Federalism in Action: Environmental Policy and Marijuana Legalization

well hey then welcome back to heimlich's history now over the course of the last couple of videos we've been talking

about unit 1 of the ap government curriculum namely the concept of federalism we've gone through the

constitution and some supreme court cases to see how federalism works but in this video let's talk about some current

examples of federalism in action so if you're ready to get them bring cows milks well then let's get to it so

here's what we're trying to do in this video explain how the distribution of powers among the three federal branches

in between the national and state governments impacts policymaking so the first thing to mention is that because

federalism divides power between federal and state and local governments that means that there are more access points

for stakeholders to influence policy outcomes remember stakeholders are folks like you and me who are affected by the

outcome of legislation because federalism divides power this way we have a lot more places where we can get

involved in those outcomes but national policy is also constrained by the sharing of power and for that let me

give you two current examples environmental regulations and the legalization of marijuana that should be

spicy okay so first federalism is illustrated by environmental regulation in 2015 president obama led the united

states into an international accord called the paris agreement and lots of leaders around the world were deeply

concerned about climate change and melting ice caps and rising ocean levels in the heating up of the earth which

would eventually leave us all looking like a bunch of old monkeys kneecaps now in order to enter a treaty like this it

would normally be by the approval of the senate because that power is given to them in the constitution but the senate

was a majority republican and well to put it mildly they were not big fans of this agreement so obama entered the

agreement by executive order and how he did that is beyond the scope of what we're talking about here just know that

that's how it was done anyway when the united states became a member nation of the paris agreement that meant that all

sorts of new environmental regulations were imposed on the state and so all 50 states were required to submit to these

regulations and reduce their carbon emissions however when donald trump won the presidency he pledged to remove the

u.s from the paris agreement which he did but what's interesting is that some states decided to keep the regulations

imposed by the paris agreement case in point california so that means that if you own a factory in california and you

want to emit greenhouse gases you have to abide by the much stricter state limits rather than the looser federal

limits anyway just in case you were wondering when joe biden was elected president he went ahead and got us back

into the paris agreement so this very much has to do with the political ideology of the president okay now

another example of federalism in action is the legalization of marijuana the old wacky tobacco and here's where i tell

you that under the heading of federalism we often talk about states as laboratories for democracy and what that

means is that states will pass certain laws and then representatives in the federal government then other states

will see how it goes within that state in order to determine if that's a law that needs to be passed nationally and

the legalization of marijuana is very much an example of the laboratory of democracy concept so marijuana has been

illegal federally since the end of the 1930s but the crackdown really came during president richard nixon's war on

drugs in 1970 congress passed the controlled substances act which stipulated severe punishments for

possession and use of marijuana now by the time the 80s and 90s came around there was a growing body of research

showing that marijuana could be used as a therapeutic in certain medical cases and so in 1996 california voted to

legalize medical marijuana and they did so by a statewide vote after that several states followed suit and that

brings us to 2012 when colorado legalized recreational marijuana but here's the weird thing in 2012

possession of marijuana was still a federal crime like nothing had changed on the federal level but if you were a

colorado resident you could now go down to your local marijuana shop and legally break the federal law to which i say

what like to possess marijuana was legal in colorado but illegal in the united states how does that work well remember

the role of the president the president is the executive of the federal government which is to say the president

enforces the law obama agreed with the legalization of marijuana and so he basically just said yes it's illegal but

i'm not going to be devoting any federal resources to enforcing those laws in colorado so again we see here federalism

in action and colorado has very much been a laboratory for democracy here the federal government and other states are

closely watching how this whole thing plays out in this state to see whether this would be a good national policy and

ever since colorado and washington legalize recreational marijuana 18 more states have followed suit okay thanks

for watching your view packet right here for ap government which is going to help you get an a in your class and a 5 on

your exam in maine if you want me to keep making these videos then by all means subscribe and i shall oblige for

more videos on unit 1 here's a playlist right here heimler out