Is a heftier administrative law required to prevent state hollowing?: the issue of transborder water pollution

Concerns regarding the management of water and air pollution in border regions – such as the California‐Mexico Border, is an old issue, which has bubbled up to its current crisis situation. Health and safety disasters, stemming from water pollution on both sides of the border mount as do related costs to local financially‐strapped communities in California. One such impacted community is Imperial County, California, which must deal with the consequences stemming from the “dirtiest river in the United States”. This refers to The New River which enters the US through Mexico. While NAFTA has promoted the growth of globalized companies and industries in the region, progress has added to pollution. Regulation is far from evenly matched in the two countries. To manage negative spillover effects from globalism across borders, the time has come for development of new administrative law, with strict penalties for violators. This article uses the impact of pollution from The New River to discuss the hollowing of our nation‐state’s democratically‐derived mandate against pollution. It also raises the question of whether we have the stomach to push for new administrative law and risk multinational flight to other more accommodating regions, or live with the status quo and its serious human and environmental consequences.