You’re out of free articles.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Sign In or Create an Account.
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Welcome to Heatmap
Thank you for registering with Heatmap. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our lives, a force reshaping our economy, our politics, and our culture. We hope to be your trusted, friendly, and insightful guide to that transformation. Please enjoy your free articles. You can check your profile here .
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Subscribe to get unlimited Access
Hey, you are out of free articles but you are only a few clicks away from full access. Subscribe below and take advantage of our introductory offer.
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Create Your Account
Please Enter Your Password
Forgot your password?
Please enter the email address you use for your account so we can send you a link to reset your password:
Delaying congestion pricing is one of the worst climate policy decisions made by any Democrat in recent memory.
If it holds, then Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision today to delay congestion pricing indefinitely in New York will be a generational setback for climate policy in the United States.
It is one of the worst climate policy decisions made by a Democrat at any level of government in recent memory.
It is worse than the Mountain Valley pipeline, the 300-mile gas pipeline that Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia got approved in 2022 in exchange for supporting the Inflation Reduction Act.
And it is worse than the Willow project in Alaska, the oil mega-project that President Joe Biden okayed last year under pressure from that state’s local and indigenous leaders.
It is so bad because it will set back the development of climate-friendly cities and rapid transit infrastructure in the United States for years if not decades. And it will deter other American cities from implementing the kind of time-saving, pollution-averting, anti-gridlock measure that the country desperately needs.
There is nothing good to be said for this decision. It is bad politics, bad economics, bad governance, and bad for the climate.
Let us briefly count the ways that it is destructive.
It is stupid coalition politics. Hochul has alienated her allies, including environmental groups, state budget hawks, and transit advocates. Bill McKibben, the longtime New Yorker writer who has become one of the country’s most famous climate activists, called Hochul’s decision “one of the most aggressive anti-environmental actions ever undertaken by a Democratic governor.”
In exchange, Hochul has delighted her Republican adversaries, who can praise her wise decision-making in the weeks to come — and therefore brandish their own bipartisan bonafides — but continue to campaign against congestion pricing through November. Congestion pricing is unpopular now, but in her fecklessness, Hochul has guaranteed that it will be a live issue in November.
It is nonsense budget politics. Hochul says that she has delayed congestion pricing because she is worried about the city’s recovery from the pandemic, but regardless of her reasons, she has now left a $1 billion hole in the transit authority’s budget. The New York Times reports that she wants to fill that hole by raising taxes on the state’s businesses.
But that means that she has taken a tax formerly charged to some New York residents and businesses — but which would also fall on New Jersey and Connecticut residents and businesses — and shifted it entirely to in-state entities. She has, in essence, cut taxes on out-of-state residents and raised taxes on New York businesses and consumers.
And instead of taxing the right to use roads in downtown Manhattan, which are a limited public resource, she will instead tax all business activity in the state. What good will that do for New York’s economy?
Those political and financial flaws might be forgiven if her decision was good for the planet. But don’t worry: It’s also bad climate politics.
Cars, SUVs, and trucks belch more climate pollution into the atmosphere than any other single economic activity in the U.S. Nearly 20% of America’s annual carbon pollution comes from individuals and families driving their private vehicles around on roads and highways. This is a far larger share of national pollution than is generated by more famous climate villains, such as air travel.
We have good ways of dealing with all that carbon pollution. In suburbs, small towns, and rural America, the best way to deal with that tailpipe pollution is to gradually transition from gasoline-burning cars to electric vehicles. In some places, the country can also experiment with using experimental, climate-friendly liquid fuels.
But in cities, people have better and cheaper options than getting EVs. We can stop requiring people to drive everywhere and encourage them to walk, bike, and take public transit instead. That will require, at times, treating the use of roads in city centers as the limited public resource that it is — which means charging cars and trucks to enter the most crowded downtown areas of certain cities at certain times of the day.
That’s what congestion pricing is: a way of encouraging cities to grow in pro-climate, pro-environmental ways. Such a policy has already been successfully implemented in London, Singapore, and other congested cities. Even as an urban car owner, I long wanted the city where I lived for a decade — Washington, D.C. — to adopt a similar policy. After all, when Stockholm started its congestion fee, the rate of asthma attacks among its children dropped by half.
So I looked forward to the start of congestion pricing in New York City, America’s biggest, densest, and most transit-friendly city. New York was bushwhacking a trail for everyone else to follow: If congestion policy was a success there, then other American cities could experiment with it in some form.
By pausing that trial before it has even begun, Hochul has essentially frozen our ability to experiment with congestion pricing anywhere else in the country. By shuttering the policy in New York, she has poisoned pro-climate urban politics everywhere. Now people will say: You saw what happened when New York tried to do congestion pricing. Do you really want to try that here?
In the past, when national Democrats have approved new pipelines or oil projects, they have argued that those projects will not affect the country’s carbon pollution because only demand for fossil fuels, and not the supply of them, drives carbon emissions. But what makes congestion pricing so powerful is that demand is precisely what it targets. Congestion pricing makes buses run faster, pays for the subway system, and pushes people and businesses to consider the social cost of their driving before they get in the car.
Congestion pricing, if implemented widely, can actually conserve fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions. Now Hochul has halted its progress everywhere.
She has made, in other words, a local mistake with national and even global consequences. It is such a foolhardy error that it instantly recasts Kathy Hochul’s climate record as governor.
Hochul has previously been seen as a center-left governor playing a difficult but moderate environmental hand. But is that really her record? She has struggled to build wind farms off the coast of New York, even though it is essential to decarbonizing the state’s power grid. She has so far failed to pass the NY HEAT Act, which would help the state transition away from using fossil fuels to heat its buildings. She has even failed to pass little climate measures that would fund the state’s more modest climate goals.
I would compare her to Senator Joe Manchin, the fossil-fuel-friendly West Virginia lawmaker who repeatedly refused to vote for Biden’s climate policy — except at least Manchin put his political reputation on the line when it mattered and ultimately negotiated, and voted for, the Inflation Reduction Act. At least Manchin has many qualities to recommend him: He was canny, risk-taking, proud, and courageous when it counted. Hochul is just a loser.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
And more of this week’s top renewable energy fights across the country.
1. Otsego County, Michigan – The Mitten State is proving just how hard it can be to build a solar project in wooded areas. Especially once Fox News gets involved.
2. Atlantic County, New Jersey – Opponents of offshore wind in Atlantic City are trying to undo an ordinance allowing construction of transmission cables that would connect the Atlantic Shores offshore wind project to the grid.
3. Benton County, Washington – Sorry Scout Clean Energy, but the Yakima Nation is coming for Horse Heaven.
Here’s what else we’re watching right now…
In Connecticut, officials have withdrawn from Vineyard Wind 2 — leading to the project being indefinitely shelved.
In Indiana, Invenergy just got a rejection from Marshall County for special use of agricultural lands.
In Kansas, residents in Dickinson County are filing legal action against county commissioners who approved Enel’s Hope Ridge wind project.
In Kentucky, a solar project was actually approved for once – this time for the East Kentucky Power Cooperative.
In North Carolina, Davidson County is getting a solar moratorium.
In Pennsylvania, the town of Unity rejected a solar project. Elsewhere in the state, the developer of the Newton 1 solar project is appealing their denial.
In South Carolina, a state appeals court has upheld the rejection of a 2,300 acre solar project proposed by Coastal Pine Solar.
In Washington State, Yakima County looks like it’ll keep its solar moratorium in place.
And more of this week’s top policy news around renewables.
1. Trump’s Big Promise – Our nation’s incoming president is now saying he’ll ban all wind projects on Day 1, an expansion of his previous promise to stop only offshore wind.
2. The Big Nuclear Lawsuit – Texas and Utah are suing to kill the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s authority to license small modular reactors.
3. Biden’s parting words – The Biden administration has finished its long-awaited guidance for the IRA’s tech-neutral electricity credit (which barely changed) and hydrogen production credit.
A conversation with J. Timmons Roberts, executive director of Brown University’s Climate Social Science Network
This week’s interview is with Brown University professor J. Timmons Roberts. Those of you familiar with the fight over offshore wind may not know Roberts by name, but you’re definitely familiar with his work: He and his students have spearheaded some of the most impactful research conducted on anti-offshore wind opposition networks. This work is a must-read for anyone who wants to best understand how the anti-renewables movement functions and why it may be difficult to stop it from winning out.
So with Trump 2.0 on the verge of banning offshore wind outright, I decided to ask Roberts what he thinks developers should be paying attention to at this moment. The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Is the anti-renewables movement a political force the country needs to reckon with?
Absolutely. In my opinion it’s been unfortunate for the environmental groups, the wind development, the government officials, climate scientists – they’ve been unwilling to engage directly with those groups. They want to keep a very positive message talking about the great things that come with wind and solar. And they’ve really left the field open as a result.
I think that as these claims sit there unrefuted and naive people – I don’t mean naive in a negative sense but people who don’t know much about this issue – are only hearing the negative spin about renewables. It’s a big problem.
When you say renewables developers aren’t interacting here – are you telling me the wind industry is just letting these people run roughshod?
I’ve seen no direct refutation in those anti-wind Facebook groups, and there’s very few environmentalists or others. People are quite afraid to go in there.
But even just generally. This vast network you’ve tracked – have you seen a similar kind of counter mobilization on the part of those who want to build these wind farms offshore?
There’s some mobilization. There’s something called the New England for Offshore Wind coalition. There’s some university programs. There’s some other oceanographic groups, things like that.
My observation is that they’re mostly staff organizations and they’re very cautious. They’re trying to work as a coalition. And they’re going as slow as their most cautious member.
As someone who has researched these networks, what are you watching for in the coming year? Under the first year of Trump 2.0?
Yeah I mean, channeling my optimistic and Midwestern dad, my thought is that there may be an overstepping by the Trump administration and by some of these activists. The lack of viable alternative pathways forward and almost anti-climate approaches these groups are now a part of can backfire for them. Folks may say, why would I want to be supportive of your group if you’re basically undermining everything I believe in?
What do you think developers should know about the research you have done into these networks?
I think it's important for deciding bodies and the public, the media and so on, to know who they’re hearing when they hear voices at a public hearing or in a congressional field hearing. Who are the people representing? Whose voice are they advancing?
It’s important for these actors that want to advance action on climate change and renewables to know what strategies and the tactics are being used and also know about the connections.
One of the things you pointed out in your research is that, yes, there are dark money groups involved in this movement and there are outside figures involved, but a lot of this sometimes is just one person posts something to the internet and then another person posts something to the internet.
Does that make things harder when it comes to addressing the anti-renewables movement?
Absolutely. Social media’s really been devastating for developing science and informed, rational public policymaking. It’s so easy to create a conspiracy and false information and very slanted, partial information to shoot holes at something as big as getting us off of fossil fuels.
Our position has developed as we understand that indeed these are not just astro-turf groups created by some far away corporation but there are legitimate concerns – like fishing, where most of it is based on certainty – and then there are these sensationalized claims that drive fears. That fear is real. And it’s unfortunate.
Anything else you’d really like to tell our readers?
I didn’t really choose this topic. I feel like it really got me. It was me and four students sitting in my conference room down the hall and I said, have you heard about this group that just started here in Rhode Island that’s making these claims we should investigate? And students were super excited about it and have really been the leaders.