Illinois Law dean Vikram David Amar explains why the Clean Air Act’s provision allowing California to set its own air-pollution standards does not violate the notion of equal sovereignty. Dean Amar notes that the equal sovereignty idea as applied in Shelby County v. Holder is likely wrong, but even assuming it is correct, he argues it does not apply to the Clean Air Act because (1) the Clean Air Act was enacted under Congress’s Commerce Clause powers, a provision that does not require geographic uniformity, and (2) the alleged inequality disfavors the many, rather than the few.
Read the full post at verdict.justia.com.