Weren't these same "let the states do what they want" arguments used to justify slavery in the South? Anyhow, without the Feds kicking people in the nuts from time to time and developing cohesive environemental policies that crossed state lines we would still have rivers that caught fire (Cuyahoga), run amok clear cutting and strip mining, repeats of the dust bowl as well as acid rain. I doubt if left up to the states the US would ever develop any semblance of a comprehensive energy or climate change policy.
It seems like the reasoning is:
- The States were on the wrong side of the biggest of all issues, slavery
- the federal goverenmnet was on the right side of that argument
- Therefore, states bad, feds good.
There is absolutely no doubt that the federal goverenment bought itself decades of credibility in that fight, and the Southern States really undermined a lot of the goodwill towards federalism. But, still, is that really a good argument to justify actions moving foward? What is inherently good about federal goverenment that we should just trust it to always do the right thing vis a vis the States. The feds have gotten us into some highly questionable wars, created a fundemental right to abortion, and created an almost insurmountable national debt, among other things.
Our founding fathers were deeply wary of consolidated power, and their entire system is basd on dividing it up- horizontally between the three branches of the federal goverenemnt, and vertically between the limited federal goverenemtn and the States. Catholic political theory says that organized actions should be passed down to the most localized goverenemnt that can handle the task, and that goverenemtn should not take away from families and individuals responsibility that are rightly theirs (subsidiarity). My point is that a healthy skepticism of centralized goverenemnt is both American and Catholic, and it is very consistent with the lessons of the 20th century (facism and communism).
As far as environmentalism, the federal goverenment has broad powers to regulate actors in interstate commerce, so EPA would probably have a long arm even under a more state-centered system insofar as those activities were incidental to commerce. Second, the States would still have to answer to their people for intrastate pollution. My guess is that people's tolerance of pollution is far lower than it was 100 years ago. This is certainly demonstrated in the use of traditional causes of action to fight polluters.
