While the environmental movement has been energetically battling the Bush Administration's relentless rollback of federal laws and regulations that protect America's environment and public health, a parallel Bush strategy has been grinding forward almost unnoticed.

Taking advantage of the movement's focus on trying to salvage environmental protection at the federal level, the administration has been simultaneously implementing a steady attack on environmental initiatives enacted at state and local levels.

Utilizing both its judicial appointees, an increasingly anti-environmental federal judiciary and its own regulatory powers, the Bush team is making a mockery of conservatives' famously advertised dedication to "states rights."

The Bush Administration is instead promoting a form of libertarian federalism that is hostile to environmental safeguards at all levels. The fallacy of libertarian federalism has been exposed recently by the Washington-based Community Rights Counsel (CRC), a nonprofit legal team dedicated to supporting state and local environmental protections. CRC has just released a new book, Redefining Federalism: Listening to the States in Shaping "Our Federalism", published by the Environmental Law Institute.

As CRC's Doug Kendall, editor of Redefining Federalism puts it, "State and local governments recognize that they cannot achieve cleaner air without transportation and land use plans that lead to less driving. They cannot have cleaner rivers, lakes and streams without regulating the farms, shopping centers and subdivisions that are along their banks."

And so, continues Kendall, while strong federal regulations are obviously needed because so many pollutants travel across state borders, it is important that state and local bodies also be able to initiate regulations that pertain to their particular local or regional situations.

Alarmingly, however, Washington's "states rights" administration appears not to be content with merely reversing federal protections. It is also working resolutely to squelch state and local initiatives that might compensate for the damage being done at the federal level.

In California, for example, CRC attorney Jennifer Bradley notes that:

• Because of its extraordinary air pollution problems, California has been aggressive in passing legislation and regulations to clean up its air. The Bush Administration has tried to stifle California’s innovations at every turn. In August 2003, the Administration told the U.S. Supreme Court that the Clean Air Act banned Southern California from requiring cleaner-fueled cars, trucks, buses and other fleet vehicles.
• Also in August 2003, the EPA interpreted the Clean Air Act to prohibit EPA from taking any action to combat CO2 emissions. CO2 is the principal global warming gas. This interpretation also appears to prohibit any state from taking bold steps to cut down on CO2 emissions from cars and trucks.
• In October 2002, the Department of Justice said that California's Zero Vehicle Emissions (ZEV) regulations were pre-empted by the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA). The Justice Department argued that the ZEV regulations were actually fuel economy standards, despite the fact that California gave automakers several ways to meet the regulations that had nothing to do with reducing fuel consumption.