Good editorial re: states vs. feds and environmental protection laws

[baby_bear]

http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Jan/01242004/opinion/opinion.asp

<snip>

Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal Environmental Protection Agency could sweep aside less-stringent state regulations and enforce its own interpretation of anti-pollution rules. So, we are told, states can't be too lenient.
Thursday, the EPA announced that it was stopping, and ordering states to stop, monitoring thousands of industrial smokestacks beyond the twice-in-five-years standard written into the Clean Air Act. So, we learn, states can't be too strict.
Just as Alaska protested the EPA's crackdown on a zinc mine within its borders, officials in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Vermont immediately objected to the federal agency's rollback of not only federal but also state inspection regimes.
This comes just as EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt announces that the agency will, too, enforce the very power-plant upgrade regulations it has resolved to eliminate, at least until they can get the courts to rule that they can, indeed, eliminate them.
</snip>

more....

If not for the courts, states would in fact be allowed by the Bush administration to sink to the lowest common denominator, and lower, for environmental protection.
Yet another reason to prevent as many Bush appointees from reaching the bench as possible.

s_m