Tall-poppy syndrome

If you're a US state and want to impose more stringent emissions regulations than Washington can muster, you're shit out of luck. Getting the policy framework precisely right is more important than updating the regulatory regime, which is the Administration's view. But if it's true, as Jonathan Adler asserts, that "nothing California does to control greenhouse gas emissions from new
motor vehicles will mitigate the threat of climate change to the state
in any meaningful way", it won't make much of a difference anyway.

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