The application includes either a test report from an independent laboratory showing compliance with the federal standard or a current copy of an American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators equipment approved certificate for brake fluid. Your office informs us that the Texas registration takes less than two weeks upon receipt of the proper materials. Different jurisdictions have reached different conclusions with regard to whether their state standards were preempted depending on the details of the various states' statutes. In applying such general consideration, the Court has consistently required a clear indication of congressional intent to displace state regulation. Where a state's police power in involved, preemption is not presumed.
Congressional intent is particularly important in answering the first two guidelines set out above.
There is a clear intent that the states shall enforce an identity in the standards themselves, so that compliance with the federal standards will necessarily constitute compliance with state standards, if any. Indentity in the process or means of enforcement is impossible, but is not required to accomplish the intent of obtaining uniformity in the standards themselves and thus relieving the manufacturers of the burden of conforming to more than a single set of standards. Even after finding that Congress did not intent to preclude state enforcement of the brake fluid standard, the state plan must still be found not to be so burdensome that it presents a serious danger of conflict with the administration of the federal program. The state plan does not require registration fees or a lengthy registration process that would interfere with the sale of brake fluids in Texas. It does require that the brake fluid be independently certified to meet federal standards before it is sold rather than after sale or after an accident.