[tstrimple]

This is a false dichotomy. You don't have to enable building factories with environmental externalities next to suburbs to increase the supply of housing. Surely your argument isn't that we can't have enough housing unless Tesla is allowed to dump waste in the Colorado river is it?

[jeffbee]

No, my argument is that the state is the right level of government at which to regulate the environment. As we see here, most states have the power to abrogate city regulations, to dissolve and combine cities, and so forth. If the state of Texas permits Tesla's battery factory to dump waste into rivers, the state should fix that in state law.

There is not an analogy here between states of the nation and cities of the states. In the federal system, states have all the powers. Within the state, states also have all the powers.

[Retric]

The states are a terrible choice for managing the environment. Pollution trivially crosses state borders, but often the impact is very local. IE the smell from a paper mill or sewage treatment plant doesn't spread across 1,000 miles.

So local control makes sense for local issues, and federal control makes sense for widespread issues like runoff.

[dpkirchner]

I remember way back when the right wing was all about local control and individual responsibility. What ever happened to that? (I ask rhetorically. We all know those were lies all along, of course.)