In adopting California's tough new 35.5 miles-per-gallon fuel emissions standards today, the President made a wise decision that will help the planet continue to exist. Almost more notable than the standards themselves, however, is the fact that Obama decided to abandon the lawsuit through which auto execs and the Bush Administration had sought to block California's right to implement the standards in the first place.
While auto execs are spinning this decision as a great example of the wisdom of enacting a unified set of federal standards instead of a “patchwork” of state rules, the truth of the matter is that this decision is a landmark example of states' power to set national policy by outpacing federal legislation. If it weren't for California pushing to set standards that outpaced the Bush Administration's pitifully low ones, there would be no new regulatory framework to enact today. This observation seems obvious, but it has gone unnoticed in the mainstream media accounts of today's announcement.
But that's only because the D.C. policy elite – particularly the liberal elite – have for decades ignored the importance of granting states authority to set regulatory standards that outstrip those enacted by the federal government. Lost in the justifiable but simplified knee-jerk reaction against conservative, secessionist arguments about “states' rights” is the fact that progressive state leaders have a long history of beating feds to the punch on some of the most important reform issues in the progressive agenda.
Liberal pundits should keep in mind that it was states that made all the gamebreaking moves on prosecuting Big Tobacco and forcing federal regulation. If you go back even further, it was states that forced the federal government into action on the eight hour day, minimum wage hikes, clean air and water regulations, and civil rights protections.
By blocking state's ability to set their own regulatory standards, we risk blocking action on a spate of crucial issues. Currently federal preemptions prevent states from cracking down on predatory lending, state requirements that employers provide health care to their employees, and state rules preventing labor law violators from receiving government contracts.
The solution? We need federal standards that act as floors, not ceilings – rules that set standards below which states cannot fall, but above which they are welcome to climb.
California's victory today shows the benefit of states pushing to overcome the barriers that the federal government can often place in the way of reform. But, moving forward, we need to make sure that states are encouraged, rather than blocked, from taking such action. If more states are allowed to take the the kind of initiative that California did with auto emissions regulation, the whole country would be better off.
STATE BLOGS
