Laws 310 Course Project

The national government has much power but not as much as has the state government on state residents (Marchant, 2003). The federal government has more control when it comes to national issues and the state when affairs of states. One of the key ways that the federal government uses to influence policy at the state and local level is the distribution of funds (Marchant, 2003). Congress authorizes millions of dollars in grants to states and establishes rules for how they should be invested well decide the level of control they have over these states federal funds.

For the past twenty to thirty years, hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, has been the number one source of natural gas, oil, and energy in the United States. The process of fracking is that a well is built above the ground and then a drill digs several thousand feet deep into the ground to extract the oil and natural gas that is trapped inside of rock formations. Fracking is very controversial because of the cost of the process and the environmental “threats” that it poses. From methane emissions to earthquakes, fracking has been accused to be linked with several environmental issues. To prevent any environmental dangers, states place regulations and boundaries that energy companies have to follow in order to build a well and keep it up and running. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) also works with states to help regulate these wells. More importantly, fracking in the United States is very important and acts as a bridge to the future. While it may be argued that hydraulic fracturing is not beneficial to the economy and harmful to the environment, fracking in the United States should not be banned because fracking is not only imperative to the growth of jobs and the economy, but it also does not put the surrounding environment in danger.

They share the same principles with each other. State and local governments can’t create or enforce laws that contradict the Constitution. The Constitution requires “equal protection under the law” for the state and local governments. However, the state and local governments have their differences too. The state has more laws and “ground” to cover than the local governments do. “Each state has its own written constitution, and these documents are often far more elaborate than their federal counterpart. The Alabama Constitution, for example, contains 310,296 words — more than 40 times as many as the U.S. Constitution” (The White House). The local government just deals with the county and their jurisdiction in that state. The state government is more superior over the local government. “A local government must be granted power by the state” (The White House). When it comes to the state and local governments, the state has more power than the local government

States have always been sensitive about the amount of power they have; the federal government has always had to step carefully around the demands of the states. This has been true since the beginning of the United States. But both believe that they should have the most power when it comes to certain things. Individual states have different values and as such tend to implement different laws about certain topics; such states want their state laws to reflect these individual values instead of a blanket law from the federal government. States should have less power compared to the federal government when implementing laws dealing with topics such as the legalization of marijuana, gay marriage, and abortion.

Instead of the federal law, states took it into their own hand to make their own. It may seem comedic but some states made their own sort of “wacky” laws. Some of the laws are countless and it seems as if states took advantage of the Tenth amendment to just create their own regulations. In Alabama it is illegal to drive while blindfolded, and in Florida it is Illegal to sell your children, and in Arkansa it is prohibited to pronounce “Arkansas’’ incorrectly. Most of

State courts have broad jurisdiction which means that the cases they hear involves crimes such as robberies, traffic violations, murders that may have occurs in their state and domestic violence. The only cases that don’t play out in state courts are lawsuits against the United States and those involving certain specific federal laws: criminal, antitrust, bankruptcy, patent, copyright, and some maritime cases.

States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which

Regulated Federalism, is where “the national Government sets up regulations and rules that the states must follow”(Crash Course). EPA regulations and civil rights standards are all regulation and rules that the state need to follow. Regulated Federalism is also known as Regulatory Federalism. New Federalism is a type of federalism that came after Regulated Federalism.

Mandates have been used to expand the power of the federal government over the states. Mandates have forced states to apply policy even if they didn’t really agree to it. So the government use this technique to make states into doing

When a legislature passes a statute, that statute ultimately is included in the federal code of laws or the relevant state code of laws. Statutory law also includes local Ordinances – statutes (laws, rules, or orders) passed by municipal or county governing units to govern matters not covered by federal or state law. Mainly have to do with city or county land use, building safety codes, and other matters affecting the local community.

Hydraulic fracturing also called fracking has been around for many years despite the recent events of controversy to continue fracturing or not. With the earth’s resources depleting rapidly every year and no sufficient replacement for energy humanity needs fracking. The process of fracking has been around for more than six decades. Fracking has been around since the 1940s and was created to increase the removal flow of oil and natural gas. In the words of chemical engineer Robert Rapier “Fracking involves pumping water, chemicals, and a proppant down an oil or gas well under high pressure to break open channels in the rock holding the oil or gas (Rapier).” A proppant can be different materials,

Federal government can rule over the laws of state governments by introducing a new policy, which would be implemented nationwide. So, it would make sense for the state government to intervene in the policies made by the local government. If the laws passed by the federal government can be implemented nationwide, regardless of the state’s views on those laws, the laws passed by the state should also be implemented state-wise, regardless of the views of local government. However, I do not believe that local control needs to be influenced by the state government. The local policies are the ones that closely represent what the people want in the local community. For example, the residents of Denton, Texas voted to ban fracking in their local community through a people-led referendum. The people were troubled with toxic fumes, bright lights, and noise due to the fracking sites right in their backyards. The ban on fracking provides what the people of Denton wanted. Local control is also necessary because people in different counties in the same state might have different opinions on the same issue. For example, people of Loving County may encourage fracking as the county is not heavily populated, fracking sites could be constructed far from residential areas, and fracking is a boost in the economy (not much in the

No matter what the government does to promote hydraulic fracturing, it is still going to be extremely unappealing to those knowledgeable on the topic. As Lisa Bracken states, “Crap is crap no matter what package you put it in” (GasLand). Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the process of drilling about a mile into the shale below. Once the shale has been reached, water, sand, and a mixture of over 500 chemicals are injected into the Earth. When the pressure of the Earth hits a certain point, a portion of the injected water flows back up to the surface and the well begins to produce the valuable resource known as natural gas (McElroy and Lu 27). Fracking currently occupies thirty-four states and is quickly expanding. The government is

America has one of the highest energy consumption rates in the world. This demand has led to the popularization of the hydraulic fracturing industry. First introduced in the 1940s, hydraulic fracturing is method by which a well is drilled one to two miles below the Earth’s surface. The well then injects water and chemicals in the Earth that create fractures through which gas can flow through. Hydraulic fracturing, which is also known as fracking, became popular because of horizontal drilling in fracking is more efficient at extracting gas. As a result, a fracking boom ensued in which over a million wells were drilled in the United States in the past decade. However,

pg. 1) “In a July 19 letter to ten oil and gas producers – including BP, Chesapeake Energy, and ExxonMobil – the lawmakers requested information on the companies’ hydraulic fracturing operations and on possible human impacts. According to a subcommittee staff memo, the hydraulic fracturing companies ‘do not track whether the wells they fracture are located in underground sources of drinking water (Hobson Penn.).”