"WASHINGTON — President Trump’s political feud with California has spread collateral damage across more than a dozen other states, which have seen their regulatory authority curtailed and their autonomy threatened by a Trump administration intent on weakening the environmental statutes of the country’s most populous state.
When the administration last month revoked California’s authority to set state-level standards on climate-warming tailpipe emissions, it simultaneously stripped that power from 13 other states that follow California’s standards and ensured that no other state could set fuel-efficiency standards in the future. The Environmental Protection Agency last week followed up with letters to California that threatened to wield rarely used provisions of environmental law to withhold federal funding from the state if it did not take specific steps to clean its air and water.
“This is new and unusual,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, a Republican lawyer who served in the E.P.A. in both Bush administrations. “E.P.A. has in the past been reluctant to use the very potent mechanism of withholding federal funding, as long as the state is acting in good faith.”"
Coral Davenport reports for the New York Times October 3, 2019.
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