The gifts were funded by the American Rescue Plan's Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund.

In 2020, the statewide agency provided approximately 206 million trips for riders. That works out to 1 out of every 29 nationwide, according to U.S. Sens. Bob Menendez and Cory Booker. And that's not just along the rails; together with its buses, the agency covered 152 million miles in 2021.

All the spending must be cleared by the bipartisan Joint Budget Oversight Committee, which includes Republican and Democratic lawmakers from the state Senate and Assembly.

The initiatives focus on aviation, biomanufacturing, clean energy and “smart ports,” which NJEDA Chief Executive Officer Tim Sullivan said all boast “potential to drive transformative economic growth and job creation.”

The Newark Emergency Small Business Grant Fund was created in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic to support the city's impacted enterprises. The program's latest round, its fourth, offers up to $15,000 for eligible companies.

One sets aside $180 million of American Rescue Plan aid for schools and small businesses to upgrade their ventilation and water systems. Another makes New Jersey the 27th state to offer C-PACE financing, according to Environment New Jersey head Doug O'Malley, "the most popular energy efficiency program you haven't heard of,” to commercial property owners.

A spokesperson for Gov. Phil Murphy’s office said that the rates for employers were set into law when Murphy approved a bill in January to space out payments, “making any contribution of federal funds irrelevant in the current fiscal year.”

Two South Jersey Democratic state senators are signing on to a mostly Republican-led effort to use American Rescue Plan money to prevent an increase in N.J. employers' unemployment levy.

Instead, the board said it would extend its 2021 fiscal year spending plan, though agency head Kevin Corbett said it is doing so on borrowed time.

The initiative, part of the American Rescue Plan, will engage with community organizations to aid small businesses around the country during recovery, with a priority on those owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, women and veterans.

City officials said the plan - which will contribute more than $8 million of the $177 million it's getting from the Biden administration under the American Rescue Plan - would hone in on job growth, so-called “equitable development,” small business growth, and neighborhood revitalization.

Business groups contend the state can act now to prevent the increases, given a $6.5 billion federal relief package under the American Rescue Plan and $10 billion of surplus money, but it is opting not to.