NYC NOW - Midday News: Feds Accidentally Share Congestion Pricing Legal Strategy, Teen Charged in NJ Wildfire, Vote to Limit Tourist Helicopters, and Earth Week Climate Goals

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

The Trump administration may shift legal strategy in its bid to kill congestion pricing after accidentally uploading a letter suggesting current arguments are weak. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, a teen has been charged with setting a wildfire that's burned at least 15,000 acres in Ocean County. Also, the NYC Council is preparing to vote on bills aimed at limiting tourist helicopters following a deadly crash in the Hudson River. Plus, Tom Wright, President and CEO of the Regional Plan Association joins us for Earth Week to discuss how New York State is progressing in its ambitious climate goals.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, April 24th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. It appears the Trump administration accidentally uploaded its legal strategy to the court docket in the lawsuit over congestion pricing. Yesterday, a letter appeared online from lawyers in the Southern District. It warned their counterparts at the Federal Department.

and transportation that they're likely to lose the congestion pricing case using the current arguments. The letter notes the court is not likely to support the Fed's move to kill the tolls because the decision appears to be arbitrary, not based on a policy change at the agency. The letter notes the feds could switch strategies and outlines a plan that would make the order appear to be part of a priority change at the DOT. A request for comment from the DOT was not immediately returned. A 19-year-old New Jersey man is facing multiple arson charges. Police say he started the wildfire that's now ripping through the Jersey shore.

The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office says Joseph Kling of Waretown lit wooden pallets on fire and did not put the fire out all the way. Prosecutor say the fire has now burned through 15,000 acres. Fire officials say they expect the wildfire to be mostly contained by Saturday. Attorney for Kling was not immediately available. New York City officials say smoke from the fire could reach the five boroughs. The New York City Council is set to vote today on several bills that would limit tourist helicopters in the five boroughs. The vote comes two weeks after a sight seeing helicopter crash to the Hudson River, killing a family of five and their pilot.

72 and sunny right now. Sunny and 73 for a high today. Then tomorrow, mostly sunny. 76 with chance of showers Friday night in the Saturday. Saturday, a chance of midday showers with thunderstorms of high near 71 and gusty. Stick around. There's more to come. We're celebrating Earth Day this week with a series of conversations on New York's climate and clean energy goals. The state has set out to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050, but as we say, the deadlines are piling up. One of the biggest efforts to move the city towards meeting that goal has been a toll for driver, in New York City who enter Manhattan below 60th Street.

But the Trump administration has ordered an end to congestion pricing. While the MTA has so far ignored that order, and as if fighting it in court, the administration is now threatening to withhold federal money for New York City highway projects if the city and the MTA failed to comply. With us now is Tom Wright, President and CEO of the Regional Plan Association. Tom, as always, thank you for joining us. Oh, great to be here. Tom, would you describe how exactly congestion pricing fits into the state's clean energy goals?

The funding from congestion pricing is going to go into the MTA's capital plan, 80% of which is for what we call state of good repair, which is to modernize the MTA's existing system. That includes new signals on the subways, updating the electrical system, kind of the nuts and bolts of it like that. And all of that both helps make the rides more reliable. and efficient, but it really actually does cut down also in the energy usage and the expense of running and maintaining the system. Some proposed measures did not make it into the final congestion pricing program. What are some of the climate-related ideas the agency was floating, and is it possible that could still be adopted if congestion pricing survives?

I mean, first all off, we should all hope congestion pricing survives because it's working phenomenally well for businesses, residents, commuters, not just of New York City, but of the entire region. Indeed, New York is showing that this is a policy that other metro regions and cities around the nation should be looking at, too. One of the key things that could be considered is whether or not there would be special exemptions or credits for electric vehicles, for instance. That was proposed during the rollout or the consideration of the system. In London, they've had this kind of low emission zone policy put in place. I think most folks looking at it didn't think it made sense system-wide, especially since EV uptake has been pretty robust in this region.

But say, let's look specifically at freight and goods movement where a lot of emissions come from. One of the proposals was to try and target and provide incentives for UPS and FedEx and other delivery companies to transition faster to electric vehicles and give them a break on the system to do that. That was something that was being considered. It was not ultimately part of the program, but could be over time as congestion pricing continues to evolve and improve. Tom, what about the city's commitment to electric vehicles? Yeah, the city, under these targets, the city is looking to convert more of its fleet to electric vehicles, there have been some shocks to the system, COVID supply chain and other things.

And, of course, the Trump administration is really pushing back on EV charging. So a lot of those targets, especially the near-term targets by 2030, are probably going to be ambitious or we might miss them. Now, new data show the tolls have led to, as you mentioned, a drastic reduction in Manhattan gridlock and higher mass transit ridership. but critics were concerned it could increase traffic in the Bronx, for example, harming residents there making asthma rates worse. For instance, is the city making good on its promise to apply emissions reductions measures equitably?

Yes, it is. First off, I think it's important to point out that that was a potential impact under some of the scenarios. It wasn't clear that that would happen. As an asthmatic myself, I take these things very seriously. and in point of fact, we're not seeing kind of localized traffic impacts the way we were concerned about. The traffic seems to be flowing, and indeed the benefits are accruing not just to folks within the zone, but really city and even regionwide. When you reduce traffic in one part of the city, it's not that the traffic goes somewhere else. It actually largely disappears, and so everybody benefits from those changes in travel behavior.

Tom, there are still many. who don't believe the money will actually even go towards what the MTA says it will. Do you think the MTA has a messaging problem with the public on this? You know, part of this, the MTA has really dramatically improved its delivery of investments and programs over the last five to ten years and deserves credit for having done that. It's easy for people to be skeptics, to say, oh, it's the old system again, and to point to projects 10, 20, 30 years ago and complain about them.

I would say that all of the money generated by this is going to go where it's supposed to, into the MTA's capital plan or to do some of those mitigation investments that you talked about earlier. And in conjunction with the next MTA capital plan is really pushing us in the direction of a much better, more modernized higher capacity system. The goal was for it to generate enough revenue that the MTA could borrow against that stream and invest 15. billion dollars with a B into the capital plan, into improving the signals, updating the electrical system, buying new train sets and other things. And it is on path to generate that kind of revenue to do that work. Our guest has been Tom Wright, President and CEO, the Regional Plan Association. Tom, is always great to speak with you. Please come back and see us again. I'd love to. Thanks, Michael. Tomorrow we'll hear from the Sabin Center for a climate change

at Columbia University about New York's progress on its climate goals. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.