USDOT replaces federal lawyers after blunder involving congestion pricing memo (2025)

Congestion pricing toll gantries on the Williamsburg Bridge

Photo by Dean Moses

Officials from the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) fired their lawyers on Thursday after what appeared to be an administrative error from the federal team regarding the legal battle over congestion pricing in NYC.

USDOT bounced its legal team after the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office, which had been handling the lawsuit, said it mistakenly filed into court an internal memo that questioned the strength of the Trump administration’s case against New York state and the MTA in its quest to kill congestion pricing — and whether federal Transportation Attorney Sean Duffy could prevail in court.

“…there is considerable litigation risk in defending the Secretary’s Feb. 19, 2025 decision against plaintiffs’ claims under the Administrative Procedure Act, that the decision was contrary to law, pretextual, procedurally arbitrary and capricious, and violated due process,” the April 11 memo states.

That potentially Freudian slip led the USDOT to accuse its own lawyers, assigned to the case from the US Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York, of potentially sabotaging the lawsuit, according to an article in the New York Times on Thursday. The department said they would transfer the case to the civil division of the Justice Department in Washington, DC.

amNewYork contacted the USDOT for comment, but did not receive a response.

The doubt-riddled 11-page memo goes on to say “the court is unlikely” to uphold the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) rationale for terminating the city’s Central Business District Tolling Program (CBDTP).

Currently, Duffy is aiming to end congestion pricing based on the legality of the $9 base-toll program, alleging that drivers have no free way to enter the area located south of 61st Street in Manhattan. He has also said the toll rate was set to raise money for public transit rather than at a rate needed to reduce traffic congestion.

However, the memo states that a victory for the feds would be more likely if they changed legal strategy.

“FHWA may, however, be able to properly terminate the CBDTP value pricing pilot pursuant to established Office of Management and Budget regulations concerning the termination of cooperative agreements. Termination of the CBDTP agreement pursuant to these OMB regulations would still allow FHWA to end the CBDTP for the Secretary’s stated reasons, but would do so as a matter of changed agency priorities rather than arguing the CBDTP was not statutorily authorized in the first instance,” the memo explained.

Duffy first attempted to halt congestion pricing, which launched on Jan. 5, in a strongly worded Feb. 19 letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul and the MTA, saying the FHWA terminated approval of the pilot program.

Hochul responded by filing a lawsuit in federal court to block the order.

While Duffy has since made two more attempts to kill the program, the efforts are moot since the case is still playing out in court.

In the meantime, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” on Thursday that he did not want to comment on the issue, but said that the MTA is confident that the toll program will not be “taken down unilaterally” by the federal government.