Stories tagged with "albany"

Congestion Pricing: It all comes down to three men in a room

Posted by Glenn on July 14, 2007 - 12:30pm in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: albany, congestion pricing, michael bloomberg, planyc 2030 [list all tags]

[Update: In a strange move, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is planning to convene not in Albany where they could actually hold a vote on congestion pricing, but in NYC where it is not clear what they will be doing]

Congestion Pricing remains a hot topic in the power corridors of New York City and State politics with a looming Monday deadline on Federal aid to help finance the start-up costs. As usual, a hard fought issue campaign in New York comes down to the Governor (Spitzer-D), the Speaker of the State Assembly (Silver-D) and the President of the State Senate (Bruno-R).

In New York, this is known as the three men in a room situation. It means that at this point it really doesn't matter what each individual legislators think because the leader of each branch of the legislature knows that they can swing enough votes to make whatever compromises they want happen. I spoke to two of these frustrated legislators yesterday and today that it's pretty much out of their hands and they will see what the final legislation is probably within an hour before they are forced to vote on it. Such is the poor state of our great democracy here in New York.

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Asking for NYC's $24 Billion Refund

Posted by Glenn on April 30, 2006 - 3:28pm in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: albany, budget, federal, new york city, oil, peak oil, state, washington [list all tags]

There's a perception that NYC acts as a leech on the rest of the country and state. I'm not sure where this perception comes from. Maybe they think that we just provide too many expensive social services to an enormous load of welfare cases. I'm not sure why people believe this, but it is simply wrong. In fact it is NYC that provides an enormous surplus to both Albany ($13 Billion) and Washington ($11 Billion) (Gotham Gazette). And that's not including the money that we send to the state and Federal Governments or authorities like the MTA or Port Authority that ends up getting spent on projects that do not align with our local priorities because they are approved without much local input.

If we do try to relocalize our energy, food, transportation, democracy, etc in NYC we will need to rectify these imbalances to make sure that the urban core does not continue to subsidize the suburban and exurban lifestyle.

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