Businesses enlist Congress in fight against California laws

[Kablooie]

Source: Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — California has a reputation for having some of the nation's most aggressive rules on workplace safety, consumer protection and environmental quality — regulations that force companies to make costly adjustments to the way they do business worldwide. Now some of those companies, banking on congressional gridlock and sympathetic Republican leaders in the House, are fighting back. And officials in Sacramento worry that some of the state's landmark laws may be in danger.

At the top of their worry list is a measure with bipartisan support that would strengthen federal environmental laws on dangerous chemicals, but at the price of rolling back a pioneering California law that tries to protect consumers from the most toxic materials. State leaders are scrambling to fend off the bill, which they say is written so broadly that it also could undermine California's clean water laws and its effort to combat global warming.

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The U.S. government has the power to block the laws of California or any other state if the statutes have an impact on interstate commerce or otherwise interfere with federal authority. But Washington has tended to do that sparingly. Democrats there typically don't have a problem with the state's liberal policies, and Republicans have preferred to avoid infringing on states' rights. But Republicans have taken up the argument that they need to curb such regulatory trailblazing to protect the rights of other states, particularly deep-red ones that don't want their industries faced with either following California's rules or being cut off from the country's biggest market. They argue that the state's regulations have gotten more aggressive. State officials say a more conservative Republican Party now puts business interests ahead of protecting states from Washington's authority.

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The California Environmental Protection Agency has "identified dozens of California laws and regulations that may be at risk of preemption" under the chemicals bill, Secretary Matt Rodriquez wrote in a letter to senators. He warned that it "could jeopardize California's ability to control greenhouse gases and thereby meet the state's targets under AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006."






Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-california-targeted-20130728,0,113871.story

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Geez.
Republicans say they fight for state's rights but, hypocrites to the core, if the state wants something that they don't want, they expect the federal government to take over the state and change laws to suit themselves.

They have no values at all except to make the rich, richer at the expense of everyone else.
Anything else they claim is simply a front to increase the wealth of the filthy rich.

[alittlelark]

1. I'll be out there fighting this tooth and nail.

[John2]

2. You have

totally gotten me confused on this. What Federal authority are you talking about? What Statute of California are they claiming intefere with interstate commerce? Are they talking about private companies? Don't every state in the country have regulations, companies have to follow to cross state lines? For example, don't Truck drivers have to follow different regulations when crossing state lines? Don't they have to pay different tolls also when they travel on certain roads?

[Kablooie]

3. The article has more detail and mentions some specific regulations that could be affected.

[JDPriestly]

8. I suspect that the article may be confused about what is likely to happen.

Congress can, through the language it uses in writing a bill, pass laws such as environmental laws that apply nationwide to interstate commerce, that is commerce that flows between states. It's called "preemption." It means that a federal law can supersede a state or local law. The federal law may sort of displace a state or local law, just replace it and cancel out the local or state law.

In California, we have special environmental problems. First, in Southern California, we have very little water. In Los Angeles, for example, we have water rationing. So we protect our water as well as we can.

Second, our air sweeps in from the ocean crosses (in Southern California) the desert or hits mountains in the Eastern Sierra. Los Angeles, for example, is almost surrounded by mountains in some places. Pollution seems to settle on our city. You can see it. It's sort of a pink haze. That's what we call smog.

I remember coming to Los Angeles in the 1960s. I wore contact lenses and my eyes were watering and crying all the time from the smog.

The smog is better now because we have special environmental laws. They exist because our environmental problems are very damaging to our quality of life and our health.

It would be vicious on the part of other areas of the US to challenge or change our environmental laws on the basis of their experience. If you live in the Midwest, for example, you may have tornadoes, but the wind sweeps across your land and cleans the air. Our air gets trapped. The dirt and pollution in our air gets trapped. It's visible.

The rest of the country should have the environmental laws that suit its environmental conditions and let us have the laws that suit ours. We have special emission standards and special standards for the gas we use. I think we have a compelling reason for having these stricter laws. The rest of the country and the corporations should respect our decisions on this.

[Left Coast2020]

4. There they go again.

[Politicalboi]

5. We should tell them to

Move to TexASS then. Even with all the ice melting, these assholes continue like it's no big deal.

[olddots]

6. I will march against these turd maggots till I die

and there are millions like me who won't let these greedy bastards ruin this country .

[Volaris]

7. The Motto of the Regan Conservative:

We luves us some state's rights (when the shit works in OUR FAVOR). If State's Rights' ever work in YOUR favor, well, that's just dirty, big government Liberalism, and we won't allow that kind of Government to undermine Individual (see Corporate) Liberties. It's against our Philosophy.

I WISH there were a Majority of elected officals in the Democratic Party with the brains AND THE BALLS to call them out on this kind of vaccuous argument. (I also wish there were more "traditional" Republicans in the Republican Party with the same sense, but sadly, those people have all been purged under the attack that they are not "real" Conservatives.)

I swear, the first self-described Liberal, anti-corportist Republican that has the moxy to actually run for Federal Office, and tell the idiots in his or her own party where the hell to get off, will set this Nation's Public Policy for the next 20 years. Democrats had better start realizing that a HUGE voter block is just sitting out there, WAITING to support them, and unless they get their act together, they will be AGREEING with policies proposed BY the Majority, rather than OFFERING policy FROM the Majority.

And the idea of that kinda pisses me the hell off.