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congestion pricing
Trump Admin Cancels Grants for Pedestrian Safety and Bike Lanes, Calling Them ‘Hostile’ to Cars
More than 7,148 pedestrians were killed by personal motor vehicles in 2024, just shy of a 40-year high. Meanwhile, travelers are much more likely to die in cars than on public transit.
Sep 24, 2025
The US Department of Transportation began earlier this month to rescind federal funding for local projects across the country to improve street safety and add pedestrian trails and bike lanes, because they were deemed "hostile" to cars.
A report Monday in Bloomberg cited several examples of multimillion-dollar grants being axed beginning on September 9, all with the same rationale:
A San Diego County road improvement project including bike lanes “appears to reduce lane capacity and a road diet that is hostile to motor vehicles,” a US Department of Transportation official wrote, rescinding a $1.2 million grant it awarded nearly a year ago.
In Fairfield, Alabama, converting street lanes to trail space on Vinesville Road was also deemed “hostile” to cars, and “counter to DOT’s priority of preserving or increasing roadway capacity for motor vehicles.”
Officials in Boston got a similar explanation, as the Trump administration pulled back a previously awarded grant to improve walking, biking, and transit in the city’s Mattapan Square neighborhood in a way that would change the “current auto-centric configuration.” Another grant to improve safety at intersections in the city was terminated, the DOT said, because it could “impede vehicle capacity and speed.”
These are just a few of the projects cancelled in recent weeks by the Trump administration. According to StreetsBlog, others included a 44-mile walking trail along the Naugatuck River in Connecticut, which the administration reportedly stripped funding from because it did not "promote vehicular travel," and new miles of rail trail in Albuquerque for which DOT said funding would be reallocated to "'car-focused' projects instead."
The cuts are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to slash discretionary federal grants under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act signed by former President Joe Biden in 2021.
These include the RAISE infrastructure grant and Safe Streets and Roads for All programs, for which Congress has allocated a combined $2.5 billion annually to expand public transportation and address the US's worsening epidemic of pedestrian deaths.
Data published in July by the group Transportation for America revealed that the Trump administration has been implementing funds for safety grants at about 10% of the speed of the Biden administration.
According to a report published in July by the Governors Highway Safety Association, US drivers struck and killed 7,148 pedestrians in 2024, "enough to fill more than 30 Boeing 737 jets at maximum capacity." Though fatalities have decreased slightly from a 40-year peak in 2022, the number of fatalities last year was 20% higher than in 2016.
Research has overwhelmingly shown that adding bicycle and pedestrian lanes to streets can reduce these fatalities. Even the DOT's own Federal Highway Administration website recommends introducing "Road Diets" that reduce four-lane intersections to three lanes, making room for pedestrian refuge islands and bike lanes to serve as a "buffer" between automobile traffic and sidewalks.
According to the website, "studies indicate a 19 to 47% reduction in overall crashes when a Road Diet is installed on a previously four-lane undivided facility as well as a decrease in crashes involving drivers under 35 years of age and over 65 years of age."
Car crash fatalities are also up in general, according to preliminary data from the Department of Transportation: 39,345 were killed in motor accidents in 2024 compared with 32,744 a decade prior, a 20% increase.
Despite this, the Trump administration has made its preference for maximizing car travel abundantly clear. Trump has attempted to block California from constructing a massive new high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco and has tried to stymie New York's wildly successful congestion pricing program.
Citing isolated cases of subway and train crime, he and other members of the Republican Party often paint public transit as excessively dangerous.
In one interview on Fox News in May, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ranted that, "if you're liberal, they want you to take public transportation." While stating that he was "OK with public transportation," he said, "the problem is that it's dirty. You have criminals. It's homeless shelters. It's insane asylums. It's a work ground for the criminal element of the city to prey upon the good people."
However, data show that between 2007 and 2023, deaths from automobile accidents were 100 times more likely than deaths on buses and 20 times more likely than on passenger trains.
Data: Highway passenger deaths from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data. Railroad passenger deaths from the Federal Railroad Administration. Airline passenger deaths from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Passenger miles estimates from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. All other figures are estimates from the National Safety Council. (Graphic: National Safety Council)
That hostility extends toward efforts to expand bicycle usage. In March, Duffy announced that the department would "review" all grants related to green infrastructure, including bike lanes, which was characterized as an effort to combat the previous president's attempts to reduce US transportation's carbon footprint.
Grant criteria sent to communities for the Safe Streets and Roads for All program explicitly warned communities that if "the applicant included infrastructure [resulting in] reducing lane capacity for vehicles," the application would be "viewed less favorably by the department."
When asked about this decision at a panel the next month, StreetsBlog reported that Duffy "grimaced and grumbled the word 'bikes' like it was an expletive, before repeating a string of corrosive myths about bike lanes that are all too common among people who only get around by car," including that they supposedly increase traffic congestion.
Many of the communities that have lost funding for their projects say they are still going to move ahead with them in some capacity. However, they argue that the government providing funds to improve road safety should be common sense.
Rick Dunne, the executive director of the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, stated that the effort to build a trail along the river will continue, even without the funding. But he expressed bewilderment at the administration's statement that investing in highway travel would better serve residents' "quality of life."
“Look, if your definition of improving quality of life is promoting vehicular travel, that's just, on its face, bad. Increase vehicle travel, increase pollution, increase safety risks,” Dunne told the CT Post. “Taking this money from this project, putting it into highway travel, is in no way going to increase economic efficiency. I don't see how you argue that it improves the quality of life of Americans, or the residents of this valley.”
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NYC's Congestion Pricing Has Caused 'Quality-of-Life Improvement' in Just Six Months
After six months, the policy of tolling drivers has reduced traffic and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the city's transit system. But the Trump administration is still trying to shut it down.
Jul 09, 2025
New York City's congestion pricing program has now been in place for six months as of Saturday, and according to state officials, it has already proven remarkably successful. It has survived despite efforts by the Trump administration to shut it down.
The program, which tolls drivers who drive through designated "congestion zones" below 60th Street in Manhattan has dramatically reduced traffic, which in turn has sped up commute times, reduced pollution, and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the city's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
"Six months in, it's clear: congestion pricing has been a huge success, making life in New York better," Governor Kathy Hochul (D) said Saturday. "In New York, we dare to do big things, and this program represents just that—traffic is down throughout the region, business is booming, transit ridership is up, and we are making historic upgrades to our transit system."
Since the program started, the number of vehicles driving through the congestion zone has decreased by 11%, with a total of 10 million fewer cars having entered compared to last year. In just the first three months of the program, traffic in the congestion zone sped up by 15%.
This has led to reduced wait times for commuters, not just in the congestion zone but in surrounding areas like the Bronx and Bergen County, New Jersey.
The number of crashes is down 14% in the congestion area, while traffic fatalities have reached "historic lows" citywide.
The data has also borne out the predictions from environmentalists and public transit activists who said the program would reduce pollution, both by capping the number of cars on the road and funding long-term investment in the public transit system.
The MTA is on track to raise $500 million from congestion pricing in 2025, as was projected when the policy went into effect. The agency also reports that subway and bus usage have gone up since congestion pricing began, while service speed has improved to "near record levels."
Beyond improving convenience, data shows the program is already improving quality of life in other ways. Early estimates from a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research show that within the first month of congestion pricing, CO₂ emissions from vehicles decreased by 2.5% with other forms of air pollution and soot levels also declining. These numbers will likely continue to rise as public transit usage expands.
Ben Furnas, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a New York-based pro-transit group that supported congestion pricing, told The Guardian that the program exceeded his already-high expectations.
"It's been even more obviously beneficial than even the most fervent proponents had hoped, and there have been really tangible improvements that are really gratifying," he said. "Reducing pollution is often seen to involve a lot of sacrifices, but this has been different. People can see the improvements to their lives. There was this cynical assumption that this was a bullshit charge and life will stay the same, but that assumption has gone away now."
During the tumultuous year leading up to congestion pricing's implementation, business groups raised fears that charging drivers would bankrupt small business owners. Hochul even blocked the policy from going into effect for months last year, citing those concerns.
Trump's Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, has called the charge a "slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners."
But the city reports more pedestrian traffic and faster commutes, increasing economic activity.
"Gridlock is bad for the economy," noted a statement from the state of New York. "Commuters are saving as much as 21 minutes each way. Time savings help businesses make deliveries and save costs."
The city also reports increased Broadway ticket sales, hotel occupancy, and commercial office leasing since the policy went into effect, as well as record employment figures.
Despite nearly immediate indicators of the congestion scheme's success, the Trump administration has been attempting to kill it since he returned to office in January.
"We've...fended off five months of unlawful attempts from the federal government to unwind this successful program and will keep fighting–and winning–in the courts," Hochul said.
In February, the White House infamously posted an artificially generated image of Trump wearing a crown. It quoted President Trump saying: "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"
That same month, U.S. Transportation Secretary Duffy withdrew federal approval for the congestion pricing pilot program, threatening to pull funding for other state transportation projects if it was not halted.
But a U.S. district judge issued a temporary restraining order in May that has, for the time being, halted the Trump administration's efforts.
Attempts to kill the program may prove more difficult in the future, as it has overcome initial skepticism to grow broadly popular with a majority of New Yorkers. Hochul herself was once among those skeptics, but she has grown to become one of its greatest champions.
"You are seeing in the governor… the zeal of the convert," said Daniel Pearlstein, a spokesperson for the pro-transit Riders Alliance.
"People who had their doubts, they saw it up close. They saw it working," he said. "They are saving New Yorkers and people from New Jersey valuable time every single day. Who would want to rip that away?"
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'We'll See You in Court,' New York Dems Tell Trump Over Move to End Congestion Pricing
Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York called the U.S. Department of Transportation's rationale for terminating tolling approval for the program "utterly baseless and frankly, laughable."
Feb 19, 2025
The Trump administration on Wednesday notified New York Gov. Kathy Hochul that it is moving to terminate New York City's congestion pricing program, a tolling scheme launched earlier this year that levies a $9 fee on most drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street.
The program, which is slated to generate $15 billion in revenue for New York City's mass transit system, was a hard-fought victory for environmental groups, mass transit advocates, and New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). New York State Lawmakers approved the initiative in 2019 after which point it entered a multiyear federal approvals process.
Congestion pricing has been opposed by various groups and public figures, including the New Jersey governor, the labor union the United Federation of Teachers, and some lawmakers who represent voters in outer boroughs and the suburbs.
Democratic leaders in New York have vowed to fight the Trump administration's move and the MTA has already filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the order.
In a letter to Hochul, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote that he and U.S. President Donald Trump have concerns about congestion pricing's impact on residents that use the tolled roads and that, in a reversal of a determination made by the previous administration in late November, the scheme is "not eligible" under the Federal Highway Administration's Value Pricing Pilot Program. By rescinding the agreement signed under the pilot program, the administration is aiming to effectively end the initiative's tolling authority.
Duffy called the program a "slap in the face to working-class Americans and small business owners," and separately, U.S. President Donald Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday to celebrate, writing: "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"
In response to the administration's aims to shut down the program, Hochul said Wednesday that "public transit is the lifeblood of New York City and critical to our economic future—as a New Yorker, like President Trump, knows very well."
"We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king... We'll see you in court," said the Democratic governor, who was widely criticized for halting congestion pricing last year before it had launched. The program later did move ahead with cheaper tolls.
MTA chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said in a Wednesday statement that "it's mystifying that after four years and 4,000 pages of federally supervised environmental review—and barely three months after giving final approval to the Congestion Relief Program—[U.S. Department of Transportation] would seek to totally reverse course."
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) called the arguments made in Duffy's letter "utterly baseless and frankly, laughable."
"The notion of revoking approval for a federal initiative of this magnitude is nearly without precedent. I firmly believe that there is no legal basis for the President to unilaterally halt this program," he said.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) called Trump's rationale for the move "hypocritical and groundless"
According to The New York Times, legal experts have doubts about whether the federal government can shut down congestion pricing.
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Electing Our Future: NYC Needs a Climate-Conscious Mayor
Let us use Eric Adams’ indictment as a moment to not only address the city’s corruption but to turn the page from a local government complacent with climate inaction to one that is invested in climate justice.
Oct 23, 2024
Hurricanes Helene and Milton have once again brought climate change to the attention of many voters. With so much dialogue regarding hurricane response directed toward the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the president, it is important to remember that local governments play a vital role in climate change initiatives.
Local governments are significant actors in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts through city policy, zoning decisions, funding distributions, and the enforcement of emissions laws. As New York City grapples with the indictment of Mayor Eric Adams and a fast-approaching mayoral election, residents should look south for motivation.
NYC needs a mayor that is a champion for the climate justice movement to curb emissions, increase local resilience, and build adaptive capacity to help avoid the catastrophic scenarios witnessed this month from Florida to North Carolina.
Reign of Error
Following the “reign,” as he recently put it, of Mayor Eric Adams, the city’s emissions projections remain bleak. In 2022, according to the emissions inventories provided by the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, New York City released 53.7 million tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere, a 17% decrease from the city’s 2005 benchmark. This is markedly short of the city’s goal to reduce emissions by 40% (from the benchmark) by 2030 and clearly not on track for the goal to achieve an 80% reduction by 2050.
According to the “One City, Built to Last” report released in 2014 under Mayor Bill de Blassio, two-thirds of these emissions reductions will need to come from building efficiency. A goal of 35% building emissions reduction by 2025 was set under this plan. Now, just two months from 2025, the reduction of buildings emissions is just 22%. Law 97, an attempt to decrease building emissions by 40% by 2030, has proven to be largely ineffective. The penalty set in place by the law is much too low for the world’s top financial and real estate companies at just $268 dollars per ton of carbon over the limit. Also, with only 30 staff members dedicated to enforcing the law, the estimated 3,700 buildings that are not complying with the law may never be held accountable. Additionally, Mayor Adams has created another loophole for these non-compliers, Renewable Energy Credits that will allow the owners of these buildings to buy credits to offset their emissions while maintaining their dangerous emissions levels.
Transportation, the second largest emitting sector in the city, has decreased only 3% from the 2005 benchmark. The vast majority of transportation emissions comes from on-road vehicles, 58% of which are privately owned according to a recent New York Times report. A policy passed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to decrease the number of vehicles in the city, Congestion Pricing, was shot down by Gov. Kathy Hochul before it even took effect. The response from Mayor Adams? He undermined the policy by agreeing with the governor’s decision. NYC was set to be the first city in the country to introduce congestion pricing, which may have served as a model and had a lasting impact on the future of green cities in the U.S..
A City in Peril
As Eric Adams continues to pander to the financiers of the fossil fuel industry, (who helped fund his campaign) and ultra-wealthy real estate owners, climate change projections for the city are becoming increasingly frightening. The New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) 2022 report on climate risks states that sea level rise (SLR), flooding, and heatwaves will be among the most threatening climate change impacts for the city.
SLR estimates are dependent on global trends in emissions and associated warming so are difficult to predict on a local level. At the low end of the NPCC estimates, SLR is expected to reach 12 inches by 2050 and, at the high end, 23 inches. By the end of the century, SLR will be between 25 and 65inches, making many low-lying areas like Brighton Beach, Rockaway Beach, and Midland Beach uninhabitable, and leaving areas across NYC extremely vulnerable to flooding. Increasingly intense and unpredictable tropical storms and cyclones will make Superstorm Sandy level events more frequent, consequently threatening lives and depleting disaster recovery funding.
Heatwaves are expected to increase in frequency and intensity, which could be detrimental for New Yorkers living and working in an already deadly heat island that claims 350 lives per year. Extreme heat events are increasing at a rate of 0.47 days per decade in Central Park and about one day per decade at LaGuardia. Heatwaves and increasing temperatures will affect low-income communities disproportionately where the heat island effect is greatest due to a lack of tree coverage and green spaces.
The Case for a Climate Justice Mayor
Let us use Eric Adams’ indictment as a moment to not only address the city’s corruption but to turn the page from a local government complacent with climate inaction to one that is invested in climate justice. We need a mayor that does not have deep ties with the funders of global warming but one that has deep ties in community organizing. We need a mayor that understands the dire consequences climate change will have on the city, from the economy to people’s livelihoods. We need a mayor that can help transform the city into a living example of a sustainable and equitable city. We need a mayor that cares about the future.
Of course, a mayor alone cannot not fix the plethora of climate change related issues the city is facing. But here is what a climate and community focused mayor could do for the city.
- Use New York City’s political and economic power to challenge Gov. Hochul when she makes irresponsible decisions, like shooting down Congestion Pricing and refusing to sign the Climate Change Superfund Act.
- Enforce existing buildings emissions caps and propose stricter emissions laws.
- Advocate for zoning laws that will promote renewable energy production.
- Create building codes that require greater energy efficiency while simultaneously ensuring infrastructural resilience to climate change impacts.
- Increase the pace of electrifying the city’s fleets and adding solar to all public buildings.
- Work directly with low-income communities to increase their climate resilience while protecting the areas from climate gentrification.
- Work directly with young activists and students who will be affected by climate change for their entire lives.
- Stop cop city, as it is part of a carceral system that disproportionately affects Black and brown communities, leading to inequity and increased vulnerability.
- Divert funding from the police system to climate change initiatives, homelessness services, and community organizations.
- Fix the city’s corruption.
As we saw this month in the South, entire cities’ futures rest on our ability to mitigate climate change and adapt to its powerful impacts. A climate justice mayor will lower the city’s emissions and increase the city’s resilience and adaptive capacity by focusing on improving social services; ending the city’s corruption; and working directly with civic groups, young people, and low-income communities. New Yorkers and the media must make climate justice the forefront of campaign issues as the mayoral election heats up.
Sunrise Movement NYC is a youth movement pushing to replace Eric Adams with a mayor who takes bold action to make environmental, economic, and racial justice the NYC standard. Follow the Sunrise Movement NYC Hub or @sunrisemvmtnyc on instagram to get involved and learn more about the future we are fighting for.
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Democratic Climate Heroes... and Villains
The reminder that there’s no automatic connection between a D next to your name and some courage on climate comes from many spots around the country, including in the deep blue Northeast.
Aug 23, 2024
Much of my past month has been spent Kamaling—I don’t know if I hold the record, but along with helping organize and MC the Elders for Kamala call, I’ve made cameos on Climate Leaders for, Oudoor and Conservation Leaders for, Christians for, and Vermonters for. I’m for. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have run a sparkling campaign so far, and this week’s convention in Chicago is a reminder that Democrats look and sound like America at its best. As opposed to the monochrome and bitter gathering that nominated former President Donald Trump (“Mass Deportations Now”), it’s been one long Party party. (When Patti LaBelle kicked off Tuesday night’s proceedings, the musician gap with the GOP grew unbridgeably wide).
Which is not to say that Harris will be a sterling climate president—we’ll have to wait and see, because we had no primary to press her on it. I don’t like long campaigns any more than anyone else, but in our system they are the only place activists can actually make a forceful case—that’s how climate became a real presidential issue for the first time in the 2020 race, which led quite directly to the Inflation Reduction Act. (And now, instead of a second-term Democrat freed to act with relative abandon, we’ll have a first-termer constrained by thoughts of her re-elect). So we’ll doubtless have to push her, once we’ve helped push her into the White House.
The reminder that there’s no automatic connection between a D next to your name and some courage on climate comes from many spots around the country, including even some where lots of good work has been done. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Coach Walz have gotten high high marks—converting narrow legislative margins into big action packages.
But places where it should be easier—in the deep blue, not the purple— haven’t gone as well. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s California has accomplished a lot with the move to solar power, as I’ve been writing about all spring—but he also has gutted both rooftop solar and community solar this spring. According to the Solar Rights Alliance, 22% of all solar jobs in the state have disappeared. That’s just stupid policy: Rooftop solar, among other things, has dramatically decreased the amount of electricity the grid needs to provide, which may be why the utilities hate it. (Texas Republicans, meanwhile, have made one attempt after another to gut renewables, but they may have waited too long—there’s enough money behind wind and sun now to defeat such efforts, and the state’s renewables, and just as importantly its battery fleet, are now growing like topsy.)
The closer we move to actual implementation of the big climate promises that politicians made during the Greta years, the more of this kind of backsliding we’re going to see.
And on the other side of the country, in the deep blue Northeast?
New York could and should be a renewable powerhouse. It lacks a Mojave Desert, but Long Island Sound could be the Qatar of offshore wind—the DOE estimates it could power 11 million homes, which is 4 million more homes than New York contains. With NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, it has some of the finest energy conservation minds in the country. And it has an environmentally minded populace—everyone thinks about New York City as a liberal bastion, but it was upstaters who banded together to force a ban on fracking.
And yet the state is lagging badly, in no small part thanks to Gov. Kathy Hochul. The Buffalo-area pol, who ascended more or less accidentally to her job when Andrew Cuomo couldn’t stop grabbing the women who worked for him, got perhaps her biggest moment of infamy earlier this year when, out of nowhere, she shifted 180° her position on congestion pricing in lower Manhattan and nixed the program—weeks after she’d given a long speech extolling it, and past the point where the city and state had spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying the cameras to make it work.
But that’s not her only anti-climate act. She’s also sat on her hands for months now after the state legislature passed the Climate Superfund act, which would send the bill for climate disasters to the oil companies that caused them. (You can sign a petition for the Superfund here). And now she’s “pondering” a “relaxation” of the state’s basic climate law, which promises to use renewables for 70% of the state’s power by 2030. According to Inside Climate News, she told reporters recently that “the goals are still worthy. But we have to think about the collateral damage of these decisions. Either mitigate them or rethink them.”
Why? Well, because she’s hearing from groups like
the Business Council of New York State ... They want to go beyond pushing back CLCPA deadlines. They hope to rewrite the law itself, targeting mandates to electrify buildings, passenger vehicles, and school buses.
“We are now at a point where implementation challenges call for a reassessment of the underlying statutory mandates,” the Business Council said July 30 while releasing a letter to Hochul signed by 60 business, fossil fuel, labor, farming, and small business groups.
This is the kind of utterly predictable pushback that confident legislators simply manage with a few well-chosen words, even as they push forward. (See, Joe Biden). But Hochul shows no sign of that kind of confidence. NYRenews, the group that has helped push much of the New York legislation, released a report yesterday showing that under Hochul’s leadership, the state’s four key implementation agencies are sitting on their hands.
Only a handful of agencies have issued specific guidance or regulations to support compliance efforts. Notably, it appears that the state’s largest and most powerful agencies have entirely failed to comply with the Climate Act and have not yet issued policies or guidance on implementation of the law.
For example:
• The New York State Department of Transportation (“NYSDOT”) has pushed forward at least 40 highway expansion projects without properly assessing their impacts on DACs and the climate;
• Empire State Development (“ESD”) has awarded at least $780 million in clean energy funding without ensuring that 40% of the benefits go to DACs;
• The New York Education Department (“NYSED”) has approved at least 25,971 construction projects at public schools across the state without properly assessing their climate and DAC impacts; and
• The New York State Department of Health (“NYSDOH”) has approved at least 223 construction projects for new and renovated healthcare facilities without assessing or mitigating their climate impacts.
This is where leadership makes a difference, one way or the other. You need some nerve—(something like, though in reverse, the chutzpah of the New York Republican legislator who last week penned an op-ed explaining that this summer’s violent storms were a reason to postpone climate action). Hochul, casting New York’s votes at the convention Tuesday night, cited the Empire State as the birthplace of the women’s rights and gay rights movement. If she were smart she’d listen to impassioned voices from the climate movement, who also know something about reality: Listen to Bob Howarth, the world-leading methane scientist who also sits on the board charged with implementing the new law.
“I am appalled at this pushback against the CLCPA by business interests pushing their short-sighted agenda,” Howarth told WaterFront. “Climate change is very real. The consequences of climate disruption (floods, droughts, fires, crop failures) are becoming increasing obvious to all.”
“The political leaders of NY understood these dangers when they drafted the CLCPA and its predecessor beginning in 2015…. Due to political delay, we may miss CLCPA targets by a few years. But the needed trajectory remains clear.”
Howarth sits on the state’s Climate Action Council, which passed a plan to implement CLCPA in December 2022 (by a vote of 19-3). The council had determined that “it was entirely possible and reasonable to meet the CLCPA goals and targets… that would benefit individual homeowners,” Howarth said.
Furthermore, the successful implementation of CLCPA would set an example to the world by showing “that a globally important economy could thrive while addressing the climate crisis and moving away from fossil fuels,” he added.
But the council hasn’t met for many months. “The state simply has not seen adequate political leadership to move ahead with the CLCPA goals and the council’s plan,” he said.
Something similar is happening in New York City where Mayor Eric Adams, in between dealing with corruption investigations, has done his best to weaken the city’s landmark Law 97. As Pete Sikora of New York Communities for Change explained to me, he’s pushed back the implementation date for the statute, which mandates efficiency improvements in big buildings. (Not surprisingly, he’s taken lots of campaign money from real estate interests).
The two year delay he's created will cost thousands of jobs and raise pollution yearly by a few hundred thousand tons per year as landlords put off energy efficiency projects (more worrying: it's a signal he'll further weaken the law if reelected and the major pollution limit starts in 2030).
But Adams—well, he’s also attempting to turn one of the city’s neighborhood landmarks, the Elizabeth Street Garden, into a housing complex. The city needs housing, which is why the garden’s friends have come up with all kinds of alternate sites in the same neighborhood, but so far he hasn’t yielded, even thought even Murdoch’s New York Post has made it clear what a bad idea the development is. Now, the Times reports, there’s been a huge letter-writing campaign from local public school students.
For the 575 or so students who attend P.S. 130, Elizabeth Street Garden serves as an extension of the classroom. The elementary school lacks green space, but it is only a 10-minute walk from the garden, allowing for frequent visits and class trips. So the garden has become a de facto playground and nature center where the children can plant seeds, learn about nature, and have Easter egg hunts.
“Tree’s also provide homes for animals like birds, squirrels, and raccoons. This is why we should save the garden!” wrote one student.
Another explained, “The garden adds color and brightness to the city.”
Many were concerned about their favorite play space disappearing: “One reason why we should keep the garden is because with all the trees, we can play hide and seek and eat lunch.”
One reason that pols like Hochul and Adams can get away with moves like this is that there’s very little coverage—the Elizabeth Street garden is the exception that proves the rule. Indeed, the Times announced last week that it would no longer endorse candidates for local office, which is odd since those were probably the only endorsements the paper made that actually moved voters. Albany, meanwhile, exists in a news vacuum—the number of voters who know that Hochul is emerging as a northern DeSantis on climate issues is minuscule.
The closer we move to actual implementation of the big climate promises that politicians made during the Greta years, the more of this kind of backsliding we’re going to see. Consider, just as a random example, Connecticut, where utility regulators have introduced an excellent system of performance-based regulation for power providers, moving away from the old system which basically just takes a utility’s costs and adds a chunk of profit on top. The Nutmeg State’s two big utilities have fought it from the start, and now they’re moving to have the regulator who introduced it, Marissa Gillett, fired. The state’s governor, Ned Lamont, said when the law was introduced that “you just don’t get paid an automatic 9% whether you do good work or bad work. You get paid for doing good work.” Now we’ll see if he has the courage to keep her at her job. Or Massachusetts, where the legislature adjourned without taking up the crucial enabling legislation for the state’s climate law—there’s some talk that governor (and climate hawk) Maura Healey might call them back for a special session, but more likely it will drag on for another year. Delay is the new denial.
Or take Delaware—the state needs to develop its offshore wind resources to meet climate goals. Indeed, given its relatively small population, it could become a linchpin for the entire Atlantic seaboard. But though polling shows strong support across the region, well-financed opponents have successfully made it appear that grassroots opposition is growing, particularly in coastal communities. I’ve watched it happen in Cape Cod, where activists are trying to block the cable necessary to bring power onshore from turbines, and in Maine where other activists want to block the construction of the terminal to support the offshore farms. There are always arguments—perfect enemy of the good—but none of them make much sense in a world where August looks like it will be even hotter than last year’s all-time record. It’s why, when real champions emerge—say, former National Wildlife Federation CEO Collin O’Mara, running in the Democratic primary for Delaware governor—change gets so much easier.
The default is always to the status quo. For Republicans that means fossil fuel uber alles. For Democrats, too often, it means “don’t ruffle more feathers than you have to.” That’s why we always have to make sure that there are plenty of climate hawks with plenty of feathers.
Correction: An earlier version of this op-ed mistakenly identified Gretchen Whitmer as the governor of Wisconsin. She is the governor of Michigan.
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New Yorkers Can’t Afford for Gov Hochul to Keep Delaying Climate Action
As we gear up for another summer of extreme weather events, we need our elected leaders to understand the urgency for action.
Jun 12, 2024
This past weekend, the New York State Assembly finally got its act together and passed an urgent piece of climate legislation, the Climate Change Superfund Act. Designed to make fossil fuel corporations pay for the damage they have done to the environment, the bill, initially passed by the Senate earlier this spring, now heads to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk. It is imperative that the governor, after consistently backing down on climate this year, signs this bill into law.
Gov. Hochul’s reticence to pursue climate action is, at this point, well-established. Just last week, she made headlines for slamming the brakes on a congestion pricing initiative that was supposed to take effect later this month. The impending tolls would have reduced traffic in downtown Manhattan, improved air quality, and funded much-needed upgrades to public transit. Combined with the Inflation Reduction Act’s groundbreaking federal investments in clean energy nationwide, congestion pricing would have moved our state one step closer to a sustainable future. Instead, Gov. Hochul chose to play petty politics with the livability of our city.
Last month, as I prepared for another summer of extreme weather events in New York City, I joined hundreds of climate activists in Albany to demand that the state legislature pass the Superfund Act and another climate-related bill—the HEAT Act. I marched through the halls of the State Capitol, linking arms with climate activists of all faiths, holding banners, chanting songs, and demanding climate action from the New York State Assembly and Gov. Hochul.
Should Gov. Hochul fail to act, here’s what we can expect more of: a hotter New York City, plagued by more frequent and more severe storms, flooding, and air pollution.
Gov. Hochul’s behavior is forcing us to take action. Not even two months ago, she chose to exclude the NY HEAT and Climate Superfund Acts from the annual state budget. Then she backed down on congestion pricing. As the days heat up, it’s more important than ever that our elected officials deliver on their promise to ensure a liveable future for our communities here in New York City.
Last summer, extreme weather wreaked havoc across our city. Between smoky skies and flooded streets, city life was consistently derailed by out-of-control weather conditions. September 2023 was the wettest September in New York City in over a century. And, a year later, we seem headed into another stormy summer. In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that 2024 will see above-normal hurricane activity.
These extreme weather events and others are a direct result of climate change. Canadian wildfires are getting more intense as a hotter and drier fire season becomes the norm. Warmer ocean temperatures are fueling stronger tropical storms, and climate change is making heatwaves more frequent and more extreme. These are ramifications of climate change that our governor needs to take seriously: Inaction simply isn’t an option.
This August will mark two years since President Joe Biden signed the most significant piece of climate legislation in American history into law. The Inflation Reduction Act devoted $370 billion to lowering energy costs for American households, building out clean energy, and other climate solutions. In New York State, IRA capital is already starting to flow to consumers. Since 2023, New Yorkers have been eligible for tax credits that make buying an electric vehicle, upgrading home heating and cooling systems, and replacing inefficient refrigerators more affordable. A few weeks ago, New York became the first state to offer rebates to low- and middle-income New Yorkers who want to make clean-energy upgrades to their homes. Passing the Superfund and HEAT Acts, and reversing her ill-advised decision on congestion pricing, is simply the most sensible thing for Gov. Hochul to do.
New York City is already suffering from a bad case of the heat island effect, a phenomenon where dense urban areas experience higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas, largely due to vehicular traffic. We cannot afford to let unregulated vehicle traffic continue to overheat our city. Should Gov. Hochul fail to act, here’s what we can expect more of: a hotter New York City, plagued by more frequent and more severe storms, flooding, and air pollution.
My worries about the risks of inaction are exactly why I made the trip to Albany earlier this spring. As we gear up for another summer of extreme weather events, we need our elected leaders to understand the urgency for action. Gov. Hochul can’t continue to ignore the climate crisis. She must reverse her position on congestion pricing, sign the Superfund Act, and steer the HEAT Act into law. We simply can’t afford to play politics or wait any longer.
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"Et Tu, Hochul?" Betrayal!
With her flip-flop on congestion pricing, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, not the youth-led Sunrise Movement, is the real climate traitor.
Jun 07, 2024
I had another piece planned for today, and I will get back to it soon—it will deliver a certain amount of good news. But events intervened. I try not to write out of anger, but on occasion it overtakes me, and Wednesday’s actions by the governor of New York were so shockingly cynical that—fair warning—I’m indulging some of that fury.
But as I begin, a plea not to be angry with the youth. There was a mild kerfluffle on the climate interwebs Wednesday, when the Sunrise Movement—the youthful progenitors of the Green New Deal—announced that they weren’t yet ready to endorse Joe Biden for president. The keyboard gladiators of the status quo—led as usual in their chivalrous charge by the reliable down-puncher Matt Yglesias—crackled with indignation at the young folks.
lmao—I hope everyone who gassed this institution up with money and coverage is proud of themselves
I am an unrepentant supporter of Sunrise, so let me explain. I knew many of their first generation of leaders, who had cut their teeth on the fossil fuel divestment campaign; wanting to fight on after college, they’d formed Sunrise, ginned up the Green New Deal, and used a sit-in at Nancy Pelosi’s office, with AOC in attendance, to give it oxygen. Their tactics worked—they were a big reason that by the 2020 Democratic primaries “climate change” was the number one issue for huge numbers of voters. They were obvious Bernie Sanders supporters, but when he lost they swallowed hard, and took part in the negotiations that produced a united Democratic front for Biden: Indeed, Sunrise’s director, Varshini Prakash, was on the team that sat with a couple of key Biden aides to work out the essentials of Build Back Better. They didn’t endorse Biden, but they did work hard, and effectively, against Trump, as the youth vote in 2020 eventually demonstrated. And then they worked hard, and effectively, to pass Build Back Better, even as Joe Manchin cut it down into the Inflation Reduction Act—again they swallowed hard and backed a seriously imperfect bill. It was a rare display of political maturity and effectiveness among any progressives, let alone young ones.
Now a new generation of Sunrise volunteers is saying they can’t, yet, endorse Biden—but they’re also promising to fight hard against Donald Trump. Look, I’m fighting hard for Biden. I understand deep in my soul the existential risk Trump poses. But I also get why young people are having a hard time joining fully in—it’s because of Gaza, above all. And we do not want a world where young people would not be hideously upset by Israel’s endless bombing campaign, a campaign of immiseration clearly designed, as Biden said this week, to protect Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future. Though the media has seized on every example of left obtuseness they can find (usually from middle-aged college professors), the young people I’ve watched have been clear in their condemnation both of Hamas’ repulsive violence, and of antisemitism. And in part because of their hard work, Biden has shown more willingness to stand up to the repugnant Netanyahu and try to end the fighting even as he works to head off a regional war. The invaluable Kate Aronoff has a fine account of the Sunrise news in The New Republic yesterday, and she even bothered to call up the head of the thing and ask what it meant.
“Do we want to be fighting for a Green New Deal under a Trump presidency or a Biden presidency? To me, the answer is pretty clear,” Stevie O’Hanlon told me earlier today. “Donald Trump winning a second term is an existential threat to our climate and our democracy and will set back the fight for a Green New Deal.”
So yes, Gaza is complicated and nuanced. But a society needs people for whom complication and nuance are not central, and these are usually young people. They offer useful clarity. And if Biden eventually loses, it will be less because young people don’t support him than because old people don’t: There are far more of us, and we are not reliably voting in defense of the values we grew up with (like, respect, decency, kindness, and not getting convicted of felonies). That’s why we at Third Act are backing Biden with all that we’ve got—we don’t like what’s happening in Gaza, but a job of older people is to bring to bear the somewhat wearying but valuable experience that simply living longer allows you to accumulate. We admire Biden for the good things he’s done, and we know that Trump can and will make the bad parts worse, beginning with his promise to radically accelerate the climate crisis. But I’m glad, for one, that the young are making the witness that they are.
This week did offer a real betrayal, though, and it came from Democratic elders—most particularly New York Governor Kathy Hochul. She—out of the clear blue—announced she would block New York City’s congestion pricing plan, due to go into effect January 30.
You don’t wait until the last possible moment to jerk around the advocates who have spent years working with you to craft an agreement.
This is stupid policy—it’s the most aggressively anti-environmental stand I can recall a major Democratic governor taking, beating even Gavin Newsom’s recent demolition of rooftop and community solar in California. Congestion pricing meant that people who wanted to drive into the clogged streets of lower Manhattan would pay a $15 toll; the revenue would go to support the beleaguered transit system that actually allows New York to operate. This kind of system has been a huge success in the European cities that have tried it, like London and Milan; Manhattan (as advocates back to Jimmy Breslin and Norman Mailer have noted) would be an incredibly sweet place with many fewer cars. This is, as Robinson Meyer noted yesterday “tier one climate policy,” which with a success in Manhattan could quickly spread to other cities. And so there’s been a tremendous effort over decades to build out support for congestion pricing. An earlier version came close to passing years ago—lore has it that the opposition of parking garage owners carried the day in Albany. This time, though, everything was lined up: Governor Hochul had given a rousing defense of the plan in a speech just two weeks ago. I’m going to quote from it at some length, because I think it’s possible that no politician in American history has ever flip-flopped quite so thoroughly or so fast:
Walk around many major cities and it won’t take long to encounter frustrated drivers caught in traffic jams, cars spewing exhaust on overpacked streets. We determined that the average New York City driver spends 102 hours a year stuck in traffic. Those hours add up to more than four days of your life—every year.
That’s four days sitting behind the wheel of a car instead of sitting by your kid’s bedside, reading them a book, sitting around the dinner table or reconnecting with a friend.
There has to be a better way. So, starting next month, New York City will become the first city in the U.S. to implement congestion pricing. We’ll charge people $15 every time they drive into New York’s Central Business District.
London, Milan, Stockholm, and Singapore have all implemented similar plans with great success. In New York City, the idea stalled for 60 years until we got it done earlier this year.
It took a long time because people feared backlash from drivers set in their ways. But, much like with housing, if we’re serious about making cities more livable, we must get over that.
We estimate congestion pricing will reduce the volume of vehicles in Manhattan’s central business district by 17%. Fewer cars mean less gridlock, traffic, and pollution. Fewer cars means safer streets, cleaner air, and more room to maneuver for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Congestion pricing will generate $1 billion every year, which will then fund large-scale projects that make public transit faster and more accessible. That’s key because we’ll never change people’s habits if we don’t offer safe, reliable alternatives to driving that work for everyone.
In her remarks blocking the plan yesterday, Hochul said something something pandemic—when work on the plan began in 2019, “workers were in the office five days a week, crime was at record lows, and tourism was at record highs. Circumstances have changed, and we must respond to the facts on the ground.”
But clearly none of those circumstances changed in the past two weeks. Who knows what caused this unreal shift. Speculation ranges from (the now fashionable) brain worm to lots of Hochul fundraising by local autodealers to the notion that House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries was worried that congestion pricing would hurt the prospects for regaining his majority in the fall elections. (A bad showing by New York Democrats in the suburbs cost him the speakership last time around; the same people are still in charge of the Empire State campaign this time around). If it’s really electoral fear that drove Hochul’s stab in the back, then this is political malpractice: You don’t wait until the last possible moment to jerk around the advocates who have spent years working with you to craft an agreement.
People on the outside underestimate, I think, the degree to which significant change comes from a long and controlled dance between activists and politicians—and one of the rules of that, on both sides, is that you don’t pull out the rug at the last minute. People like Charles Komanoff have spent most of their lives working up to this deal, jumping through every hoop to demonstrate the needed support, and now it’s been trashed. And trashed with the support of other parts of the progressive coalition. It was so sad to see the United Federation of Teachers gloating at the downfall of congestion pricing—the larger left has engaged in a generational effort to raise teacher pay, understanding it to be both right and a core concern of a partner; the UFT ignored the core concern of environmentalists in order to help teachers who wanted to keep driving. Public school teachers should be supporters of public transit; this, not Sunrise, is real-world malarkey.
If any possible good could come from Hochul’s cold-blooded betrayal, it’s that she, and Albany Democrats in general, might feel the need to give environmentalists some kind of win. The NY Heat act, and the climate superfund bill, are both up for action in this final week of the legislative session. It would be scant comfort to see them passed in the wake of this shocking schism, but it would be something.
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'A Real Betrayal': Hochul Condemned for NYC Congestion Pricing Flip-Flop
Climate advocate Bill McKibben called the reversal "the most aggressively anti-environmental stand I can recall a major Democratic governor taking."
Jun 06, 2024
"Betrayal."
"A generational setback for climate policy."
"The kind of sabotage by a leader that warrants impeachment."
Those were just some of the ways New Yorkers and climate advocates described Gov. Kathy Hochul's decision to cancel a first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan for New York City on Wednesday.
Although the move will directly impact a relatively small percentage of U.S. residents' daily lives, critics said the move will stymie progress that could ultimately have been seen across the country—instead dooming communities to continued reliance on vehicles and the planet-heating emissions they cause.
A year after signaling approval for the congestion pricing plan, which was years in the making, the Democratic governor stunned campaigners Wednesday when she released a pre-recorded message announcing that "circumstances have changed" and would not allow the policy to take effect on June 30 as planned.
Under the plan, drivers who entered certain parts of Manhattan would be charged $15, with the projected annual revenue of $1 billion accounting for 50% of the funds needed for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (MTA) upgrades to its system.
The MTA's Capital Program is now on hold, according to 6sqft, jeopardizing 23,000 jobs and imperiling the city's ability to improve reliability for working New Yorkers—56% of whom do not own a car—and make subway stations more accessible.
Local groups Riders Alliance and Transportation Alternatives announced plans for an emergency lobby day in Albany on Friday, where they said they would tell Hochul and state lawmakers to say "no to defunding our transit system."
Hochul said she was considering a new tax on businesses to fill in the $1 billion funding gap caused by her decision, but that would require approval by the New York Legislature, whose session ends this week.
The Tri-State Transportation Campaign (TSTC) found in a recent analysis that more than 97% of people who commute from suburbs in New York and New Jersey would not be impacted financially by the congestion pricing plan. Looking at 217 legislative districts across the New York City metropolitan area, the percentage of commuters who would have to pay the $15 toll did not exceed 4%, and was 0-1% in most districts.
"Our members don't ride Escalades to Broadway shows. They use transit," said grassroots civil society group New York Communities for Change.
The TSTC noted that the state Legislature promised the congestion pricing plan to working families who rely on public transportation nearly five years ago.
"We urge the governor to stick to her guns and implement this transformative policy," said the group. "This is the pivotal moment. Please, Gov. Hochul, don't turn your back on the families counting on you to provide cleaner air and faster commutes for everyone."
Third Act founder and author Bill McKibben said Hochul's decision—reportedly encouraged by U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in an effort to win a Democratic majority in Congress this year—amounts to "a real betrayal."
"This is stupid policy—it's the most aggressively anti-environmental stand I can recall a major Democratic governor taking," wrote McKibben in his newsletter, The Crucial Years. "This kind of system has been a huge success in the European cities that have tried it, like London and Milan; Manhattan (as advocates back to Jimmy Breslin and Norman Mailer have noted) would be an incredibly sweet place with many fewer cars."
Sunrise Movement NYC suggested Hochul's decision was the result of $100,000 in donations to her campaigns from the auto industry, which is hosting a fundraiser for the governor next week with tickets costing $5,000 and up.
"Congestion pricing would save countless lives through reduced traffic across the city, cleaner air, and faster response times by first responders," said the group. "Gov. Hochul cannot usurp congestion pricing unilaterally... We call on the Legislature and the MTA to remain steadfast in the implementation of congestion pricing."
A Dutch study published last year found that although congestion pricing was unpopular when it was first implemented in cities including London, Stockholm, Singapore, and Edinburgh, support grew after the policies went into effect.
"In terms of what's best for the largest number of people, congestion pricing is it, because it brings air quality benefits, it brings lower traffic benefits, and it brings transit improvements to the entire city," Kate Slevin, executive director of the Regional Plan Association in New York, told HuffPost.
Journalist Robinson Meyer said that in terms of the generational climate impact it will have, Hochul's reversal on congestion pricing would ultimately be "worse than the Mountain Valley pipeline, worse than Alaska's Willow project," because of the lost opportunity to bring similar policies to other U.S. cities.
"New York was bushwhacking a trail for everyone else to follow," wrote Meyer. "If congestion policy was a success there, then other American cities could experiment with it in some form... By shuttering the policy in New York, she has poisoned pro-climate urban policies everywhere."
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