A view of Lady Liberty and the New York harbor as seen from above. A climate resilience plan to build a sea wall with gates from Queens to New Jersey just lost its federal funding, leaving the New York City area vulnerable to climate change related factors like storm surge and flooding.

(Getty Images)

At a Glance

The federal government unexpectedly cut funding to a climate resilience study in the NYC area.The funding cut came six weeks after the president mocked the study on Twitter. New York Senator Chuck Schumer said that with this move, the Trump administration is being “penny-wise and pound-foolish.”

A presidential Tweet is suspected to be the source for the federal government unexpectedly halting a study meant to protect the New York City region from flooding during storm surge.

by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to craft, test and evaluate five possible defenses against severe storms, storm surge and flooding that all threaten coastal communities and the New York and New Jersey harbor. Potential resilience measures ranged from a massive storm barrier to smaller scale options like wetlands.

The Corps engineers had been considering measures like a multibillion-dollar, 6-mile-long barrier to wall off New York Harbor from the Atlantic Ocean. The study had already cost $19 million as of 2018.

The announcement that the climate resilience study was “indefinitely postponed” came from The Army Corps of Engineers, and triggered shock from those associated with the study: officials, local politicians and advocates.

The move comes as climate change continues to exacerbate weather patterns and threaten the New York area and beyond with intensifying severe weather.

The Corps said in a statement only that the program was suspended because it did not receive funding to carry out their .

The Army Corps’ headquarters did not immediately respond to weather.com’s request for comment via phone and text message.

A senior administration official that the study was shelved because it was too expensive and unfocused.

According the the Times,

While Mr. Trump cannot single-handedly cancel a Corps project — the funding is allocated by Congress, and its work plan is determined jointly by Corps officials, the Department of Defense and the White House Office of Management and Budget — the unusual suspension of an ongoing project quickly led to speculation that politics had played a role.

The president’s January tweet mocked one of the five possible proposals that would reduce storm flooding along the New York Harbor and its rivers. He specifically poked at the proposal of a sea wall with retractable doors that would stretch from New Jersey to Queens, calling it “foolish.”

It is important to note that the president overstated the barrier’s cost at $200 billion — it was really an estimated at $119 billion, and was later revised to $62 billion.

A senior administration official told the Times , because “it is required that these studies have a reasonable cost and scope. These particular ones did not.”

Robert Freudenberg, the Regional Plan Association's vice president for energy and environment, called the decision to quash the study "unprecedented and dangerous."

"This is the biggest study region-wide looking at measures to protect communities and ecosystems from the impacts of big storms like Sandy," . "The idea that a study of this magnitude being pulled in the dead of night is shocking."

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio responded to Trump’s tweet with a tweet of his own that reminded the president of the 44 city residents who died during Sandy. “Your climate denial isn’t just dangerous to those you’ve sworn to protect — it’s deadly,” the mayor tweeted.

De Blasio and Trump have a , to say the least, but he is not the only politician to criticize Trump’s tweet on the ensuing budget cut.

“This is the equivalent of the president of the United States telling New York City to drop dead,” . “I’m very worried that there will be a mass displacement of people because a lot of low-income working families live in vulnerable coastal areas of New York City.”

Many of Treyger’s constituents were forced from their home in 2011 due to Hurricane Sandy.

Treyger said the proposed barrier would not only protect the city in the future, it could pay dividends in the short term. “The more you invest in resilience, the more you can reduce your flood insurance bills,” he said.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer said that with this move, the Trump administration is being “penny-wise and pound-foolish.”

Even politicians who were critical of the Corps’ program are shocked by the sudden defunding. Councilman Justin Brannan, who has led hearings grilling the Army Corps of Engineers, called the cancellation of the study “totally insane.”

The move leaves New York and New Jersey with an uncertain future, with this having been the states' best chance at procuring federal funding as climate change promises to bring stronger storms and coastal flooding to the region.