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by Anthony Gregory
| Mon, 12 Nov 2007 |
Carbon Emissions, States Rights, and Double Standards
Governor Schwarzenegger is suing the federal government in the name of California's right to regulate carbon emissions. He is not alone in his view. More than a dozen states have been impatient with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for years now, as the Bush administration has been reluctant to enact emissions caps on the automotive industry.
This situation raises an interesting point. Often, national regulators benefit private interests by quashing local regulation. During the Progressive Era in the early 20th century, much of the drive for new federal regulations on everything from transportation and energy to food and communications actually came from big business. Not only did established firms want new laws to protect them from the competitive free market, they also resented the patchwork diversity of state regulations and sought a monolithic regulatory regime in Washington, D.C.
Furthermore, national regulation has historically compromised clean air. The common law courts used to have jurisdiction over air pollution. But during the Industrial Revolution, British companies that blew soot into the air wanted national regulations to protect them from local lawsuits – all in the name of "the common good," of course. When President Nixon created the EPA, industry leaders knew they would have major influence over the new agency and could use it to force taxpayers to clean up industry's messes.
Matters are more complicated, however, with carbon emissions. Whether they are pollutants is not as clear-cut as it was with the smoke and soot that blackened 19th-century skylines. As for private interests obscuring the debate, there are plenty on both sides this time. While many car manufacturers fear global warming legislation, many energy firms look forward to the government contracts, institutional stability, and protection from competition that such regulations will bring. It is why Enron, for example, so strongly favored the Kyoto Treaty.
In terms of Constitutional jurisdiction, Schwarzenegger probably is right. The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states and people all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government. The EPA has no Constitutional right to exist. Pollution should be handled more locally, as it was under the common law. But is this an interpretation leftist environmentalists can embrace? Probably not.
In many areas, leftists favor a powerful central government. In April, the Supreme Court sided with California, Massachusetts, numerous other states, cities, and environmental organizations, affirming that the EPA had the authority and potential obligation to oversee carbon emissions. For many environmentalists, the ends justify the means – whether they have to appeal to federal supremacy or states' rights. Some have called for "energy federalism," letting states set the policies, but most do not want to lose the EPA.
The left also was conflicted over the medical marijuana case Gonzales v. Raich two years ago: If liberals agreed that the feds could not override California medical marijuana laws, they'd have no Constitutional leg to stand on concerning education programs, welfare, gun control, and their many other pet projects on the federal level. Accordingly, the liberal Supreme Court justices all upheld the prerogative of the national police state to trump the interests of local medical marijuana ordinances.
On the other hand, conservatives can be hypocritical too, calling for the feds to overrule local laws on marijuana, global warming, and gay marriage and championing a strong national police state, all while defending states' rights on prayer in school, abortion, guns, and numerous other issues. But the hypocrisy on the right is no excuse for hypocrisy on the left.
The debates over the science of global warming and the proper role of government in the environment are emotionally charged and cannot be resolved in this space. But people on the left must decide: Do they want matters like these sorted out as locally as possible or by a national leviathan that will always be wedded to corporate interests and headed by relatively conservative politicians? Do they think the federal government must impose standards throughout America, despite what some states might want, or do they think the feds should butt out and let the states, and more ideally the people, handle these issues, however imperfectly, on their own?
They can't have it both ways. Yet leftists have double standards on emission standards and much else, as far as states' rights are concerned.
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