Democrats' State-Level Gains May Test EPA's 'Federalism' In Trump Era

摘要

Democrats' state-level gains are likely to drive new efforts to strengthen climate, water and other rules in the face of the Trump EPA's deregulatory agenda - potentially easing environmentalists' concerns about the agency's push to shift more responsibility to states and testing the Trump administration's commitment to cooperative federalism, sources say. One industry attorney says that Democratic gains in statehouses could ease environmentalists' opposition to the Trump administration's push for increased cooperative federalism, because more states on the receiving end of increased autonomy will be Democratic-led and therefore perceived as more likely to vigorously enforce environmental laws. "The more of those states are run by Democrats, the more likely that sort of devolution could actually be successful," the source says. While politicians of every stripe embrace greater autonomy, the source adds that in Democratic states, environmentalists are less apt to oppose cooperative federalism "as some collusive deal with Trump, so you could actually see some success there."