Thanks for confirming my suspicion! When I read phrases like "Battery cells require electrode coating with toxic solvents (NMP), electrolyte handling, and formation cycling. This is exactly why Tesla's Gigafactory went to Reno." I (as someone not very familiar with the subject) thought it's strange that California should regulate what kind of chemicals can be used in an industrial process. Of course, they don't - but they regulate that industry can't release toxic chemicals into the environment. But because Elon thinks it's too expensive to make sure that no NMP gets out of his factory, he goes to his Republican pals in Texas or Nevada who don't worry about pollution...
That's certainly one interpretation. Most of the workers there keep doing what they do to protect the environment though, so it's entirely plausible that they are taking precautions to save the environment, but find the method in which the regulations are implemented to be slow or arcane. If it's anything like cybersecurity in the government, the laborious process of filling out irrelevant paperwork is orthogonal to actually accomplishing the initial goals.
