President Obama has a pen and a phone, but isn’t using either one to help the citizens of New Jersey. New Jersey 101.5 reports that Chris Christies bromance with Obama may be over, on Valentine’s Day:
As winter ice puts lives at risk on New Jersey roads, Townsquare Media has learned that a 1920 federal maritime law stranded a shipment of road salt at a Maine seaport while urgent requests for a waiver were denied by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Jim Simpson, head of New Jersey’s Department of Transportation, would confirm only that the state is now completely out of road salt and did ask federal officials for help concerning a 94-year-old law preventing foreign vessels from moving cargo from one U.S. port to another. Meanwhile, New Jersey has been unable to transport 40,000 tons of available road salt in Searsport, Maine in time to meet the urgent need here.
Townsquare Media has learned federal help was actually refused, literally causing New Jersey’s road salt shipment to miss the boat. A foreign transport sitting ready to load in Searsport is now approaching Port Newark empty, because the Department of Homeland Security denied the state’s request for a waiver of the requirement for an American-flagged vessel.
Simpson alluded to the situation in an exclusive interview with Eric Scott, aired on New Jersey 101.5 Friday morning but said he was hopeful the federal government would help. But Townsquare Media has learned that the state’s request to Homeland Security, which has granted such emergency waivers in the past, was turned down and New Jersey officials have spend the past week trying to get it reconsidered.
It’s a great thing that Obama didn’t close a bridge for a couple hours! If he did that, the media would be all over him…
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