Legislators contest governor’s authority to ‘pause’ congestion pricing

August 27, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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STATEWIDE — A group of current and former state legislators who are part of a lawsuit contesting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s congestion pricing “pause” filed a brief stating that the legislature never gave any governor the power to cancel the toll, Streetsblog reported on Monday. Four current and former state lawmakers, including State Sen. Julia Salazar, filed the amicus brief on Aug. 21. The brief states that if the legislature wanted to give Hochul or any other governor the power to cancel the toll plan, they would have written it into the law. The brief points out in the introduction that the legislature was passed by both houses of legislature and signed by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, and that the public authorities who are assigned control over the city’s bridges, tunnels and subways have always been presumed to be independent from elected officials. It argued that giving the governor an unwritten power to ‘indefinitely pause’ the MTA’s implementation of the congestion pricing law obscures political accountability.

The Streetsblog article pointed out a political paradox: that while the governor has said she alone is authorized to make calls on major state issues like congestion pricing, she also needs the state legislature’s help in resolving the issue.

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