No. of Recommendations: 2
OK...we all know IANAL. But...if a city (any city) wants to implement "congestion pricing", I'm pretty sure the federal government has no jurisdiction. No? The state might, but not the feds. City streets are a local problem. I
think the feds only have some say with regards to highways/interstates.
Apparently, the administration's lawyers were finding holes in their arguments, so they were replaced (presumably by mindless yes-men??).
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/nyregion/nyc-co...The Trump administration replaced lawyers who had exposed flaws in its legal battle over New York City’s congestion pricing program.
...
Mr. Duffy has argued that New York must shut off the toll for two reasons, the letter from the U.S. attorney’s office said. First, that the toll exceeded the scope of the 1990s federal program used to authorize it, because the plan didn’t offer drivers a toll-free option into the zone; second, that the toll should not prioritize the transit authority’s infrastructure upgrades over the goal of reducing traffic.
“Neither of these arguments is likely to convince the court,” the assistant U.S. attorneys who were representing Mr. Duffy wrote. The federal judge presiding over the case, Lewis J. Liman, has already rejected key elements of those theories in other suits related to congestion pricing.
No. of Recommendations: 3
OK...we all know IANAL. But...if a city (any city) wants to implement "congestion pricing", I'm pretty sure the federal government has no jurisdiction. No? The state might, but not the feds. City streets are a local problem. I think the feds only have some say with regards to highways/interstates.
IAAL, though I confess on this issue I only know what I reads on the interwebs. But as a very general matter, local governments are not permitted to impose tolls on roadways that were built with federal funds. That's a broader category of roads than just highways and interstates. Apparently, a non-trivial number of the roads that are proposed to be tolled under the congestion pricing plan were constructed using federal funds.
That said, there's a program (the Value Pricing Pilot Program) that allows the federal government to give permission to local governments to impose tolls, subject to terms and conditions and possible revocation and whatnot. That's what the dispute is about - whether Trump has properly exercised the authority under that program to rescind the approval that was granted by Biden.
