In Washington, Mayor's Goals Are Modest

WASHINGTON — Turning from the grandiose to the modest, Mayor Bloomberg is setting his sights on more incremental ways of reducing New York's carbon footprint following the demise of his plan to implement congestion pricing in Manhattan.

The mayor traveled to Washington yesterday to announce that the city was moving forward with an element of its 127-point plan to boost the environment, but the initiative — installing solar panels on 11 municipal buildings — was a far cry from the development he had hoped to trumpet here: approval of a proposal to charge an $8 fee to drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street.

Mr. Bloomberg delivered a keynote address to an environmental conference at Georgetown University a day after Albany legislators effectively killed his congestion pricing proposal.

He sharply criticized the state Assembly for refusing to vote on the measure while vowing to press forward with dozens of other elements of his ambitious environmental plan for New York City. Many of those projects, he noted, require no legislative approval.

Appearing disappointed but not dejected in a 25-minute speech, the mayor belittled arguments offered by his critics in the Assembly even as he characterized congestion pricing as "only one of 127 items in the PlaNYC agenda" to make the five boroughs more environmentally friendly.

"They complained about the inconvenience — even though most New Yorkers don't drive," the mayor said. "They said it hadn't been studied enough, despite an entire year's worth of analysis, following a process that they had established."

"And ultimately," he said, "they didn't even have the courage to vote on it — they just killed it in a back room. That's not leadership."

Mr. Bloomberg made no specific mention of the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who chose not to bring the congestion pricing bill to the floor. But in veiled barbs at the speaker and his members, the mayor lashed out at political inaction several times during his speech, bemoaning elected officials who he said lacked the courage to make hard choices.

"As big as the benefits of environmentalism are, and as big as the risks of climate change if we don't act, a lot of people would still rather do nothing," he said. "It is sad, but it is true."

Speaking to reporters after the speech, are strained Mr. Bloomberg showed little interest in attacking Mr. Silver. While defending his own efforts to navigate the proposal through the Legislature, he deflected questions about the speaker's leadership and whether he would seek retribution by supporting challengers to Mr. Silver and other opposing lawmakers in the fall. "I'm not here to talk about politics," the mayor said.

But Mr. Bloomberg did contradict Mr. Silver on one major point, insisting that the Assembly would have approved congestion pricing if it had come to a vote. "It would have been passed," the mayor said.

In deciding against a floor vote on Monday, Mr. Silver said "an overwhelming majority" of the majority Democratic conference opposed the measure.

Without approval of congestion pricing, the city lost out on $354 million in federal funding for mass transit improvements, and Mr. Bloomberg, responding to a question from an audience member, said he did not know where the city would now get the money for needed upgrades.

In the speech, the mayor announced that the city was advancing a plan to install solar panels on 11 municipal buildings across the five boroughs, including five high schools and a community college.