As congressional gridlock persists, companies have started targeting sympathetic Republican leaders in the house to fight California’s notoriously strict workplace, consumer protection, and environmental laws. Officials are worried that many of these landmark laws may be in danger. New legislation to strengthen federal environmental laws on toxic chemicals would come at the price of invalidating an extremely strong California law that protects people against the most dangerous toxins.
The new law would give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) authority to screen chemicals for safety rather than only being able to regulate chemicals that have already been proven dangerous; however, it could also prevent states from implementing their own regulations. This is not the only instance in which strong state laws have been threatened by federal ones. Just last year, a law that would have prevented California from enforcing its state water protections for endangered species made it through the house but failed in the senate.
[Latimes]
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Featured image courtesy of [Steve Rhodes via Flickr]