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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   31936 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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While I don't know the specifics of this particular part of law, the MTA's entire argument maintains that the transport secretary does not have the legal authority to overturn it, and any injuction could in fact be requested by the department of transportation which they have not done. https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/04/07/in-court-at-least-the-feds-are-not-trying-to-stop-congestion-pricing

Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Transportation are not planning to seek an emergency order to halt congestion pricing if the toll keeps going after April 20, the Trump administration's current deadline for Gov. Hochul to end the toll, according to a new court filing.

In a letter to Judge Lewis Liman, who's overseeing the MTA's lawsuit challenging Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's bid to withdraw federal approval of the toll, MTA attorney Roberta Kaplan said that federal lawyers said they don't plan on asking for an emergency injunction should the deadline come and go.

"The MTA ... specifically asked whether the federal defendants contemplate taking any unilateral action on or after April 20 that might require plaintiffs to seek expedited injunctive relief," Kaplan wrote. "The federal defendants ... did state that, at present, they do not intend to seek preliminary injunctive relief themselves."

The decision not to seek an injunction when the MTA blows past the double secret probation deadline Duffy announced after the agency ignored his original March 20 deadline means that congestion pricing will be sticking around at least through the summer, based on the filing schedule on which the plaintiffs and defendants agreed, according to Kaplan's letter.

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