POLITICAL FALLOUT.
Daniels ‘10 [Brigham; 2010; Professor of Law at S.J. Quinney College of Law; Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, “Credible Commitments, Credible Threats, and Environmental Policy,” vol. 1] jchen
While regulatory nukes do not have fallout in the same way actual nuclear weapons do, they do present risk of political fallout. In using a regulatory nuke, an agency might have to worry about interest groups, hostile state legislators, media coverage, grassroots movements, just to name a few. In fact, one of the reasons that a regulatory tool can become a regulatory nuke is because of the political consequences of using it.
For example, in the 1970s when the EPA attempted to enforce the Clean Air Act in Los Angeles by mandating gas rationing, the EPA faced wide spread opposition. The then-Administrator of the EPA explained that he did not like the idea of the extreme measures; however, because the EPA was acting under a court order to comply with the Clean Air Act and because failing to do might lead the court to hold him in contempt of the court’s order, he faced down the political opposition explaining that if forced to choose between Los Angeles mobility and his freedom, he would choose his freedom.
Political pressure often follows even the threat of a regulatory nuke. For example, the READ ID Act, with its promised sanction of denying a state’s ability to use state-issued driver’s licenses as valid identification at domestic airports has faced widespread resistance and scorn. Had Congress not altered the deadline, resistance would have grown.