Letter: Government should stay out of private sector business

Dear Editor,
Further your series of editorials on the scope of government interference with local business and private sector entrepreneurs, please note that on 11/30/12 the Administration by the Solicitor General, USDOT, FMCSA and others filed their response to the order of the High Court to state the federal government’s position in the case American Trucking Assn. v. City of Los Angeles, USSC Docket No. 11-798. Siding with the City government, the feds have now taken the position that it is legal for the municipal government to adopt local ordinances that contradict the federal government’s statutes and regulations. Now it is up to the High Court to determine whether or not to hear the case. If the Justices agree to hear the case, then the parties will present oralargument at a date fixed by the Court. If the Justices reject the ATA’s request, and deny their petition, then there will be no hearing, and the lower Court’s (9th Circuit’s) decision will stand.
In my opinion it would create a split among the Circuits to allow the 9th Circuit’s decision to stand because of contrary decisions from other Circuits in the past. All eyes are now on the High Court to see whether or not the ATA’s petition will be granted. The issue pending before the Court is one of “federal preemption,” i.e., whether the federal laws on the subject of interstate transportation and commerce can be trumped by local municipal ordinances. Given the history of transportation law in the USA, in my opinion, it would take a complete reversal of past policy to permit local rule to preempt federal rule, going back to at least the “steamboat case,” Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) by Mr. Chief Justice John Marshall. Stay tuned for further developments  . . . .
Joseph P. Thompson, Tres Pinos