Legal Commentary

Fans of federalism will read with dismay Judge Paul Crotty?s opinion in Metropolitan Taxicab Board v City of New York in which the court held that the NYC?s Taxi & Limo Commission may not set fuel efficiency standards for taxis holding a medallion from the city. Judge Crotty reasoned that the TLC?s rule requiring medallion-bearing taxis to achieve 30 miles to the gallon was an indirect way to regulate fuel efficiency for automobiles covered by federal law ? a regulation that is barred by the Energy Policy & Conservation Act's (EPCA's) preemption clause, which prohibits the City from adopting ?a law or regulation related to fuel economy standards ? for automobiles covered by an average fuel economy standard under this chapter. 49 U.S.C. § 32919(a).

But I would suggest that NYC is not regulating automobiles at all. NYC is regulating access to its medallions. A medallion is a piece of city-created property worth well over a half-million dollars on the open market. Medallion owners get a piece of valuable city ?property? in return for which they are supposed to perform special duties. The City ought to have the same power to place conditions on medallions that it has to place conditions on any other form of city property ? say, the city's budget for police cars. No one would argue that the city could not demand that sellers of cars to the city's own police department meet higher standards of fuel efficiency than those specified by EPCA. Why can?t the city likewise demand that medallion seekers meet higher standards? The usual rationale for preemption ? preserving a national market from a crazy quilt of locals standards ? is wholly inapplicable, because no one expects taxi-licensing rules to be uniform throughout the nation: Medallion owners are expected to meet a myriad of rules specific to NYC, such as installing meters and (lately) credit-card machines and posting various consumer warnings in the cabs.

But preemption doctrine has been running amok lately. The Roberts Court declared in Brown v Chamber of Commerce last term that California could not place anti-union-busting conditions on California?s own state money. If environmental preemption becomes just as draconian as Machinist labor law preemption in Brown, then this nation?s policy-making will slowly ossify into a dirigiste sclerosis worthy of France.