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Comment by CWuestefeld | Hacker News Reader

The regulations for CAFE -- car emissions -- are far more onerous than this, and they've been completely litigated and found to be Constitutional.

IIRC, it was found that so long as there's a strict hierarchy of standards (i.e., non-disjoint), it's OK, because a manufacturer can aim for the most-strict regulation, and thereby be legal everywhere. The problem would be if the standards were such that two different products needed to be created in order to satisfy the requirements of different states.

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Gasoline differs.

Specifically, the regional gasoline blends differ, and incompatibly.

Some papers on this topic:

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/emuehle/Research%20WP/Gasoline...

http://cbey.research.yale.edu/uploads/File/muehlegger_23.pdf

You're talking about a related but distinct legal issue. CAFE is an exercise of Congress's commerce clause power, and as part of that power, they have allowed states to set stricter standards. Had they not specifically done so, states would not have that authority, as federal law would preempt them in that area.

The issue here is that there are, in fact, certain federal laws regarding toxins in general, and batteries in particular, that might lead a court to conclude that federal law has preempted state law in this area. Congress's choice not to require battery manufacturers to take certain steps is not the same as Congress abdicating that authority to the states.

I'm not saying this is cut and dried, or that they'd likely win, I'm just saying it's sufficiently fuzzy that I'd expect the lawsuit to be filed.

Congress abdicating that authority to the states

That's an odd phrase, in the presence of the 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Congress doesn't get to decide what power it will exercise, and leave the crumbs for the States (at least not in theory). The States and the People have decided what powers to grant to the Federal Gov't, and so Congress is limited to that scope.

(Yes, I'm aware of preemption in various matters, I'm objecting to the implication in your statement that Congress gets to decide what the States' rights are.)

Congress gets to decide which rights the states get when those rights are originally given to Congress, as is the case with interstate commerce. Nothing in that post implied that Congress can do this with everything.

Tenther claims are not going to get you far in front of the US Supreme Court.

Congress has extensive powers over interstate commerce, and when it chooses to regulate an aspect of interstate commerce, state regulation in that area is automatically preempted except to the extent specified by Congress. This rule is clear and longstanding, and does not simply cover "various matters", but virtually all matters directly connected to commerce amongst the states.

Further, look up the dormant commerce clause, which can kick in even without Congress stepping into an area.

Then look up Granholm v. Heald. Even the 21st Amendment couldn't save one attempt that tried to regulate interstate trade of alcohol.

CAFE is particularly interesting because the government recognizes that the standard results in lighter, deadlier cars, killing thousands of additional people on American roads.

lighter, deadlier cars

Lighter <> Deadlier

For one thing, lighter frequently means "more agile", i.e., better able to avoid a crash.

But even given a crash, modern engineering can yield great safety with light weight. See the results of a "Crash Test 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air VS. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu (Frontal Offset)" [1]. In it, the dummy driver of the big iron Bel Air is pretty thoroughly killed.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMK1WZjP7g

While I agree with the statement that lighter is not equivalent to deadlier, it's a straw man to compare a 50 year old car (That doesn't even have seatbelts!) against a modern car. The trivial come-back is "think of how safe a car we could make with modern engineering if it weighed as much as a '59 bel-air"

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