knew that this year we're going to take a pause.

And next year, we're already working not only on a '26 budget, but on other sources of money to come in.

And the mayors all understand that.

They were -- it was very clear with them, and they understood it.

Again, the money that came in... What are you pledging?

Sure.

The money that came in came in from supplemental money.

It came from money that came in from earmarks that I did.

It came from a little bit of Sandy funding.

And it came in from the transportation and infrastructure money, which was a lot.

Now, the problem is... And let me just jump in, Congressman.

... those sources have run out.

Just to ask you about that then, what have you told the mayors then about how you'll help collect that money through these alternate routes?

Because I know the state has matching funds ready to go.

The DEP says, though, that without the federal dollars there from whatever route, there's nothing to match.

So can you tell me about that conversation?

Yeah, and there's no reason to think there wouldn't be.

And the DEP was there, and they're supportive.

We work hand in glove with the Army Corps of Engineers.

And when erroneous information comes out, which we just spoke about, when we say that something was caught or something was done, frankly, the Army Corps of Engineers was very upset as well, because that was not accurate.

Now, where's the money going to come from?

We are looking at money where we can find it.

And in transportation and infrastructure, we're working with the Office of Management and Budget to find money there that can be moved from projects not at the coastal shore, but that are in other areas, not even in New Jersey, that aren't going to come to fruition or be needed for a number of years.

To move that money through OMB to fund this.

Secondly, we're looking for a permanent source of funding so that nobody has to go through this year after year after year, which has been the history of this, through leases and other things that are done when there's leasing going on, that there'd be a permanent fund from those lease dollars that come in that would go right to beach replenishment.

So we're looking at multiple sources.

What we're also looking at is to make beach restoration more permanent.

One of the things the mayors agreed on, and we all agreed on, it is a shame.

Literally, there were projects that had just finished up a couple of weeks ago, that 50% of the sand was washed away with just one storm.

We have that all the time.

So we're looking into doing permanent structure and new ideas.

We got money in there to actually $16.5 billion to look at, I'm sorry, million dollars, to look at different alternative ways to keep sand where we place it instead of having it immediately wash away.

So we're doing all of that.

What are some of those alternatives, Congressman?

I mean, given the intensity that these storms are bringing, the frequency, as you mentioned, is it a sustainable strategy, the replenishment, the nourishment projects that you would support continuing?

Of course, we would look the shore.

We rely on beautiful beaches.

New Jersey has some of the most beautiful beaches in the country.

We were the only state in the entire union when we got this money to study this and for hot spot erosion as well in Atlantic City, we did get money there as well.

The only state in the union that got it was New Jersey.

And by the way, we are number two in the country for beach funding.

Only Florida, which has a lot more coasts than we do, gets more money than we do in New Jersey.

We've been damn successful.

We're doing well.

We're going to continue to do well.

One of the things we need to look at are groins, and we need to make sure that, again, we establish structure that won't create harm, that will actually be good in keeping the sand there.

That's a real big deal.

The one thing that the mayors agree, we all agree, certainly the public and the taxpayer agrees, we've got to figure out better ways to do this, and it's become more expensive than ever to do it.

- Congressman, let me switch gears just for a very quick moment.

Just to, we're of course looking at the November election coming up here in the state with the governor's race.

Vote by mail ballots are set to go out in just a couple of weeks.

I wanted to give you a chance to clarify, I know there were comments made recently about vote by mail ballots going out to deceased residents in the state that you had been notified about.

Can you clarify that for us?

- I think it's pretty clear, when, especially when we had the COVID, I'm particularly talking about the election during COVID, I had many people, not one, not two, not three, but good numbers of people who brought them in.

They had relatives who had passed away, and yet they were still sent ballots.

We had people that came into our office with multiple ballots for them, for the same person.

We had people who had moved and since didn't live there that had gone through that.

We had people in apartment buildings that said there were ballots, vote-by-mail ballots, that were just strewn around the apartment building, just laying around.

They didn't know who they belonged to, what was going on, and nobody was really monitoring that.

That's unacceptable.

We shouldn't do that.

I believe in early voting.

Here's what I believe in.

Early voting on the machine, no problem.

We can do that weeks early.

It's great.

Helps people with schedules.

If you are sick, if you are disabled, if you are away in business for a long, prolonged period of time and there's nothing you can do, certainly you can still have vote by mail.

But vote by mail, the way it was done, is not the main way people should be voting.

Representative Jeff Van Drew, we have to leave it there.

We thank you for your time and your insight.

You got it.

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