News
NYS legislative session ends with a lot of unfinished business
New York State lawmakers ended their session over the weekend, leaving a number of issues on the table. Final negotiations on several key issues were derailed after Gov. Kathy Hochul made a surprise decision to suspend planned congestion pricing in Manhattan less than a month before it was scheduled to begin.
Governor Hochul on Wednesday morning reversed her stance on congestion pricing, saying she no longer supported a plan that would charge private vehicles at least $15 each time they enter Manhattan south of 60th Street. The governor, who a month earlier praised congestion pricing during an international climate change summit in Europe, now said it would cost average New Yorkers too much money to get around.
“Given these financial pressures, I cannot add another burden to working middle-class New Yorkers, or create another obstacle to our continued recovery,” Hochul said on June 7.
The statement was met with relief by Democratic state legislators and congressional representatives representing suburban districts in the Hudson Valley and Long Island. And it seemed to respond to concerns that the implementation of congestion pricing could be used as a weapon by Republicans in several tight congressional races. In 2022, four House seats in “blue” New York were flipped to the Republican Party, helping to give Republicans control of that chamber.
But the governor alienated top Democrats in the legislature, who viewed it as a political betrayal.
Karen DeWitt
/
New York Public News Network
New York Senate Finance Committee Chair Liz Krueger speaks Thursday, June 6, 2024, to the media. Krueger is one of several Democrats angered by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to suspend New York City’s congestion pricing plan.
“This is a terrible idea,” Kruger said.
Krueger openly invited people to file lawsuits to try to reverse the decision.
With just days left in the session, Hochul also called on the Senate and Assembly to fill a $1 billion hole in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget caused by the suspension of congestion pricing. A sliding tax on corporate payrolls was immediately rejected and an alternative proposal to approve a loosely structured IOU for the MTA was discussed.
Also on Friday afternoon, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said options were being discussed.
Karen DeWitt
/
New York Public News Network
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie meets with reporters at the State Capitol in Albany on April 16, 2024.
But the Senate suspended the session on Friday night and the Assembly closed its work, after spending the entire night on Saturday, without agreeing to the plan.
The MTA, in a statement, warned that without a new source of funding, some important improvement projects, including updating signals, making more stations available and purchasing more electric buses, would be put on hold.
Hochul’s announcement also undermined attempts to reach agreement on a range of other issues.
While two bills championed by the governor to regulate children’s social media feeds passed quietly, several environmental and climate changes failed to reach the finish line.
They include the NY HEAT Act, which would prevent utilities from automatically charging ratepayers for new gas lines, an expanded bottle deposit law and a measure to reduce plastic packaging.
Liz Moran of Earth Justice spoke at an 11-hour rally for the bills. She said lawmakers passed the Climate Change Protection Act in 2019, with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050. But she said since then, Democrats leading Albany have been unwilling to take the necessary steps to actually achieve that goal. to aim. And she said the governor’s decision to cancel congestion pricing, combined with the failure of other bills to gain traction, is disturbing.
“This is taking us back to where we need to be to meet our legal climate mandates,” Moran said. “And to protect people and save money.”
A bill requiring big oil and other energy companies to pay for climate change mitigation has been passed, but it faces an uncertain future on Hochul’s desk.
Hours before the session ended, Hochul answered questions from the media about his decision. She insisted that she is an environmentalist and wants to do something about traffic congestion. But ultimately, her decision to pause the show was due to conversations at New York diners she said she frequented, where she said the public was against the idea.
“The voices that have been most powerful for me are the ones that feel like they are being ignored,” Hochul said. “They are suffering right now and we ignore them to our detriment.”
Hochul, as well as the legislature’s leaders, say this may not be the end of their meetings in 2024. They say they may need to return before the end of the year, to resolve the funding crisis caused by Hochul’s decision to stop congestion . prices.