(Alex Kent/Getty Images) New York City’s congestion pricing program—which charges most drivers a $9 toll to enter Manhattan’s business districts—contains several carveouts and “mitigation efforts” designed to limit the tax’s impact on ethnic minorities. The city’s non-minorities are not offered comparable treatment, our Jon Levine reports, meaning the scheme could amount to illegal discrimination. The special treatment is meant to aid so-called environmental justice communities, which, according to public literature from New York City Transit, refers to neighborhoods “composed of minority or low-income populations.” It includes air filtration systems, roadside vegetation projects, and, most importantly, a $230 million “regional mitigation” effort that provides “a reduction in overnight tolls and an expansion of the city’s clean trucks program” for those neighborhoods, Levine writes. The measures do not apply to majority-white Staten Island—where there are plenty of low-income white people—leading one of its former lawmakers to grumble, “The exhaust fumes are apparently fumier in the Bronx.” The Trump administration has been keen to both kill congestion pricing and take on illegal discrimination promoted in the name of social justice, prompting congestion pricing critics to note that the “environmental justice” emphasis could prompt litigation. “I think it would appeal to the Trump administration that the way the analysis was done was improper,” said Randy Mastro, a Democrat and former top deputy to New York City mayors Eric Adams and Rudy Giuliani. READ MORE: NYC Congestion Pricing Scheme Prioritizes ‘Environmental Justice Communities,’ Pumps Money Into Minority Neighborhoods in What Could Be Illegal Discrimination