California Won’t Ban Books But it May Cancel Your Candy
California is coming for your Skittles.
The Golden State often functions as the de facto maker of consumer and environmental regulations in the US because when it makes those rules for the State, its large market often forces companies to fall in line nationwide. Corporations don’t want to make one product for California and a separate product for the rest of the country. This tendency for the state’s rules to get imposed on the whole country is called The California Effect.
California hasn’t always succeeded in imposing its philosophy on gun control or other hot issues on the entire country, but if a bill being considered by the State legislators passes, it may affect many of your favorite candies. Skittles, Red Hot Tamales, and other popular candies are made with ingredients that much of the world has already banned as harmful. Pending legislation would ban other foods besides candies, including Nesquik strawberry milk and many baked goods, bread, and drinks.
California may be coming for your Skittles.
Lawmakers may ban the distribution of foods containing five chemicals that have been linked to health problems and are already banned in Europe. Consumer Reports is already seeking to get them banned in the U.S.
The Times article said. “Today the idea that California can — and should — create rules beyond its borders is so soaked into the way of doing things that when you ask a policymaker to comment on the topic, the reaction is, as a lobbyist named Jennifer Fearing puts it, “Well, duh.”
The California Effect goes far beyond the current issue with foods. Its become a tug-a-war between California and the red states over nationwide regulations.
What started with regulations over emissions soon spread to other areas of consumer issues. Until recent years, the effect was mostly one way, but red states are pushing back. Republican governors have sought to try legislative activism of their own, a kind of “anti-California effect. “
Seventeen Republican state attorneys general are currently suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for allowing California to set its own motor vehicle emissions standards. The lawsuit alleges EPA Administrator Michael Regan violated the Constitution’s doctrine of equal sovereignty by allowing California an exemption from the Clean Air Act, which allows the State to impose more restrictive emission limits nationwide.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has tried to position his state as a red-state alternative to the California approach. Almost everything he does in consumer issues seems in direct opposition to California values. Earlier this year, for example, DeSantis’s proposed budget included a tax break for gas stoves, which California is trying to phase out to help combat climate change.
Experts say a new kind of “trade war" is developing, only this time over-regulation. The Supreme Court has been reluctant to get involved in the state regulatory cases, preferring to leave it to the states to settle.
But Justice Brett Kavanaugh, siding with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Ketanji Brown Jackson in dissenting in part from the majority opinion, raised that point. How far is this going to go?
What if a state banned goods produced by workers who make less than $20 an hour? Or goods made by employees whose companies don’t give them abortion care — or goods made by employers that do, or fruit picked by undocumented immigrants?
“[I]f there’s no limit on one state’s ability to export laws to another, then voters in smaller states will not get to determine local law because California or Texas will do that for them,” said Justice Kavanaugh.
As far as Skittles and the other candy brands involved, it’s unlikely they’ll disappear from the shelves; These cases are usually settled by the company finding alternate ingredients.
“I love Skittles. I eat them all the time,” Jesse Gabriel (D-Woodland Hills), the lawmaker who introduced the bill last month, told USA TODAY, recently.“ “There’s a 0% chance this is actually going to result in a ban on Skittles,”
