Latest News: Federal

During his campaign, President Biden made a commitment to the environment, including a promise that one of his first actions as president would be to rejoin the Paris climate agreement. Not only did President Biden keep this promise, he also signed a host of other executive orders on the same day, just a week after his inauguration.

Now that all of the absentee, early voting, and election day ballots have been counted, we’d like to update you on results.

The Federal Highway Administration has indefinitely held up approval of New York’s congestion pricing plan - one of NYLCV’s priorities - refusing to raise any substantive concerns. NYLCV is working with other advocates to reach out to New York’s Congressional delegation and President-elect Biden’s transition team to emphasize the need to support transportation, and we are hopeful that we will see positive action on congestion pricing early in 2021.

We expect 2021 to be a year in which the federal government takes decisive action to help New York State achieve its nation-leading climate goals.

To add to the extraordinariness of 2020, this year also marks a historic and destructive Atlantic hurricane season. So far, 11 named storms have made landfall in the U.S. mainland, breaking the previous record of 9 storms set in 1916.

Today we announced our final round of endorsements in the 2020 election cycle - 17 candidates with exceptional environmental records.

More and more New Yorkers are opting to commute by bike, and we’ll need to do so even more to reduce emissions. That’s why NYLCV supports H.R. 1507, the Bicycle Commuter Act.

Even though 2020 has been a difficult year, this Climate Week should be a time to imagine what New York can look like in a decade if we commit to rebuilding stronger and greener, with an ambitious vision for the future that centers around sustainability and fairness.