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kathy hochul
Gov. Hochul, Stop Blocking a Greener Future and Implement Cap-and-Invest
Hochul’s decision to delay the implementation of New York’s Cap-Trade-and-Invest Program is a deeply misguided one that ignores the connection between the climate crisis and our city’s affordability crisis.
Mar 15, 2025
“Mom, there’s smoke coming from the Palisades!” Those were the words my 15-year-old son yelled to me last fall as he gazed out our apartment window in Upper Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson River. Looking over, there was indeed a plume of smoke rising across the river. By the next day, our apartment building smelled like a campfire. Over the following week, I read urgent social media posts from neighbors about brush fires in nearby Inwood Hill and Fort Tryon Parks. It felt dystopian, out of place for New York. The experience reminded me of talking with my young niece in the Bay Area, who once matter-of-factly told me that she couldn’t play outside because the air quality was bad. That wasn’t so unusual for California. But experiencing it here in New York? That was something entirely new.
Those fires of November 2024 made clear something we as New Yorkers have been largely ignoring since Superstorm Sandy: The frontlines of the climate crisis have reached the Big Apple. Given that urgency, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision in January to delay the implementation of New York’s Cap-Trade-and-Invest Program (NYCI) is deeply misguided. It’s a shortsighted decision with no political upside that ignores the connection between the climate crisis and our city’s affordability crisis. It is imperative that the governor quickly reverse course.
Back in 2019, New York leapt to the fore in setting ambitious benchmarks for greenhouse gas reduction and a just transition to a renewable economy. New York’s landmark Climate Law set out a process for this transition, and the law is now a model for other states and helped inspire former President Joe Biden’s climate policy.
Just as planting a tree is an act of faith in the continuity of community, investing in a livable, sustainable future for all New Yorkers is keeping a promise to our children, who will reap the benefits for generations to come.
But now we’re playing catch-up: Our state is failing to hit its emissions targets. Add to that a hostile presidential administration that largely denies the existence of the climate crisis, and is resolutely committed to investing in polluting fossil fuels, and you’d think the governor would step up to the plate. But instead, Gov. Hochul is retreating into a corner at the worst time.
Cap-and-invest policies are popular and effective. As recently as this past November, voters in Washington State voted overwhelmingly to continue their state’s cap-and-invest program. Why? Because Washingtonians saw the benefits of cap-and-invest in their everyday lives: greater access to affordable and free public transit; cleaner air in and around schools with zero-emissions school buses and efficient HVAC systems; and lower energy bills for low-income households and small businesses, who receive support for upgrading their gas furnaces to efficient electric alternatives. California, whose cap-and-invest program has been in place for over a decade, has seen even greater benefits thanks to the more than $26 billion that the law has generated.
New York has been part of a regional cap-and-invest program since 2009 called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). RGGI has cut power plant pollution by 50% in participating states and generated over $2 billion in revenue in New York alone. The proceeds funded job creation, air pollution monitoring in affected communities, and the installation of over 4,000 electric vehicle charging ports.
By refusing to implement NYCI, Governor Hochul is depriving our state of at least $2 billion in additional annual revenue. NYCI would support thousands of new jobs. It would facilitate new efficient electric heat pumps for homes across the state, which would save the average household $1,000 per year in energy bills. It would enable the buildout of EV infrastructure and empower communities to develop and implement a range of local clean energy initiatives. And at a time when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is facing a severe budget shortfall, NYCI would help make public transit more efficient, accessible, and reliable. All of that would reduce pollution—meaning a cleaner future for all.
NYCI isn’t free. But the costs of the program pale in comparison to the price we pay for climate-fueled extreme weather events and the health effects of fossil fuel pollution. We also know that the costs of inaction in New York State far outpace the costs of meeting our 2030 and 2050 emissions targets—by $115 billion.
Implementing NYCI isn’t just a financial issue, it’s a moral one. As someone organizing for climate action within my Jewish community, I often turn to Jewish tradition for inspiration. I think about a Jewish folk tale, about an old man planting a fig tree. When a passerby skeptically asks him if he expects to live long enough to consume the fruits of his labor, the old man replies, “My ancestors planted for me, and now I plant for my children.” Just as planting a tree is an act of faith in the continuity of community, investing in a livable, sustainable future for all New Yorkers is keeping a promise to our children, who will reap the benefits for generations to come.
It’s time for Gov. Hochul to avoid further inaction and implement the NYCI. At a time when the costs of climate action have never been higher, Gov. Hochul should take responsibility and lead New York toward a just transition toward a cleaner future.
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'We'll See You in Court,' New York Dems Tell Trump Over Move to End Congestion Pricing
Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York called the U.S. Department of Transportation's rationale for terminating tolling approval for the program "utterly baseless and frankly, laughable."
Feb 19, 2025
The Trump administration on Wednesday notified New York Gov. Kathy Hochul that it is moving to terminate New York City's congestion pricing program, a tolling scheme launched earlier this year that levies a $9 fee on most drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street.
The program, which is slated to generate $15 billion in revenue for New York City's mass transit system, was a hard-fought victory for environmental groups, mass transit advocates, and New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). New York State Lawmakers approved the initiative in 2019 after which point it entered a multiyear federal approvals process.
Congestion pricing has been opposed by various groups and public figures, including the New Jersey governor, the labor union the United Federation of Teachers, and some lawmakers who represent voters in outer boroughs and the suburbs.
Democratic leaders in New York have vowed to fight the Trump administration's move and the MTA has already filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the order.
In a letter to Hochul, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote that he and U.S. President Donald Trump have concerns about congestion pricing's impact on residents that use the tolled roads and that, in a reversal of a determination made by the previous administration in late November, the scheme is "not eligible" under the Federal Highway Administration's Value Pricing Pilot Program. By rescinding the agreement signed under the pilot program, the administration is aiming to effectively end the initiative's tolling authority.
Duffy called the program a "slap in the face to working-class Americans and small business owners," and separately, U.S. President Donald Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday to celebrate, writing: "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"
In response to the administration's aims to shut down the program, Hochul said Wednesday that "public transit is the lifeblood of New York City and critical to our economic future—as a New Yorker, like President Trump, knows very well."
"We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king... We'll see you in court," said the Democratic governor, who was widely criticized for halting congestion pricing last year before it had launched. The program later did move ahead with cheaper tolls.
MTA chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said in a Wednesday statement that "it's mystifying that after four years and 4,000 pages of federally supervised environmental review—and barely three months after giving final approval to the Congestion Relief Program—[U.S. Department of Transportation] would seek to totally reverse course."
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) called the arguments made in Duffy's letter "utterly baseless and frankly, laughable."
"The notion of revoking approval for a federal initiative of this magnitude is nearly without precedent. I firmly believe that there is no legal basis for the President to unilaterally halt this program," he said.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) called Trump's rationale for the move "hypocritical and groundless"
According to The New York Times, legal experts have doubts about whether the federal government can shut down congestion pricing.
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Family of Robert Brooks Says Killing by Prison Guards Must Be 'Catalyst for Change'
"We are demanding that every single person, every single thug, that had anything to do with the death of Robert Brooks be fired and arrested," said one advocate.
Dec 31, 2024
As family members and supporters held a vigil at Monroe County Jail in Rochester, New York, on Monday night, inmates in the prison cells above them flashed their lights on and off in solidarity with Robert Brooks, who suffered an apparently fatal beating at a facility more than 100 miles away earlier this month.
Body camera footage of Brooks being savagely beaten by 14 correctional officers and prison staffers at Marcy Correctional Facility was made public on Friday by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The video, which was taken on December 9 from body cameras worn by four of the staffers, showed officers choking Brooks, one person kicking him and forcing him onto an exam table, one punching his upper body, and two officers dragging his limp body over across the room and trying to hoist him up against a window.
Brooks, who was 43, was pronounced dead the following day at a hospital. An autopsy report has not yet been released. A preliminary report from the medical examiner's office showed "concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another."
At the rally on Monday, his son, Robert Brooks Jr., said Brooks "had a loving, generous heart and a special concern for young people" and said the family's "deepest wishes are that my father's death will not be in vain."
"His killing must be a catalyst for change," he said.
Brooks' father also spoke at the vigil, decrying the actions of both the people who beat his son and of a nurse at the facility who, according to the video, stood by and watched while the beating took place.
"When you have taken the law officers' oath of honor, the Hippocratic oath, or the Florence Nightingale Pledge for nurses, but you participate or sit idly by smiling and chatting as if this was just another day at the office, while a man is being beaten to death, that's evil," he said. "Between 2016 and 2019, approximately 15,679 fathers, daughters, mothers, and sons died in state prisons. They say 47% died from illnesses—I don't believe it. After watching that video, there is nothing they can tell me that I will believe."
Brooks was more than halfway through serving a 12-year sentence for assault, which he had been serving at nearby Mohawk Correctional Facility. He was moved to Marcy on the day of the attack, The New York Timesreported.
The Correctional Association of New York, the state's independent prison watchdog, completed a report on Marcy in 2022, finding that 70% of inmates reported racial bias among staff members. Brooks was Black and the officers in the video—like 91% of the prison's staff members, according to the 2022 report—were white.
Four out of five inmates reported having experienced or witness abuse my correctional officers or other staffers, with one saying physical abuse was "rampant" and reporting that an officer had told him Marcy was "a hands-on facility."
The Timesreported on Saturday that at least three of the guards implicated in Brooks' beating had previously been named in federal lawsuits filed by inmates who they attacked; one plaintiff was left using a wheelchair after the beating and another was disfigured.
Elizabeth Mazur, an attorney who is representing Brooks' family, told Rochester-based CBS affiliate that the reports about the officers raise "questions about you know whether there's a real cultural problem that's been allowed to fester at Marcy or sort of within the prison system in general."
"The way that Mr. Brooks was killed is just horrifying," she said. "It's terrible enough to lose a loved one, especially an incarcerated loved one when the family knows that they weren't with them during their final moments, but I think it's especially hard to know that you've lost a loved one this way—to this kind of senseless act of violence."
The family is planning to file a civil lawsuit in the future, Mazur said.
Rallies were also held to demand justice for Brooks in New York City, with supporters gathering outside Gov. Kathy Hochul's office.
"We are not going to sit down and just pray, and just hope," said Rev. Kevin McCall, a community activist. "We are demanding that every single person, every single thug, that had anything to do with the death of Robert Brooks be fired and arrested."
The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said Monday that 13 people involved in the attack have been suspended without pay, while one person has resigned.
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