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The federal lawyers who filed a confidential memo in court detailing what they saw as weaknesses in the Department of Transportation’s plan to fight New York’s congestion pricing program should “absolutely” face consequences for filing it, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday at the World Economy Summit in Washington, DC.
Since Duffy took office, his department has tried to kill the program, which charges most vehicles a small fee to enter Midtown Manhattan. Duffy has threatened to withhold highway funding if the New York-based Metropolitan Transportation Authority doesn’t comply. The MTA sued the department in court.
The memo’s exposure was a “pretty significant mistake,” Duffy told Semafor’s Shelby Talcott.
“As lawyers, it’s incompetence or it was on purpose,” he said. “Should there be consequences? Absolutely. What should those consequences be? The attorney general makes that decision.”
A US attorney’s office spokesman said in a statement that the filing “was a completely honest error and was not intentional in any way,” according to The New York Times. The Transportation Department said on Thursday that the case has been moved to the Justice Department’s civil division, the Times reported.
Duffy said his department does not agree with the memo, and he remains confident about the legal strategy.
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Duffy also told Semafor on Thursday that the administration is considering restricting airspace beyond the DC area. A deadly January plane crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport led to restrictions now in place there. Duffy said there were 85 “really close calls” in that airspace in recent years that called into question the Federal Aviation Administration’s ability to prevent another tragedy.
“The FAA didn’t see it, so that’s a concern for me,” Duffy said. As a result, the department is now using AI tools to look at other airports where so-called cross traffic incidents may be occurring, he said.
The Semafor View
The energy transition is changing, not ending. Renewable and fossil-fuel production are at record highs. Clean energy is cheaper than oil drilling, and Big Tech’s appetite for power is growing exponentially. Investments into new fuel sources and green tech are unlikely to wind down any time soon, while countries are increasingly concerned with energy independence.