Can NYC keep congestion pricing alive? Breaking down the legal fight between New York, Trump administration
A legal fight is brewing over New York City's congestion pricing plan after the Trump administration announced it was pulling the plug Wednesday.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and the MTA said they were prepared for this move and filed a lawsuit minutes after the announcement was made.
MTA has a strong case, experts say
Local law professors told CBS News New York this won't be an easy case for the Trump administration. The federal lawsuit the MTA filed says President Trump's efforts to stop congestion pricing are unlawful.
Legal scholars say the MTA's case might be strong enough to keep the plan from dying.
"A judge has already upheld the program after a challenge, and I do not see any authority that President Trump has to end the program," Pace University professor of law Bennett Gershman said.
Brooklyn Law School professor Bill Araiza said the case could even wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.
"This is the kind of administrative, interpretive decision of a statute that the Supreme Court really likes to get its hands on more and more," he said.
Araiza pointed out that while it is a conservative-majority court, that doesn't necessarily mean it will always agree with the Trump administration.
Trump administration argues congestion pricing was unlawful
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, meanwhile, argued congestion pricing itself is unlawful in his letter to Hochul.
Duffy said former President Joe Biden's Federal Highway Administration did not have the legal authority to approve congestion pricing, and the plan exceeds what was authorized by Congress.
"You can't take American taxpayers who paid for roads and, and block them out and say, 'You can't access this unless you pay additional money.' And that's what she's done. And so I think that's flat out wrong," Duffy said.
In an interview with CBS senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave, Duffy claimed the governor failed to analyze toll pricing and congestion reduction.
"She never did a study to say, I really care about congestion and I wanna reduce congestion, so I'm gonna look at how much money should I charge in a toll and how much will that reduce congestion? That analysis was never done. So instead of paying $9, could someone pay $5 and reduce congestion or $3 to reduce congestion? She didn't do that," he said.
Back in November, when the governor reduced the congestion pricing toll from $15 to $9, sources told CBS News New York's Marcia Kramer $9 was the lowest rate cited on the environmental impact report, so anything below that would require a new report.
