Iowa and Missouri to NY: stay in your own fuckin’ lane
One simple, obvious solution suggests itself here.
Iowa and Missouri Tell New York to Keep Its Climate Rules at Home
New York is demanding emissions data from ethanol and biodiesel plants hundreds of miles outside its borders, plants that may have no idea their fuel ever crossed into the Empire State. Iowa and Missouri are fighting back in federal court.Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway renewed their case Wednesday in a joint op-ed, putting the constitutional principle plainly:
“One state’s authority ends where another state’s sovereignty begins.”
Bird and Hanaway argue New York’s greenhouse gas reporting rule can reach producers in their states simply because that fuel is later sold in New York, even when the producer never sold it there directly.
That is not a hypothetical edge case. Ethanol produced in Iowa routinely passes through multiple distributors, terminals, blending facilities, rail cars, and trucks before arriving at a New York gas station. The plant that made it may have had no say in where it ended up.
The price tag is steep: New York estimates annual compliance costs of $17,500 to more than $91,000 per facility. Larger facilities face an additional $4,000 to $17,000 per year for mandatory outside verification.
Miss a deadline or submit an incomplete report? Every single day counts as a separate violation, with civil fines up to $8,000 per day or criminal penalties including jail time. New York regulators can also show up and inspect your property, and under the rule, businesses have no real way to challenge that inspection before it happens.
“New York bureaucrats cannot tell Iowa farmers and ethanol and biofuel producers how to do their job or what regulations they need to follow,” Bird said when the lawsuit was filed.
Iowa’s biofuels industry is not a rounding error. The state’s 42 ethanol plants produced about 4.6 billion gallons in 2025, roughly 28 percent of the national total, supporting more than 31,000 jobs and generating over $5.6 billion in state GDP.
Its eight biodiesel plants rank first in the nation. Missouri ranks thirteenth in ethanol and second in biodiesel, with six and five plants respectively.
The lawsuit alleges New York’s green regulatory overreach violates constitutional limits on state regulation outside its borders, conflicts with the federal Clean Air Act, targets businesses without sufficient ties to New York, and authorizes inspections that violate the Fourth Amendment.
That solution I mentioned just now? Easy-peasy: a total nationwide embargo on all gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products for NY—sales, shipments, trades, the whole megilla. Oil company execs fretted about loss of profits caused by such a move should think about what they’ll be saving in taxes before they turn up their noses at shutting off the Texas Tea spigot to Shitlib Nirvana precipitately. Let’s see what the grabby, domineering sumbitches have to say for themselves after the traditional Beggars/Choosers relationship has been restored.
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