The second Trump administration has launched a concerted attack on science produced inside and outside the government. It will take years to understand fully the implications of cancelling billions of dollars in research grants to the nation’s universities and undermining EPA’s expertise and destroying IRIS.
As the EtO rollback demonstrates, many of the Trump administration’s deregulatory activities will end up in the courts. District court and appellate judges could face a series of complex disputes over science, technology, and the law. If the lower courts reverse Trump 2 rollbacks, the conservative Supreme Court may intervene to reverse those decisions and reinstate deregulation with decisions that will have long-lasting implications for public health.
The good news in this scenario of woe is that California is refusing to accept these attacks on public health and has pledged to regulate on its own. As one of the largest economies in the world, this development is encouraging. Hopefully other states will follow.
Hold up there, under the Clean Air Act the Federal government set a minimum, not a maximum. Any state can have more stringent controls.
It is not some conspiracy that California created when they set up their regulatory framework. Smog was a serious health issue at the time which highlighted the failure to regulate the problem.
No one is enforcing the red states to accept anything. They don't have to do business with California. Because they do, they have to conform to California regulations. This is nothing new either as states have numerous regulations for things like produce that differ. It is simply part of business.
The red states can always band together and form their own trading block based on the cheap labor and agriculture they are know for. We could call it a "Confederacy 2.0". They could make their own cryptocurrency, start flying the Southern Cross and rise again.
Or they could just raise their standards and continue trading with the world's fourth largest economy.