the battle over congestion pricing continues today in federal court here in Newark the first day of a two-day hearing seen as the biggest challenge to congestion pricing and perhaps the state's last chance to block New York's plan which includes a $15 additional toll for anyone entering Midtown Manhattan New Jersey attorneys arguing the Federal Highway administration's decision to approve the MTA congestion pricing plan never took a hard look at the potential impacts on traffic and on the environment to New Jersey communities until the judge rules on this New York plans to move forward with congestion pricing in June senior correspondent Brenda Flanigan was inside the courtroom for the arguments the reality is that new jerseyans are going to be paying the price tag and new jerseyans are going to be experiencing a lot of the adverse environmental effects of this plan attorney Randy Mastro pitched that argument for New Jersey and federal court even as the MTA prepares to impose a controversial $15 a car congestion pricing toll for vehicles driving into Manhattan's business district Jersey challenged the plan claiming it'll divert more traffic through local neighborhoods without offering to mitigate the environmental impact of added air pollution or sharing any of the revenue with New Jersey Transit agencies there's something fundamentally unfair about all of that especially when the impacts in New Jersey will be so Sever and there is not a single dollar yet committed in this plan in any respect for mitigation in New Jersey Mastro called the approval process backwards and incomplete noting the Federal Highway Administration found no significant environmental impact before the MTA actually voted on a finalized plan the Federal Highway Administration greenlit the project before it was approved this process is fundamentally flawed and they can't fix it in two months if there are may be significant impacts you have to do a full environmental review to take into account all of those consequences all of those impacts and talk about mitigation in all of those respects the highway administration's attorney explained it will review its environmental impact assessment as required by law but without input from the public that could result in a new Full environmental impact statement which could take years as for New Jersey's predicted traffic Spike MTA attorney Mark cherto argued they don't know that New Jersey hasn't studied it they haven't done any modeling their reasons are clear delay delay delay an MTA attorney Robbie Kaplan discounted the claim that Jersey will get zero dollar and the papers make very clear that money is going to be uh sent to mitigation to the various New Jersey counties that need it the judge has done a lot of homework he knows his stuff he's asking very smart questions we are happy with how things have gone so far judge Leo Gordon indeed questioned how the feds would re-evaluate environmental impact on New Jersey Which counties it would examine how long the process would take and who might offer input asking why should the court step in with a full judicial review over an administrative process that doesn't appear to be final nobody's got enough data yet to help me understand environmental Advocates argued at an amicus brief that overall it's a good plan to cut Airport if you look at New Jersey as a whole it would be enormous benefit to the state take for example Hudson County where there would be an enormous reduction do I believe that some of the revenue should go to improve public transportation from New Jersey into New York it should but that's not a a basis to enjoying the program Governor Murphy says New Jersey wants the judge to order a full environmental impact study and we've said by the way we'll live with the results of that but that's the fair right thing to do here given that you're not eliminating pollution you're displacing it from Manhattan to New Jersey and you're charging our commuters an exorbitant fee on top of that there's no jury in these proceedings the lawyers will continue their arguments tomorrow and end with closing statements the MTA plans to launch congestion pricing in June in Newark I'm Brenda Flanagan NJ Spotlight News [Music]