If you want stricter emissions standards, fine. But figure out how to do it through the federal government, and not via a side channel.
Edit:
Just wanted to note that I was pleasantly surprised to see people posting reasonable rebuttals and not just the normal "Republicans are evil" replies I've come to expect.
Trump has violated states rights and deserves to be criticized for it.
And exemption from a regulation is “If you fulfill this criteria/make an application then different set of regulations take effect”.
Correct. However, I see no difference between this, and attempting to formulate a set of criteria that is obviously intended to make the law only apply to someone (or some entity) the legislature has already selected. I think we have lots of examples of laws in the current US code that clearly were written with criteria designed to uniquely punish certain individuals or businesses, and I don't see a substantive difference between this and a 'traditional' bill of attainder.
Which isn't the case. California has a unique exemption because the federal law was inspired by California's existing law, driven by CA's unique needs for strong pollution controls due to a combination of population density, climate, and geography. The federal law actually grants CA an exemption only so long as CA's standards exceed the federal government's standards.
Which is something that our current president doesn't quite understand. It's not just that CA wants to have higher standards to give him the middle finger--it's that CA is legally required to have higher standards to maintain its legal exemption.
But, yes, every state should have been equally free to have higher standards, but taking away California's waiver is going to the wrong direction.
Regulations are a trade off between the needs of different stakeholders. If the needs of the stakeholders differ then the regulations need to as well.
No, we were granted the exception because of the unique geography of the LA Basin and the pollution that it naturally traps and holds which required stricter standards than the minimum the Federal government was allowing.
Note, I'm talking strictly states rights as I think they should be by the constitution. There are other areas of this where the feds have done things I disagree with (such as not allowing each state to set their own standards)
And it seems like it would be a mess if you had "Ohio cars" that could be driven in Ohio but not California, and "California cars" that could be driven in California but not in Texas, etc etc.
To be fair, the federal government has a history of abusing the interstate commerce clause -- it's not clear that just because something is capable of crossing a state line, it should automatically fall under federal purview.
This is one of the funniest things about this whole mess, California's "exemption" is much more legal than the EPA ever was (along with pretty much every other regulatory 3 letter agency).
The Constitution guarantees that you -- an American citizen or legal immigrant or tourist -- can enter and leave the state at will -- not your stuff.
You mean a criminal? It is a crime to own a ferret into california or to smuggle them in.
And article 1, section 8 gives feds power to regulate (normalize) interstate commerce.
It is perfectly fine under the interstate commerce rules for California rules and Ohio rules and Texas rules for a given product to make it so that a manufacturer can't make a single product that works in all three states.
As long as someone who decides that they wants to make products that meets California rules can make those products in Ohio or Texas, and someone who wants to make products for the Ohio market can make them in California and Texas, and so on, that's fine.
Today, almost all US sold cars conform to CA emissions, regardless of where they are sold. Sometimes you will see cars or trucks with the option for CA Emissions, but this does effect power or performance, it just has different parameters for determining when to trigger check engine lights for emissions-related issues.
Though, heavy duty truck can be equipped with an emissions exemption. I think this is, ironically, limited to government vehicles.
Many California cities are among the worst in air quality in the nation, even though there are stricter standards in California.
The fact that different locations may have different air quality needs due to geography, ecology, or activity is a pretty good reason for the law to allow locally stricter versions.
Auto makers could make different cars for California, that they choose to not do so-- presumably much of the compliance costs are non-reoccurring expenses-- and instead use the same cars elsewhere is just the free market at work.
11% of US auto sales are in California.
But even if it were 50%, they could still make different cars for California. They are simply choosing not to because the costs are high enough to bother. They seem to perfectly manage to produce cars in different colors or with dozens of other options, including ones that are picked in less than 10% of sales.
I agree that it would be better if this was federal, but if the federal government cannot or will not implement good regulations, I'd rather states do it via a side channel than just leave the problem as it is.