Local regulations are regulations based on local needs. Federal regulations are different regulations not based on local needs. This is a simple one...
the only reason the State of RI would be powerless is because the FEDERAL government has neutered the states power. Otherwise let the State attorney bring charges against the Corporations. A state court can fine a corporation or penalize its officers and employees for bad behavior just as well as a federal court can. actually the Federal government makes deals with the big corporations ALL THE TIME. for instance JP Morgan stole $200 billion worth of client money. they were then taken to court and then they settled by giving a $100 million fine and in return did not have to admit any wrongdoing. Not having to admit wrong doing then makes it extremely difficult to get a civil case against that same company nearly impossible. If anything the Federal regulators should have fined JP Morgan 500 billion and put all the bastards in the hokey for 30 years, that would send one hell of a message. But instead they fine them 5% of the money they stole and give them a scolding. If bank robbers were only fined 5% of the money they stole how long will the line of masked bandits be leading out the door of every bank in the nation?
But for some reason you put faith in federal employees who are not accountable for their actions.
Oh gosh i don't know. What is the single largest cash crop in the USA? Is this awesome crop legal to grow according to the Federal regulations?
They are more accountable for their actions than corporate CEOs in most cases. We have zero influence upon those CEOs, we have influence over our elected officials who have influence over federal employees.
So why would a state upstream care about a state downstream?
I would say that is strict regulation. Did you go to this link that was posted? See how the levels have dropped? It a more credible site than the one selling water filters.
in SOME cases, not most. Want to see how much influence you can have over a corporation? Get every single person to boycott them and their products. Watch how fast things change. I realize this is simply impossible in the USA due to herd mentality and lemmingism, but in other countries it has been very effective.
This is a prime example of where Federal regulation is necessary - but how often do large manufacturers place their factories directly on the boarder so they can illegally dump? You are sounding a bit nutty. Most states would intervene just so that the feds wouldn't need to.
You make the same mistaken presumption NoDrama, that every company caters directly to citizen consumers, this is far from accurate B2B business abound and the methods needed to "boycott" such businesses are nebulous at best. Clonsider the Perchlorate thing. Suppose we didn't want Perchlorate spills any more and we wanted to place direct pressure on the culprets of this disaster, are we all going to stop buying missiles? Are we going to campaign to halt the purchase of cars with airbags?
Growing MJ is not banned, if you can get the tax stamp to grow you can grow all you want. Getting the tax stamp is heavily regulated, in fact so heavily regulated that they never give any out. Yet this all affects the growing of hemp too, which has no medicinal effects but is a great crop with a multitude of uses. I think it has something to do with government not wanting to create too much competition for some of the big chemical and paper and pharma companies more so but is used under the guise of keeping us safe from the killer effects of Marijuana.
Boycot not the producer, since they are not responsible for the spills, but instead start a campaign of information and then boycott the transportation company that actually spilled it.
Chances are they would pressure the company and local government to stop it - like what happened.
I had a discussion with someone once about an unfettered free market economy, I said the best place to look at such an uncommon thing was the underground drug market. Now I think you will agree with me that it is as good a laboratory for such things as anything else we can examine but the guy said I was crazy because illegal drugs were regulated by virtue of the fact that they were illegal. Now on the one hand the guy was correct but on the other, he was certainly off the mark. MJ is not regulated in the sense that it is not graded, tested for purity, kept from sale to minors, limited to certain areas or users. It is not regulated in the sense that alcohol or tobacco is and that is the sense of "regulation" that I am using.
BTW, love the "chances are" part, libertarians think chance is a very important part of protecting consumers. "if you eat poisoned meat and die, chances are, the company will go out of business and lives will eventually be saved"