States cp ddi 2012


The federal government has jurisdiction over HSR currently – no shift in balance



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The federal government has jurisdiction over HSR currently – no shift in balance


David C. Tyrell, mechanical engineer at the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, ’01, U.S. Dept. of Transportation, “U.S. Rail Equipment Crashworthiness Standards”

The FRA regulates the rail industry in order to assure safe operation. The FRA has¶ jurisdiction over freight, inter-city passenger, and commuter passenger operations on the¶ general system of railroad transportation. (The Federal Transit Administration has the safety¶ oversight of rapid transit operations in urban areas.) The regulations promulgated by the FRA¶ have the force of law, and include crashworthiness regulations for freight and passenger rail¶ equipment. The FRA regulates all aspects of railroad safety, including operations, track, and¶ equipment. Equipment safety includes brake performance, vehicle trackworthiness, and other¶ aspects as well as crashworthiness.
Alt Causes to Federalism

Fiscal decentralization destroys any positive impact federalism has.


Jan-Erik Lane, professor in political science at the University of Geneva, and Svante Errson, Lecturer in Political Science at Umeå University, 2005, Democratization, Vol. 12 Issue 2, “The riddle of federalism: does federalism impact on democracy?”, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13510340500069220, TB

The findings from the regression analysis reported in Table 4 suggest that neither fiscal nor administrative administration seems to have any positive impact on democracy, as none of the coefficients associated with these variables shows any significance. The predictive powers of all six models are, however, reasonably high. Political decentralization, though, shows significant parameter estimates. In the larger set of countries (model 3) it is a positive impact on democracy while in the smaller set of countries (model 6) the coefficient changes sign and goes from a significant positive coefficient to a significant negative one; it is the only variable that changes sign when comparing models 3 and 6. These findings also holds true when using robust regression.



When federalism, as is common, is associated with fiscal decentralization, then we find no positive impact of federalism on democracy. It is only when federalism stands for political decentralization that federalism has an impact on democracy. But this impact is not straightforward, since for a broader set of countries the impact is positive, but for a smaller set it is negative. Either the indicator measuring political decentralization lacks validity, or this indicator captures an aspect of decentralization that only in certain contexts is conducive for democracy. This aspect need not be federalism in a formal way, but it may have to do with political aspects of decentralization that differ from fiscal decentralization. What this aspect really stands for is a topic that needs further research

AT: Tyranny
No impact to tyranny – legal, executive, and electoral systems check

Jan-Erik Lane, professor in political science at the University of Geneva, and Svante Errson, Lecturer in Political Science at Umeå University, 2005, Democratization, Vol. 12 Issue 2, “The riddle of federalism: does federalism impact on democracy?”, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13510340500069220, TB


Federalization has been recommended as a strategy to enhance institutional performance. Federalism is often seen as a basic dimension in constitutional democracy, promoting democratic vitality. And future state building may be done on the basis of political unions taking on the characteristics of federations. However, there is the puzzle of federalism: if federal institutions are supposed to improve upon outcomes, then why is the actual performance record of many federal countries so unimpressive?

We suggest that democratic stability is fostered by other institutions and factors than federalism. The evidence from regression analysis suggests an entirely new answer, namely that federalism does not constitutes a genuine positive for democracy. Other institutions such as for instance the legal system (Ombudsman) or the executive (parliamentarism) or the electoral system (proporotional representation, for instance) matter more positively for democracy. Thus when analysing data for the post-cold war period the findings corroborate the sceptical view suggesting that federalism has no or little positive impact on the cross-country variation in constitutional democracy, generally speaking.



AT: Ethnic conflict
Federalism doesn’t cause ethnic conflicts – alt causes.

Katharine Adeney, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Politics of the University of Sheffield, Dec. 26, 2006, Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation in India and Pakistan, pg. 1- 2, TB


At the domestic level, many institutional arrangements have been identified to manage diverse states or to seek to eliminate diversity (McGarry and O’Leary 1993). The study analyzes the likely effectiveness of one type of institution design: a federation. Federal structures hae often received bad press from academics, statesmen, and constitutional practictiioners. Eric Nordlinger contests the effectiveness of federalism as an ethnic conflict regulation device. In the quotation at the head of the chapter he contends that federalism is likely to increase pressures for secession. Current debates over the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan reiterate these concerns. These debates focus on dangers of territorial disintegration, lack of effective central control, and the problems of minorities seeking to secede (O’Leary, McGarry, and Salih; Rubin 2004).

Yet several successful multiethnic federations exist. Switzerland, Canada, and India are all good examples of this fact. Although there are many countries where federations have significantly failed to regulate ethnic conflict – Nigeria in 1966 and Pakistan in 1971 – failure was not inevitable. Multiethnic states, per se, are nto doomed to failure; there are always additional factors affecting their success. This study concentrates upon the institutional factors affecting their success and the main differences between federations, which include, but are not limited to, the degree of centralization, the number and composition of provincial units, the degrees of consociationalism within the federal design, and the composition of the bicameral legislature.
AT: Individual rights



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