Environmental policy technically would fall as an interstate problem, not an individual state problem. Factories in the Ohio Valley aren't just polluting downtown Cleveland, they're effecting states all around them. The Fed. setting a minimum standard is a necessity because the states cannot be trusted to curb it themselves.
Lets assume we use your state-policy theory, where all environmental regulation is decided from a state. Lets say a state like Ohio decides to tax the hell out of pollution industry as a deterrant. Ohio then watches their industry pull out very quickly, lay off the workers, and move to a state that has low (or no) taxes. Essentially, the lack of a solid standard will hurt industry when setting up new operations. Without a solid universal standard, you don't actually solve the problem. We're at the point where local states are reluctant to tax corporations to raise money, what makes you think they'd tax them even more to prevent pollution when the end result would essentially be an industrial migration to a state with low pollution tax rates?
Letting states control everything isn't worth it in several cases. Other examples are currency (universal currency is a must), foreign trade and diplomacy, tariffs, and other economic factors. Environmental safeguards should have a manditory federal standard that states can further add onto (as in the current system).
We have safeguards on drinking water, although Bush has allowed more mercury/arsenic levels to be present in the water in the name of deregulation (although I have no clue why since that seems like a reasonable regulation). |