Environmentalists Flunk Christie, Administration on Sandy Recovery Report Card

The late New York Mayor Ed Koch had a trademark slogan he’d ask voters as they emerged from subway stations: "How’m I doing?"

If some of New Jersey’s environmental groups were asked that by Gov. Chris Christie, they would probably respond, "Pretty poorly. You need to do a lot better and be a lot smarter in helping the state recover from Hurricane Sandy."

In a press conference in the Statehouse yesterday, a coalition of environmental organizations issued a report card you wouldn’t want your parents to see, giving Christie and his administration near-failing or failing grades in how well New Jersey is doing in rebuilding from the devastating superstorm.

Instead of rebuilding smarter, the groups argued that the state is repeating the mistakes of the past, which left much of the Jersey coast vulnerable to damage from extreme storms like Sandy. Homes and buildings are going up in precisely the same places destroyed by the hurricane. The state’s response to the storm also ignores the impact of rising sea levels and climate change, they said.

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