NY Renews Denounces Governor Hochul’s Push to Block Congestion Pricing in the Legislature
***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***
June 6, 2024
Contact: Marie Scarles | (646) 389-8429 | marie@nyrenews.org
Web: @NYRenews | www.nyrenews.org
Yesterday, Governor Hochul announced that she would single-handedly destroy the decades-in-the-making New York City Congestion Pricing Plan (CPP), a program designed to fund a struggling mass transit system, while reducing congestion, toxic air pollution, and deadly climate pollution. Today, legislators are reporting that the Governor is working to convince legislative leaders to codify her poor decision. NY Renews issued the following statement in response:
Exactly one year ago, smoke-filled skies across New York State sent children and elders to New York’s emergency rooms as they struggled to simply take a breath. The opaque orange, toxic, stifling skies were the result of climate-crisis-fueled wildfires, and the New Yorkers who suffered the worst were low-income, Black, and Brown communities.
Today, June 6, 2024, a huge swath of the United States is stuck beneath a deadly and smothering “heat dome” sending temperatures well over 100 degrees and New Yorkers are already receiving air quality alerts. A few weeks ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its most aggressive hurricane season forecast on record, another palpable impact of the climate crisis. Yet even in the face of worsening climate-fueled emergencies, Governor Hochul took the reckless action of rolling back New York City’s Congestion Pricing Plan, unilaterally undermining decades of review for a plan to reduce toxic air and deadly climate pollution and to provide funding for public transit and environmental justice communities.
The Legislature must not be complicit in the Governor’s appalling choices. We need our Assemblymembers and Senators to stand up for New Yorkers’ health and environment, as well as for safe, accessible mass transit by supporting the Congestion Pricing Plan now as they did when they passed the law in 2019.
Five years ago, the Legislature passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act), putting our state in the vanguard of addressing the climate crisis through strong climate policy and community-led solutions. That law was rooted in the need for bold, achievable action to reduce climate pollution from all sources, including transportation, and to build up public infrastructure to support a just transition. Every day counts in a climate crisis, but the state is already falling behind in funding and implementing the Climate Act and destroying congestion pricing will only set us back further.
The Legislature also passed a congestion pricing bill in 2019. NY Renews calls on the Legislature to keep to its commitments and continue to support congestion pricing as a tool to reduce our tailpipe emissions, improve New York’s crumbling public transportation systems, and invest in basic transportation infrastructure and service. It’s no secret that our mass transit systems are falling apart and are not ready to withstand flooding and prolonged heat. Without this dedicated funding, our mass transit systems will fall into further disrepair and be subject to costlier climate damage, leaving New Yorkers to continue suffering the consequences of climate inaction.
Years of advocacy to improve New Yorkers’ health and environment may have been lost by a single gubernatorial decision, leaving the best interests and well-being of environmental justice communities in jeopardy yet again.
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NY Renews is a coalition of over 380 environmental justice, faith, labor, and community groups, and the force behind the nation’s most progressive climate law. We fight for good jobs and climate justice for New Yorkers statewide.