U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Manasquan Mayor Richard Dunn announced a grant that will provide $108,000 in funding for restoration of the historic Manasquan Coast Guard Station. The $108,000 grant follows a $32,000 Historic Trust Preservation grant Smith helped the borough receive last year to provide for the architectural work that has to be completed before the structure is restored. Read more

At briefing on Capitol Hill today, patients who have been treated with cord blood transplants, along with their doctors from the New York Blood Center, gave testimony and stood as living proof of the incredible promise and success of cord blood stem cell treatments. Read more

“A multi-year effort to convince the Department of Defense (DoD) to make a major Army National Guard investment at Navy Lakehurst has proven successful,” said Rep. Chris Smith, who began working on the project in 1998. As a result, President Bush’s Fiscal Year 2006 military construction budget recommends $26.685 million in funding to build a Consolidated Logistics and Training Facility (CLTF) at the far-western edge of the Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station. Read more

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Vice-Chairman of the House International Relations Committee today welcomed news from the Vietnamese government announcing the planned release of Fr. Nguyen Van Ly and Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, two internationally famous Vietnamese political prisoners who have been held unjustly in prison for the last several years. Read more

Your willingness to endure the cold and snow in this great witness for life is truly inspiring – and special thanks to Nellie Gray for her extraordinary leadership. Read more

While surveying humanitarian relief efforts in Sri Lanka, Congressman Smith met with Howell, New Jersey resident, Lance Corporal Richard Moran who was deployed to Sri Lanka to operate Marine Corps Water Purification Units capable of treating nearly any water source and turning it into clean water at the rate of thousands of gallons per day. Congressman Smith is pictured here with Lance Corporal Moran outside of Colombo, Sri Lanka. In addition to Sri Lanka, Smith toured Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and Phuket, Thailand as part of a congressional delegation preparing new legislation aimed at helping tsunami victims rebuild their lives. The legislation will provide specific protections for children who are susceptible to water-born disease and most vulnerable to sex traffickers who prey on poor, abandoned or orphaned children. Read more

During his recent trip to the tsunami-devastated region, Congressman Smith also visited areas that were destroyed by the giant waves that came ashore without warning on December 26, killing over 30,000 people in Sri Lanka alone. Smith is pictured here visiting a US-funded school, in which over 2/3 of the students perished in the disaster. One of Smith’s priorities is to back development of an early warning system and expand microloan programs, which will help poor families and municipalities rebuild their businesses and livelihoods. Read more

During Congressman Chris Smith’s recent survey of humanitarian relief efforts in South Asia, he visited a relocation center in Sri Lanka for tsunami survivors. Smith is pictured here listening to the stories of tsunami victims at the center. Many had lost multiple family members, including their children. Smith is supporting Congressional legislation which will provide additional funding for emergency food and shelter, assist with family reunification efforts, and help the recovery of lives and livelihoods. In particular, the legislation will help protect orphaned children at risk of abuse from sex traffickers by providing for the physical, social and educational needs of children and preventing sex trafficking rings from setting up operations in post-conflict and natural disaster situations. Read more

Worried that House Republican leaders are poised to oust Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) as chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, a wide array of veterans groups is warning that such a move would send the wrong signal to U.S. troops abroad. Read more

Rep. Chris Smith (R-Hamilton) announced today that he has locked in a New Jersey delegation classified briefing with key Department of Homeland Security (DHS) experts to discuss the intelligence and data used as the basis for the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) grant allocation for Fiscal Year 2005. The briefing is currently set for January 6, 2005, in Washington, D.C. Read more