Clean Air Policy: Unintended perils of legislating?

Legislating regulatory authority gone awry!

City’s Lengthy Push for Hybrid-Engine Taxicabs Hits a Legal Dead End (NY Times)

"The United States Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider an appeal by the city on its longstanding effort to mandate fuel emissions standards in New York City’s taxicabs. The city’s plan...had been rejected by lower-court judges as a de facto regulation of emissions standards — a power that, under existing laws, belongs to the federal government"..."I cannot imagine,” Mr. Yassky added, “when Congress wrote theClean Air Act that they intended to handcuff states and cities trying to clean their own air.”"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/nyregion/01taxi.html?em