Mediaboss Marketing

The Department of Transportation has given the green light to New York's controversial congestion pricing plan, which would impose a toll on drivers who attempt to enter Manhattan during peak traffic hours.

On Friday, the Federal Highway Administration gave tentative approval to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's environmental and legal submissions for the proposal, allowing it to move forward with a 30-day public review period. The administration is expected to give its final approval to the congestion pricing plan at the end of that review period, Politico reported.

Under the plan, drivers entering Manhattan could be forced to pay as much as $23 on top of other tolls and fees. The fees are opposed by North Jersey Democrats, who say the New York plan is unfair and essentially a tax on Jersey drivers.

MTA officials have said they need about a year to build the necessary tolling infrastructure, which puts the plan on target to go into effect in the second quarter of 2024.

CONGESTION TAX ON DRIVERS GAINS STEAM IN BIG CITIES AFTER NEW YORK APPROVES CONTROVERSIAL PLAN

Traffic moves through downtown Manhattan on April 21, 2023, in New York City. Local politicians and transit advocates are demanding the immediate implementation of New Yorks Central Business District (CBD) Tolling Program, also known as "congestion pricing." (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

A spokesman for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told Politico that the Biden administration's approval "is a critical step that will allow our Environmental Assessment to be publicly available for anyone to read, and we will continue to work with our partners to move congestion pricing forward."

"Governor Hochul is committed to implementing congestion pricing to reduce traffic, improve air quality, and support our public transit system," Hochul spokesman John Lindsay said. "Weve worked closely with partners across government and with community members over the last four years to develop a plan that will achieve these goals."

JORDAN NEELY'S FATHER MOURNS HOMELESS SON'S DEATH ON NEW YORK CITY SUBWAY CAR: A GOOD KID

The Empire State Building and tourist district are seen while a traffic jam is reported along the route to New York City on Aug. 17, 2022, in Jersey City, New Jersey. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has said a congestion pricing plan will raise billions of dollars in revenue for public transit projects and also decrease traffic jams in Manhattans tourism district and financial center. (Eduardo MunozAlvarez/VIEWpress)

However, New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy called the plain "unfair and ill-advised."

"Since day one, Ive stood against the disproportionate negative impacts of congestion pricing on New Jerseyans a greater financial burden on New Jersey commuters, double tolling, toll shopping, a lack of revenue for NJ TRANSIT, outsized environmental burdens on certain North Jersey communities, and financial impacts on the Port Authoritys capital budget," Murphy said in a statement. "Everyone in the region deserves access to more reliable mass transit, but placing an unjustified financial burden on the backs of hardworking New Jersey commuters is wrong. Simply put, it is a money grab."

NYC SENDING MIGRANTS TO UPSTATE COUNTY NOT EQUIPPED TO HANDLE INFLUX

Phil Murphy, governor of New Jersey, has called New York's congestion pricing plan "unfair and ill-advised." (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The governor said he supports congestion pricing in principle but called New York's plan "misguided."

New Jersey Democratic Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Bill Pascrell, who each represent districts bordering New York, also condemned the "Congestion Tax."

"They want to stick it to our families and commuters with a $23-a-day tax, but we wont stand for it in Jersey the fight is just beginning. Im demanding the Department of Transportation reconsider their decision in the next 30 days," Gottheimer said in a statement.

"New Jerseyans are used to paying our fair share, but New Yorks congestion pricing scheme is fatally flawed and unnecessarily unfair," said Pascrell. "New Yorks plan would saddle Jersey commuters with extra taxes on top of our already-high taxes without the needed financial return for our transit systems. Having the rubber stamp of approval by the federal government is wrong and an affront to New Jersey."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

In a statement, MTA Chief of External Relations John J. McCarthy thanked the federal government for green-lighting the congestion pricing plan.

"Congestion pricing is a generational opportunity to make it easier for people to get around in, and get to, the Central Business District, by reducing traffic and funding improvements to the public transit system. To do it right, environmental equity has been an integral component. We are grateful that the FHWA has acknowledged the Project Sponsors efforts to date and has found the document has met the standards for legal sufficiency."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Link:
New Jersey Democrats slam Biden administration approval of congestion pricing plan for New York - Fox News

AUGUSTA, Maine Despite hoursof testimonylast week from Mainers opposed to a package of bills to expand abortion access, the Democratic-led Legislature is all but certain to pass measures that include a key proposal from Gov. Janet Mills.

But seven House Democrats are the lone members of their party to not sign on as co-sponsors to the signature billfrom Mills and House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, that would allow doctors to perform abortions they deem necessaryafter fetal viability around 24 weeks.

The small groups members told the Bangor Daily News they arent signing because they are staunchly anti-abortion, but rather are weighing constituent concerns or waiting to see the final version of the plan.

Those seven Democrats Reps. Mana Abdi and Michael Lajoie of Lewiston, Bill Bridgeo of Augusta, Anne Perry of Calais, Joe Perry of Bangor, Ronald Russell of Verona Island and Bruce White of Waterville mostly represent a mix of historic Franco-American strongholds and rural communities with close political divides.

White, who did not respond to a request for comment, was the only Democrat to vote with Republicans when they forced a rare procedural voteon sending the Talbot Ross bill to the Judiciary Committee last month. Joe Perry and White are the only returning House Democrats who voted in 2021 for another bill that would have repealed MaineCare abortion funding.

In an interview, Perry said he understood the governors stated focus on allowing mothers who discover fatal fetal anomalies late in pregnancies to get abortions in Maine. Under current law, the only exception to the viability standard is for the life and health of the mother.

I want to gather my information from my medical professionals, and thats who Ive seeked out, he said.

He, Bridgeo and Anne Perry, a retired nurse practitioner, are each waiting for the measure to come out of the committee to make a final decision. The Calais lawmaker said the measure isnt quite as much of a policy shift as I thought it was at first. Bridgeo said he was withholding comment until the committee deals with the bill.

Russell, a first-term lawmaker who narrowly flipped a Republican-held seat in the 2022 election, said he takes the word representative seriously. During the campaign, he answered a BDN questionnairealongside many other candidates in both parties to say there should be no changes to abortion law, an idea that Mills put forward as well during her concurrent run.

The decision would be easier if it were simply personal, Russell said. But he is trying to weigh feedback that he has gotten since the campaign, saying the issue came up at a recent chat over coffee with constituents.

I dont want it to come across that Im a fervent anti-abortionist, he said. I definitely feel the woman has the right to choose.

Russell also questioned what would happen if a doctor disagrees with the viability cutoff, which has its roots in a landmark 1993 lawthat codified Roe v. Wade protections in Maine. Numerous states have either restricted or expanded abortion access since the Supreme Court overturned those abortion protectionslast summer.

This sessions signature bill championed by Mills would additionally repeal two sets of criminal penalties, including those aimed at those performing post-viability abortions without proper medical licensure, although Maine has other punishments for unlicensed medical practice. It would also amend an abortion reporting law to shield personally identifiable information.

Asked why he did not cosponsor the measure, Lajoie said he preferred to keep that to myself. He voted againsta Republican attempt in 2013 to expand on Maines law that requires a doctor to obtain informed consentfrom a woman seeking an abortion.

Abdi, a first-term lawmaker who joined Rep. Deqa Dhalac, D-South Portland, last year in becoming the first Somali Americans elected to the Legislature, did not respond Friday to requests for comment.

When unveiling the plan in January, Mills cited the story of a Maine womanwho discovered 32 weeks into her pregnancy that her fetus had a rare, likely fatal condition and then went to Colorado for an abortion because Maines law would not let her get one at that stage.

Maine had no abortionsafter 20 weeks in 2021, according to state data. The vast majority of abortions nationally come in the first trimester. Democrats have pointed to their election victories and a recent University of New Hampshire pollfinding a majority of Mainers back the Mills bill.

But Republicans and social conservative allies, who flooded the State House from Monday into Tuesday for marathon testimony against several abortion access bills, call them extreme.A competing package of their bills to limit abortion access receiveda hearing Friday.

Other bills from Democrats would bar Maine cities and townsfrom restricting abortion, require private insurers to cover abortion servicesand prevent malpractice insurers from taking action against abortion providers based on anti-abortion laws in other states.

More articles from the BDN

Link:
The Democratic holdouts on Janet Mills' abortion bill - Bangor Daily News

Morris Griffin of Los Angeles speaks at the California reparations task force meeting in March in Sacramento. Economists estimate the state owes Black residents, conservatively, at least hundreds of millions of dollars for enduring decades of systemic racism. (Paul Kitagaki Jr. / Sacramento Bee via AP)

One morning a few months back, I came to understand the true meaning of reparations.

I was talking with Gloria Holland, one of the survivors of Section 14, the neighborhood of Black homeowners that Palm Springs burned to the ground in the 1950s and 1960s to make way for the high-end hotels and restaurants that define the city today.

Hollands family, like many other families, was forced to resettle on a dusty, desolate stretch of desert several miles away. Her voice still cracks with emotion when she talks about it.

"I'm a young girl watching this man stand in this doorway, half-dressed with just his underwear on, pleading don't kill him and don't burn his house down," she told me. "They did it anyway."

Since those dark days, life has mostly been kind to Holland. For her, money isnt really an issue. But money and a lot of it is the issue in the survivors' legal claim against Palm Springs, as it should be in any claim of reparations.

It's not because a specific sum will make up for what anyone lost, Holland explained, but because its a necessary statement from government about the worth of Black life.

"They undervalue us. And that's been going on for over 400 years."

Ive thought a lot about what Holland said this week, as Ive watched conservatives react with outrage and liberals with conspicuous silence to calculations from Californias reparations task force about how much Black people have lost and are potentially owed for enduring decades of systemic racism.

We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars maybe even, according to one estimate making the rounds, hundreds of billions of dollars. That could go to both Black people like me whose ancestors were enslaved, as well as Black people like Holland, who suffered a specific wrong, in her case by the city of Palm Springs.

"The breadth and depth of the historical and ongoing harm done to this group of people makes clear that the relevant question is not whether compensation should be given," the task force said in a recent draft report, "but rather, how much is necessary."

Story continues

On Saturday, the task force's nine members will vote on a series of recommendations that justify that compensation, citing a long list of racist laws and government policies that harmed Black people and deprived us of wealth, health and, in many cases, freedom.

But it won't be easy to get the state Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom to actually follow whatever the task force recommends and make reparations a reality by agreeing to pay up. Consider that California's entire annual budget is only about $300 billion and, lately, there has been a whole lot of hand-wringing in Sacramento over a growing deficit as the economy has slowed.

So, "impossible," is a word I've heard thrown around quite a bit this week. "Absurd" is another.

Meanwhile, polling continues to show flagging public opinion about reparations.

People observe an informational display near the lifeguard station in Manhattan Beach that details the history of Bruce's Beach, which was seized from a Black family in the 1920s. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

One survey conducted late last year by the Pew Research Center found that just 30% of Americans favor providing compensation to the descendants of people who were enslaved in the U.S., with a full 68% opposed.

Predictably, a majority of Black people 77% say descendants should be repaid in some way. But only 18% of white people, 39% of Latinos and 33% of Asian Americans say the same. And cash payments ranked as the least popular option for all the forms that reparations might take.

This is still very much a country that, when it comes to dollars and cents and almost anything else meaningful, doesnt value Black life. And so, even liberal California is rapidly approaching a crossroads with its nascent reparations movement.

What is morally right is about to run headfirst into what is politically possible. It won't be pretty, but it will be revealing. Compromises will likely be necessary to get anything close to whats owed, despite historical fact and the careful calculations of losses that were drawn up by the task force's economic advisors, led by William Spriggs, chief economist for the AFL-CIO.

Few understand the coming political landscape more than state Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) and Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), the only lawmakers on the reparations task force.

"It's one thing to be aspirational," Bradford told me recently. "It is another thing to be rooted in reality of what you can get."

The task force is required by law to complete its work by July 1 and, after that, will disband after almost two years of monthly meetings. When that happens, much of the work to keep reparations alive in California, and give oxygen to the parallel work happening in many cities, including L.A., will fall to Bradford and Jones-Sawyer.

As the latter put it: "There are recommendations and then there's implementation of legislation. And that [implementation] probably will be the most difficult part."

It's still unclear what their legislative strategy will be. Bradford believes it will come in the form of multiple bills, with some up for consideration by next year.

"This is probably gonna be years in the works," he said. "It's too much here in this report for me to lead anybody into believing that it's going to be addressed in one legislative cycle, let alone in one bill."

Jones-Sawyer isn't so sure.

"Is it one big bill with everything in it? Is that too much for the Legislature to follow? Or do we have to break it up in pieces so that we know we'll get something done?" he said, thinking out loud. "Or is the best plan just one big plan and they vote it up or down as one? ... Mr. Bradford and I are going to have to make that determination."

Whether as recommended in the task forces draft report "a substantial initial down payment" for Black residents who are eligible for reparations gets included in any of those bills remains to be seen. But Bradford is more optimistic about improving homeownership and healthcare.

"Some of the folks that have been our harshest critics you know, who say, 'Where's my check?' I don't want to set folks up for that disappointment if a check never comes in," he said.

And yet securing support from many of these same critics, along with millions of other Black Californians, will be critical for Bradford and Jones-Sawyer to accomplish anything legislatively in Sacramento. This also could be a problem.

In the many months I've been covering the task force, attending meetings in cities from Southern California to Northern California, it has become disturbingly clear that many people aren't even aware of the members' work or don't understand that it's the Legislature and the governor, not the task force, that are the ultimate decision-makers on reparations.

"Everybody's going to have different expectations," Jones-Sawyer acknowledged, "and so trying to manage those expectations is going to be difficult."

Working in the lawmakers' favor will be that providing reparations is truly the morally right thing to do. If that was ever in doubt, the draft report that the task force is discussing Saturday in Oakland makes it abundantly clear.

Based on months of research and testimony from experts, five categories of harm have been identified as appropriate for calculating losses and tallying up potential compensation, given the government data available.

One of those categories is "unjust property takings by eminent domain" a harm Holland knows all too well as do many others, including the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce, whose beachfront property was seized a century ago by the city of Manhattan Beach.

So, hundreds of millions or even hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations for Black Californians isn't "absurd." It's a sober accounting of what we have given or, more accurately, been forced to give to this state and to this country, and what has been taken from us in return.

It's about the value of Black life.

"You took our valuables," Holland said. "You separated our families."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Read more:
Column: Reparations is morally right. But L.A. Democrats will decide if it's politically doable - Yahoo News

FILE: Voters at the Multnomah County Elections Division in Portland, Ore., Nov. 8, 2022. A bill before the Oregon Senate would expand the state's automatic voter registration system.

Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB

Secretary of State Shemia Fagan might be on her way out of office, but one of her top legislative priorities isnt going anywhere.

On Wednesday, the Oregon House passed Fagans proposal to automatically register unregistered voters who sign up for the Oregon Health Plan, the states subsidized health care for low-income Oregonians. The 34-25 party-line approval of House Bill 2107 came despite protests from Republicans who are suspicious of the proposal and argued it is tainted by its connection to Fagan.

Because of the cloud of scrutiny under which Secretary of State Fagan resigned, I have little confidence in this bill that solely bears her name, state Rep. E. Werner Reschke, R-Malin, said on the House floor.

Democrats, who have long made increasing voter registrations and easing voting restrictions a key goal, said Fagans involvement had no bearing on the substance of the bill.

The policy in the bill is sound and has been vetted for over two years, House Majority Leader Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, said Tuesday.

HB 2107 would expand on one of Oregons pioneering elections policies.

In 2016, the state became the first in the nation to enact a motor voter law that registered citizens to vote when they interacted with the Driver and Motor Vehicle Services department to get an ID. Rather than an opt-in policy where Oregonians had to affirmatively choose to be registered, the state went with an opt-out program, registering voters unless they expressly say they do not want to receive a ballot.

The idea has been credited with increasing voter participation in Oregon. The state had the highest percentage of eligible voter turnout in the country in last years election, with 61.5%.

Motor voter has since been adopted by 22 states and Washington, D.C., according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But lately, Oregon has fallen out of the vanguard when it comes to voter registration.

I was at a conference last year and there was a presentation on automatic voter registration, Fahey said in an interview last month. For the first time ever, Oregon was not listed as the people leading the way on this. The people from Nevada got, like, a standing ovation.

HB 2107 would put Oregon in league with Nevada and Colorado in expanding opt-out registration to the states Medicaid program, the Oregon Health Plan. Other states have adopted variations on that policy, according to the Secretary of States Office.

But converting Oregon Health Plan enrollees into new voters isnt automatic. Colorado has been waiting years for the green light from federal officials, which must authorize sharing health data for that purpose.

Under HB 2107, automatic registrations via the Oregon Health Authority could not begin until 2026.

There are approximately 200,000 Oregonians who are eligible to vote but not registered, according to estimates from the Oregon Secretary of State. Fagan said earlier this year about 85% percent of those people 171,000 are on the Oregon Health Plan.

If they had interacted with the DMV since Oregon motor voter went into effect either getting a drivers license or just an identification card then they would already be registered, she said in a March interview. We dont know the reason why theyre unregistered.

Republicans were plainly suspicious about the makeup of those 171,000 unregistered voters. In committee, GOP representatives requested a breakdown of where those people lived in the state, but were told the Oregon Health Authority would not release that information.

In Colorado, Republican lawmakers voiced concerns that registering people through Medicaid could disproportionately favor Democrats.

Republicans have also questioned whether the bill would compromise the integrity of the states voting process.

Oregonians must have a signature on hand with a county elections office to vote, so the signature on their ballot envelope can be checked against the one on file. Its a key security feature of the states all-mail election system.

Signatures are no problem when registering people via the DMV, because theyre supplied as part of obtaining an ID.

Thats not the case with the Oregon Health Plan. Under HB 2107, the state might find itself in the position of registering people who have no such signature on file. Fagan and Fahey said the Secretary of States Office will craft rules that ensure people without a valid signature on file are not allowed to vote. How the government would make that happen is not yet clear.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about this bill, state Rep. Anna Scharf, R-Amity, said in Wednesdays vote. It is not ready.

Republicans also argued that its already very easy to register in Oregon, saying that anyone who wants to vote can do so without difficulty. You can lead a horse to water but you cant make them drink, said state Rep. Emily McIntire, R-Eaglepoint. I feel like we do everything in this state to make sure we have the utmost ability to make sure people have everything they need.

Fahey, one of the only Democrats to speak on the bill Wednesday, said Republican concerns were unwarranted.

Some today have suggested that the integrity of our election system is in question, she said. I want to unequivocally refute that assertion. The reality is that our election system is safe and secure, including our automatic voter registration system.

HB 2107 now moves to the Senate, where Republicans have begun a walkout in protest of Democrats agenda. Its not the only piece of Fagans agenda making its way through the legislative process. A bill she introduced with the aim of increasing election security and discouraging harassment of elections workers passed the Senate with a bipartisan vote last month.

Read the original post:
Democrats advance bill that would automatically register unregistered voters applying for Oregon Health Plan - Oregon Public Broadcasting

Congressional Democrats have reintroduced legislation to focus federal efforts on reducing the proliferation of illegal machine gun conversion devices, also known as auto sears.

The Preventing Illegal Weapons Trafficking Act of 2023 would direct the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of the Treasury to develop a coordinated national strategy to prevent the importation and trafficking of auto sears. It would also instruct the attorney general to collect data on the recovery of the devices in crimes and include it in an annual firearms trafficking report.

The legislation is a response to a March 2022 investigation by The Trace and VICE News that found that auto sears were involved in dozens of shootings carried out by extremists, mass shooters, and drug traffickers. Our reporting showed that more than a thousand illegal auto sears had been recovered in connection with at least 260 federal prosecutions since 2017, with the number of cases filed annually climbing nearly 800 percent in five years.

The Democrats bill was introduced in the House by Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Representative Sean Casten of Illinois. Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Gary Peters of Michigan introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

Law enforcement must do more to protect our communities from gun violence by stopping the flow of illegal gun modification devices into and throughout our country, Peters said in a news release. This bill will enhance coordination across law enforcement agencies to prevent these dangerous and deadly devices from being used.

Machine guns are among the most regulated firearms in the United States, but auto sears provide a quick and inexpensive workaround. The small conversion devices can transform a semiautomatic gun into a weapon capable of emptying an entire magazine with a single pull of the trigger. They require little technical knowledge to use and can cost as little as $20.

The Trace and VICE News investigation found that many auto sears recovered in the U.S. were supplied by companies in China, where manufacturers list the devices on online marketplaces and sell directly to consumers. Auto sears can also be made at home using a 3D printer.

The bill seeks to hold companies that facilitate the trafficking of auto sears accountable, by requiring that proceeds from trafficking machine gun conversion devices are subject to forfeiture.

The legislation is the latest in a series of efforts from lawmakers urging federal law enforcement to take action on auto sears. In April 2022, after a gunman armed with a converted Glock handgun opened fire in Sacramento leaving six dead and 12 wounded, a group of more than 40 members of Congress signed a letter urging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to be more explicit about the illegality of the devices.

In February, Steve Dettelbach, the first confirmed director of the ATF in nearly a decade, said the agency was prioritizing the recovery of auto sears. This is a problem that needs to be focused on immediately, he said. These devices are flooding our communities.

Read the rest here:
Congressional Democrats Introduce Bill Targeting Auto Sears - The Trace