While you hear rightwing state politicians beating their chests about "states rights" and even potential secession, you might have missed them applauding Obama this week taking multiple steps to restore state regulatory authority against an overreaching federal government that, under Bush, had repeatedly overruled states laws in the name of federal authority.

For years, California and a number of states had sought to enact car emission standards, yet had been blocked by the Bush Environmental Protection Agency which refused to allow those standards to go into effect. Obama not only embraced those state standards in action this week but affirmed the right of states in the future to enact additional environmental standards beyond any federal minimum standards.

And in that same week, Obama established a sweeping policy for all heads of executive departments and agencies, ordering them to avoid the preemption language routinely included in Bush-era regulatory preamble statements or in codified regulations unless there is "full consideration of the legitimate prerogatives of the States and with a sufficient legal basis for preemption." More below the fold:

As President Obama states in the opening of the memorandum:

The Federal Government's role in promoting the general welfare and guarding individual liberties is critical, but State law and national law often operate concurrently to provide independent safeguards for the public. Throughout our history, State and local governments have frequently protected health, safety, and the environment more aggressively than has the national Government.

This memorandum codifies the commitment, highlighted in the auto emissions decision, to move beyond a narrow view that state legislative and regulatory action is in conflict with federal authority.  Instead the new administration is pursuing a collaborative approach where states can enact more aggressive consumer, environmental and worker protections and act as a model for national minimum standards, which will act as a floor while allowing additional protections by individual states. 

Emissions Decisions Shows How State Innovation Drives National Change:  In marked contrast to the Bush administration EPA, President Obama used California's progressive state action, and the adoption of California's standards by at least thirteen other states and the District of Columbia, as a jumping off point for his new national emissions and gas mileage policy. The end result is a plan that was agreed to by the federal government, states and the auto industry.   In fact, it was state action and the threat of multiple standards in different states that helped push the auto industry to accept federal reforms, since a strong national minimum standard, according to David McCurdy of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, would provide "clarity and predictability." 

There are good arguments for the federal government establishing strong minimum standards for consumer, environmental and worker protections, since the stronger the federal standard, the less variation there will be between states, achieving greater standardization for businesses operating across states.  But the Obama administration understands that such federal standards should be a floor, not a ceiling, so that where federal standards begin to lag-- as they have for decades on gas mileage and emissions standards, states should have the ability to establish higher state-specific standards.

Highlighting Right Wing Hypocrisy on "States Rights": That may not be the rightwing version of "states rights" but it's a more respectful view of state authority than the Bush administration or most conservative national leaders establish in practice.  Conservative business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce unambiguously argue for preempting all state regulation in favor of "one set of rules" set by the federal government. And when the GOP has the majority in Congress, they voted over 57 times between 2001 and 2006 to preempt state laws, including action to preempt state limits on air pollution, to preempt state regulation of contaminated food, and to block tougher state regulation of Internet "spam." 

It is hard to overstate how important the new Obama regulatory standard respecting state regulations and arguing against blanket preemption of state laws will be for progressives.  It means that local activism and innovation will actually be effective in holding corporations accountable locally and allow such local legislation to become models for broader federal reforms.    That version of collaborative federalism could be one of the most important legacies of the Obama administration.