Preemptive Legislation Research Articles

Extended producer responsibility’s effect on producers’ electronic waste management practices in Japan and Canada: drivers, barriers, and potential of the urban mine

Electronic waste is the fastest-growing domestic waste stream globally, continuously outstripping projections. With increasing ubiquity of complex computing, many non-renewables are contained in end-of-life electronics, creating a vast urban mine, potentially hazardous, depending on treatment. The aim of this study is to compare how Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy is applied in two case countries, Japan and Canada, the practical implications of EPR policy design on producer operations, and how EPR affects electronic waste management improvements in each case. These cases share international obligations for electronic waste management but employ contrasting EPR policies. These policies are widespread in both cases, yet are not presided over by larger, regional obligations. Therefore, country-level interviews with electronic waste management stakeholders focusing on how EPR regulation affects producer practice were conducted. The physical application of EPR, as seen in Japan, drives design changes by producers intending to simplify downstream treatment, while financial responsibility in Canada, creates greater concern with cost-savings for producers, complicating end-of-life processing. EPR implementation, along with specific geographical factors, also create contrasting resource recovery results between countries. Regulation primarily drives EPR implementation in both countries, which is consistent with the literature. This study presents new drivers and barriers, namely pre-emptive legislation, and no incentive to improve, classifying the Japanese and Canadian systems as suffering from externalities on an insular system, and lack of harmonization, respectively. This research addresses a gap in comparative studies across regions of physical and financial EPR effects on producer practice.

State Preemption: Impacts on Advances in Tobacco Control.

Policy is an effective tool for reducing the health harms caused by tobacco use. State laws can establish baseline public health protections. Preemptive legislation at the state level, however, can prohibit localities from enacting laws that further protect their citizens from public health threats. Preemptive state tobacco control laws were assessed using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation System. Based on the assessments, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quantified the number of states with certain types of preemptive tobacco control laws in place. In addition, 4 different case examples were presented to highlight the experiences of 4 states with respect to preemption. Tracking and reporting on preemptive state tobacco control laws through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation System provide an understanding of the number and scope of preemptive laws. Case examples from Hawaii, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Washington provide a detailed account of how preemption affects tobacco control governance at state and local levels within these 4 states.

State Preemption: A Significant and Quiet Threat to Public Health in the United States.

State and local governments traditionally protect the health and safety of their populations more strenuously than does the federal government. Preemption, when a higher level of government restricts or withdraws the authority of a lower level of government to act on a particular issue, was historically used as a point of negotiation in the legislative process. More recently, however, 3 new preemption-related issues have emerged that have direct implications for public health. First, multiple industries are working on a 50-state strategy to enact state laws preempting local regulation. Second, legislators supporting preemptive state legislation often do not support adopting meaningful state health protections and enact preemptive legislation to weaken protections or halt progress. Third, states have begun adopting enhanced punishments for localities and individual local officials for acting outside the confines of preemption. These actions have direct implications for health and cover such topics as increased minimum wages, paid family and sick leave, firearm safety, and nutrition policies. Stakeholders across public health fields and disciplines should join together in advocacy, action, research, and education to support and maintain local public health infrastructures and protections.

Preemptive legislation inhibits the anthropogenic spread of an aquatic invasive species, the rusty crayfish (Orconectes rusticus)

The enactment of legal policies is often recommended to prevent anthropogenic introductions of invasive species. In this paper, we evaluated the effectiveness of proactive state legislative policies in deterring colonization by rusty crayfish (Orconectes rusticus) and the expected spread into previously uninvaded states using network-based spatial analysis. We found that the presence of regulations was positively associated with the presence of rusty crayfish (p = 0.027), but often regulations were put into effect subsequent to the invasion. Regulations that did not explicitly prohibit transport, applied to specific drainages, or prohibited only rusty crayfish were not effective. However, preemptive legislation was effective in reducing the likelihood of invasion, if regulations prohibited the transport of all live crayfish species between water bodies, as only 1 state which passed such legislation prior to invasion by rusty crayfish was subsequently colonized (S = 12, p = 0.031). Five states are likely to be invaded by rusty crayfish via range expansion across interstate drainages, and dispersal rates suggest that all of these states could be colonized within 10 years. While it is unlikely that regulations will prevent dispersal-based invasion across state lines through shared drainages, preemptive legislation can significantly reduce anthropogenic spread of aquatic invasive species between drainages and effectively retard the expansion of rusty crayfish. Our results suggest that the most effective form of legislation is one that does not require individuals to identify species, thus we recommend states enact policies that explicitly prohibit the transport of all live crayfish between water bodies.

CANCER-RELATED NEWS FROM THE CDC: State Preemption of Local Smoke-Free Laws in Government Work Sites, Private Work Sites, and Restaurants

CANCER-RELATED NEWS FROM THE CDC: State Preemption of Local Smoke-Free Laws in Government Work Sites, Private Work Sites, and Restaurants

Preemptive Legislation in the European Union and the United States on the Topic ofNanomedicine: Examining the Questions Raised by Smart Medical Technology

Preemptive Legislation in the European Union and the United States on the Topic ofNanomedicine: Examining the Questions Raised by Smart Medical Technology

A Global Socio-economic-medico-legal Model for the Sustainability of Longitudinal Electronic Health Records

This paper pursues the challenge of sustaining lifetime electronic health records (EHRs) based on a comprehensive socio-economic-medico-legal model. The notion of a lifetime EHR extends the emerging concept of a longitudinal and cross-institutional EHR and is invaluable information for increasing patient safety and quality of care. The challenge is how to compile and sustain a coherent EHR across the lifetime of an individual. Several existing and hypothetical models are described, analyzed and compared in an attempt to suggest a preferred approach. The vision is that lifetime EHRs should be sustained by new players in the healthcare arena, who will function as independent health record banks (IHRBs). Multiple competing IHRBs would be established and regulated following preemptive legislation. They should be neither owned by healthcare providers nor by health insurer/payers or government agencies. The new legislation should also stipulate that the records located in these banks be considered the medico-legal copies of an individual's records, and that healthcare providers no longer serve as the legal record keepers. The proposed model is not centered on any of the current players in the field; instead, it is focussed on the objective service of sustaining individual EHRs, much like financial banks maintain and manage financial assets. This revolutionary structure provides two main benefits: 1) Healthcare organizations will be able to cut the costs of long-term record keeping, and 2) healthcare providers will be able to provide better care based on the availability of a lifelong EHR of their new patients.

A Global Socio-economic-medico-legal Model for the Sustainability of Longitudinal Electronic Health Records

This paper pursues the challenge of sustaining lifetime electronic health records (EHRs) based on a comprehensive socio-economic-medico-legal model. The notion of a lifetime EHR extends the emerging concept of a longitudinal and cross-institutional EHR and is invaluable information for increasing patient safety and quality of care. The challenge is how to compile and sustain a coherent EHR across the lifetime of an individual. Several existing and hypothetical models are described, analyzed and compared in an attempt to suggest a preferred approach. The vision is that lifetime EHRs should be sustained by new players in the healthcare arena, who will function as independent health record banks (IHRBs). Multiple competing IHRBs would be established and regulated following preemptive legislation. They should be neither owned by healthcare providers nor by health insurer/payers or government agencies. The new legislation should also stipulate that the records located in these banks be considered the medico-legal copies of an individual's records, and that healthcare providers no longer serve as the legal record keepers. The proposed model is not centered on any of the current players in the field; instead, it is focussed on the objective service of sustaining individual EHRs, much like financial banks maintain and manage financial assets. This revolutionary structure provides two main benefits: 1) Healthcare organizations will be able to cut the costs of long-term record keeping, and 2) healthcare providers will be able to provide better care based on the availability of a lifelong EHR of their new patients.

Arizona’s tobacco control initiative illustrates the need for continuing oversight by tobacco control advocates

BACKGROUNDIn 1994, Arizona voters approved Proposition 200 which increased the tobacco tax and earmarked 23% of the new revenues for tobacco education programmes.OBJECTIVETo describe the campaign to pass Proposition 200,...

Preemptive State Tobacco-Control Laws—United States, 1982-1998

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Environmental and policy interventions, particularly tobacco-control laws and regulations, are an important means to prevent and reduce tobacco use. For this study, preemptive legislation was defined as legislation that prevents any local jurisdiction from enacting restrictions that are more stringent than the state law or restrictions that may vary from the state law. One of the national health objectives for 2000 is to reduce to zero the number of states with preemptive smokefree indoor air laws (objective 3.25); a proposed objective for 2010 is to reduce the number of states with any preemptive tobacco-control laws to zero. To document trends in preemptive tobacco-control legislation at the state level, CDC identified state preemptive provisions and their effective dates from June 1982 (the oldest provision currently in effect) to September 1998. This report summarizes the results of this analysis, which indicate an increase in the number of preemptive provisions from 1982 to 1996; no preemptive provisions in tobacco-control laws have been enacted since 1996.

Preemption or Prevention?: Lessons from Efforts to Control Firearms, Alcohol, and Tobacco

The judicial doctrine of preemption allows federal or state governments to restrict the ability of state or local governments, respectively, to regulate in a given area. Industries whose products create substantial public health risks have begun to promote preemptive legislation which prevents the lower levels of government from adopting strong public health protections. This article discusses the implications of preemptive legislation concerning three of the most harmful products available in America: tobacco, firearms and alcohol. These examples illustrate the potential danger that preemptive legislation poses to efforts to prevent illness, injury and death caused by these products.

Overcoming a Powerful Tobacco Lobby in Enacting Local Smoking Ordinances: The Contra Costa County Experience

As part of a comprehensive tobacco education campaign, local health departments throughout California have been engaged in the process of enacting local clean indoor air ordinances to protect the public from the effects of secondhand smoke. This paper describes how a Northern California Bay Area health department worked with city and county governments to pass ordinances in the face of persistent tobacco industry opposition. The key strategies used by the health department included organizing broad-based coalitions, achieving effective use of the media, and educating the business community. Tobacco industry tactics included establishing local front groups that launched a massive misinformation campaign to frighten local businesses into believing that passage of an ordinance would adversely affect their business. Finally, the authors discuss how the tobacco industry has created a climate through state and national legislative activity to undermine the ability of local health departments to pursue effective tobacco control policies, most notably through preemptive legislation.

The State of American Federalism: 1982

In his first State of the Union address on 26 January 1982, President Ronald Reagan announced a New Federalism Initiative designed to follow his Economic Recovery Program of 1981 as next major undertaking . . .just as bold, just as innovative, to make government again accountable to the people, to make our system of federalism work again.1 For the next six months, the president's initiative, calling for the turnover of nearly $50 billion in federal programs and tax sources to state and local governments, attracted an unusual degree of public attention and prompted a nationwide debate on federalism unparalleled in recent history. In this respect, the New Federalism Initiative succeeded, where earlier efforts had failed, in renewing the idea of federalism in the public mind and in forcing a public reappraisal of the roles and limits of all governments in the American system. As important as it was, the federalism initiative was not the sum of developments in 1982 affecting the federal system. The negotiations over the initiative were of independent importance in terms of the lessons learned and precedent set for intergovernmental negotiation in the formulation of public policy. In the states, 1982 was also the first full year of coping with the combined impact of recession and the 1981 round of block grants, budget cuts, and tax cuts. In the federal courts, 1982 witnessed the continued erosion of state and local authority in intricate fields of law, especially tort and anti-trust law, and the appearance of new forms of federal preemption. In Congress, legislative action and debate on a variety of measures-ranging from new grant programs for job training and drunk driving legislation to preemptive legislation on product liability and truck dimensions-added to the existing patchwork of federal legislation affecting the federal system. These and other developments comprise the scope of our sixth annual review of American federalism.2 For the sake of comparison, we also

The dangers of preemptive legislation: The case of LNG facility siting in California

Molecular mechanisms of congestive heart failure as reflected by alterations of protein expression patterns are still incompletely analyzed. We therefore investigated intraventricular (ie, left ventricular congestive heart failure [LV-CHF] vs. LV-control [CTRL], and right ventricular [RV]-CHF vs. RV-CTRL) and interventricular (ie, LV-CHF vs. RV-CHF, and LV-CTRL vs. RV-CTRL) protein expression differences in an animal model.The model of rapid ventricular pacing in rabbits was combined with a proteomic approach using 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Identification of proteins was done by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS/MS).Rapid ventricular pacing-induced heart failure was characterized by LV dilatation, dysfunction, and hypotension as well as by increased BNP gene expression. By comparing LV-CHF vs. LV-CTRL, proteins were found to be underexpressed at 3 crucial points of cellular energy metabolism. In RV-CHF vs. RV-CTRL, proteins belonging to respiratory chain complexes were underexpressed, but additionally a disturbance in the nitric oxide–generating enzymatic apparatus was seen. Regarding the interventricular analyses, a stronger expression of energetic pathways was accompanied by an underexpression of contractile and stress response proteins in failing left vs. right ventricles. Finally, significant protein expression differences were found in LV-CTRL vs. RV-CTRL reflecting a higher expression of contractile, stress response, and respiratory chain proteins in LV tissue.In tachycardia-induced heart failure, significant inter- and intraventricular protein expression patterns were found with a predominance of proteins, which are involved in cellular energy metabolism.