Watchdog Archives
What About a State's Right to a Healthy Environment?
Offshore oil drilling and ozone in California. Factory farm pollution in North Carolina. Power plant regulation in the northeast. Across the country, states are finding that the Bush Administration's environmental policies are less stringent than their own and, in some cases, the administration is even limiting the ability of states to protect their environment. In North Carolina, for example, factory-style farms are subject to state regulations requiring various permits and waste treatment systems, and the state currently has a ban on new hog farms. These rules are more stringent than recently released EPA guidelines. Environmental advocates in North Carolina are concerned that large scale animal farmers will use the new EPA rules as leverage to weaken the state regulations (Raleigh News & Observer 12/17/02). In California, a new smog reduction plan proposed by the EPA has state officials worried that ozone levels might actually increase, because of the long phase-in period. The Bush administration is also quietly rewriting the rules governing coastal drilling to limit the influence of states. A letter signed by Rep. Lois Capps and 90 other members of Congress calls the revision a "pernicious assault on states' rights." (LA Times 8/21/03). On the opposite coast, thirteen states have again filed a legal challenge to the EPA's revised New Source Review regulations, which would allow many older power plants to upgrade without reducing the amount they pollute (Hartford Courant 8/21/03). It seems the administration supports states' rights -- unless it's the right to a healthy environment.
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