(Beyond Pesticides, January 6, 2025) With the incoming U.S. president promising the “most aggressive regulatory reduction” ever seen in the country’s history, attention shifts to local and state governments’ responsibility to protect health and the environment. While the reliance on local governments to fill the gaps left by deficient federal action is not new, the U.S. system of federalism has historically and constitutionally required a sharing of powers from local to state to federal, with a reliance on agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a basic level of protections. While the role of local and state governments has been critical to ensuring environmental and public health protection when scientific findings have shown federal action to be inadequate, the new administration has outlined a course that suggests an increasingly important role for local and state governments. As Beyond Pesticides has reported, “Mr. Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax,” has targeted “every one” of Mr. Biden’s policies designed to transition the United States away from fossil fuels,” according to The New York Times. This is happening as the country and world face serious catastrophic threats of ongoing and escalating health, biodiversity, and climate crises. In this context, […]
