I discovered this story on the post history of a writer who is annoying even by Vox standards, and even though that particular article seemed fairly reasonable, the writer does not, and it is Vox, and I am sick and tired, so first link is to Bloomberg. I think that this deserves its own thread.
Trump is looking to freeze the emissions standards which were supposed to take vehicles to 50 MPG by 2025. This is bad, but not very remarkable. Any GOP president today would do the same. What is remarkable is that he is looking at repealing a waiver granted to California to set its own admissions standards (which other states are allowed to adhere to), which goes back 48 years, surviving both Reagan and W.
Now, I am not a huge fan of federalism. Basically I believe that the federal government should guarantee the civil rights of citizens nationwide, while economic regulations should be minimal. However, we have a lot of regulations I think are unnecessary (somehow, those are never the ones Republicans get in their sights), and they always set a floor for regulations. So I have become a fan of preemption, which also sets a ceiling on regulations and also makes regulations more consistent across states.
Likewise, I am not thrilled with the exemption California has, because in my perfect world, we would have a carbon tax which takes the cost of pollution into account and lets people and manufacturers make their own decisions about whether the costs are worthwhile. However this is not my ideal world, and most GOP lawmakers have a weird fetish around business and are dead set against ever making businesses bay for externalities of any sort. So emissions regulations are the next-best thing.
California alone would be the fifth-largest economy, it is the only state allowed to set its own emissions regulations, however other states can and do adhere to the regulations California sets, and thirteen of them have. So you basically have two standards: Red America Standards and Blue America standards. This is not going to lead to fragmentation in the same way as Vermont setting food labeling standards would. And while California has passed some really stupid laws (and Vermont wanting to mandate labeling GMOs was also fucking stupid), its emission standards not among them; they are both achievable and reasonable.
I mean, really all that I needed to say was that Trump is giving people a license to pollute and fucking with California just because. But given that I am probably more sympathetic to the viewpoint espoused by groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute than many people here, I wanted to explain why I still think that they are dangerously wrong.
TL;DR: Trump is going everything in his power to increase pollution and in the process is repealing a waiver for California to set its own emissions regulations that survived Reagan and W. I am generally supportive of federal pre-emption of state regulations and even I think this is stupid and dangerous.