Foreign Policy Blogs

"This is the way the world ends …

… Not with a bang but a whimper."*

I revisited congestion pricing in New York City recently.  (See Congestion Pricing Redux from April 1 below.) 

Well, after having been recommended by the NY City Council, with the support of scores of municipal good government, environmental, labor and business groups, it sailed up the Hudson River to Albany – where it died.  (Albany is not the Valhalla of the Norse myths, I can assure you.)  This is the lead story in today's "NY Times" – $8 Traffic Fee for Manhattan Gets Nowhere.  Whose fault is it?  Many of the state legislators are pointing their fingers at Mayor Bloomberg for some sort of "arrogant elitism," while others think that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Bloomberg adversary in almost all things, killed it because he could.  ("I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.")  The "NY Times" editorial board certainly is in the latter camp.  See Mr. Silver Does It Again in which they say of him:  "He failed to put New Yorkers' needs before his personal agenda. That makes him unworthy of his office."  Nuff said.

*("The Hollow Men"- T. S. Eliot)

 

Author

Bill Hewitt

Bill Hewitt has been an environmental activist and professional for nearly 25 years. He was deeply involved in the battle to curtail acid rain, and was also a Sierra Club leader in New York City. He spent 11 years in public affairs for the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation, and worked on environmental issues for two NYC mayoral campaigns and a presidential campaign. He is a writer and editor and is the principal of Hewitt Communications. He has an M.S. in international affairs, has taught political science at Pace University, and has graduate and continuing education classes on climate change, sustainability, and energy and the environment at The Center for Global Affairs at NYU. His book, "A Newer World - Politics, Money, Technology, and What’s Really Being Done to Solve the Climate Crisis," will be out from the University Press of New England in December.



Areas of Focus:
the policy, politics, science and economics of environmental protection, sustainability, energy and climate change

Contact