Funding bill heads toward approval, cutting millions in support for Long Island projects

WASHINGTON — The expected passage Friday of a Republican funding bill to keep the federal government open would cancel $87 million for 52 projects earmarked by Long Island congressmen and New York senators in last year’s appropriations bill.

The now-defunded projects would have paid for improvements to sewers, water mains and roads; upgraded libraries, police departments and community facilities; and boosted training and other programs in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

The Senate is on a path to approve the continuing resolution before the midnight deadline when funding runs out after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday said he would vote for the bill and implicitly encouraged his caucus members to follow his lead.

“While the CR still is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,” Schumer told reporters about the funding bill.

The bill needs at least eight Democratic yes votes to get the 60 votes needed in a procedural vote to end a filibuster. All but one of the 53 Republicans — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul — are expected to vote for the bill.

The earmarks, called community project funds, were excluded in the House Republican bill to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, as President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk aim to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in spending.

Groups seeking to cut federal spending have long criticized earmarks, renamed last year as community project funds.

Tom Schatz, president of the Washington-based Citizens Against Government Waste, has called earmarks a corrupt, costly and inequitable practice that only adds to the fiscal burden on taxpayers.

But Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) has defended them, telling Newsday last year: “It’s not additional money. If we didn’t have the community project funds with this directed spending, some bureaucrat here in D.C. would be spending the money.”

The earmarks were sponsored by Garbarino, Anthony D’Esposito of Island Park and Nick LaLota of Amityville, and New York’s Democratic Senators Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. D’Esposito lost in his bid for a second term last year.

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) took office after the community project funding process had ended, and the House expelled his predecessor, George Santos, before it began. Rep. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre) defeated D’Esposito and took the seat in January.

Garbarino sponsored 15 projects totaling $36.4 million, LaLota backed 13 projects costing a total of $14.1 million and D’Esposito won funding for 13 projects totaling $20.5 million.

Schumer and Gillibrand together supported a dozen of the Long Island congressmen’s requests and cosponsored two of them, and also made eight joint requests that brought Long Island projects $10.5 million. With his own requests, Schumer also won $1.5 million.

The biggest losses for Long Island will be Garbarino’s earmarks for $5 million each for the Smith Point Bridge replacement, the Brentwood Workforce Training Center and road elevations in the Village of Amityville, $4 million for a Floral Park recharge basin to reduce flooding, $3.3 million for a Bellport coastal flood resiliency project and $3 million for a bulkhead replacement in Greenport.

Also lost will be $3.6 million to a state-of-the-art Kulanu facility in Cedarhurst for special-needs individuals, $3.1 million for a police training facility for Nassau County and nearly $4 million for planning for the Long Island Greenway trail to connect Manhattan to the East End.

The bill eliminates D’Esposito’s $6.7 million in earmarks for police departments in the villages of Freeport, Lynbrook and Rockville Centre, the Town of Hempstead Department of Public Safety and police training technology for Nassau County.

It cuts LaLota’s earmarks for sewer-related projects, water mains and stormwater infrastructure, including $3 million for the Mitchell Park bulkhead replacement in Greenport and $1.5 million for Port Jefferson harbor dredging, and a wall to break waves and protect the port.

And it cancels Schumer and Gillibrand’s nearly $4 million for the Long Island Greenway planning and funding for the preservation of the oral histories of descendants of American presidents by The Roosevelt School at Long Island University in Brookville and disabilities history education at The Viscardi Center in Albertson.