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22  MURPHY v. NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. 

Opinion of the Court 

them  work  in  the  same  way:  Congress  enacts  a  law  that
imposes  restrictions  or  confers  rights  on  private  actors;  a 
state  law  confers  rights  or  imposes  restrictions  that  con­
flict  with  the  federal  law;  and  therefore  the  federal  law 
takes precedence and the state law is preempted.   

This  mechanism  is  shown  most  clearly  in  cases  involv­
ing  “conflict  preemption.”    A  recent  example  is  Mutual 
Pharmaceutical  Co.  v.  Bartlett,  570  U. S.  472  (2013).    In 
that  case,  a  federal  law  enacted  under  the  Commerce 
Clause  regulated  manufacturers  of  generic  drugs,  prohib­
iting them from altering either the composition or labeling 
approved by the Food and Drug Administration.  A State’s 
tort  law,  however,  effectively  required  a  manufacturer  to
supplement  the  warnings  included  in  the  FDA-approved
label.  Id.,  at  480–486.    We  held  that  the  state  law  was 
preempted  because  it  imposed  a  duty  that  was  incon­
sistent—i.e., in conflict—with federal law.  Id., at 493. 

“Express  preemption”  operates  in  essentially  the  same
way,  but  this  is  often  obscured  by  the  language  used  by 
Congress in framing preemption provisions.  The provision 
at issue in Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U. S. 
374 (1992), is illustrative.  The Airline Deregulation Act of
1978  lifted  prior  federal  regulations  of  airlines,  and  “[t]o
ensure  that  the  States  would  not  undo  federal  deregula­
tion  with  regulation  of  their  own,”  id.,  at  378,  the  Act 
provided that “no State or political subdivision thereof . . . 
shall enact or enforce any law, rule, regulation, standard,
or other provision having the force and effect of law relat­
ing  to  rates,  routes,  or  services  of  any  [covered]  air  car­
rier.”  49 U. S. C. App. §1305(a)(1) (1988 ed.). 

This  language  might  appear  to  operate  directly  on  the
States,  but  it  is  a  mistake  to  be  confused  by  the  way  in 
which a preemption provision is phrased.  As we recently
explained, “we do not require Congress to employ a partic­
ular  linguistic  formulation  when  preempting  state  law.” 
Coventry Health Care of Mo., Inc. v. Nevils, 581 U. S. ___,