Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
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GEIER v. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

Stevens, J., dissenting

tion of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” Hines
v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941).22

While the presumption is important in assessing the pre-
emptive reach of federal statutes, it becomes crucial when
the pre-emptive effect of an administrative regulation is at
issue. Unlike Congress, administrative agencies are clearly
not designed to represent the interests of States, yet with
relative ease they can promulgate comprehensive and de-
tailed regulations that have broad pre-emption ramiﬁcations
for state law. We have addressed the heightened federalism
and nondelegation concerns that agency pre-emption raises
by using the presumption to build a procedural bridge across
the political accountability gap between States and adminis-
trative agencies. Thus, even in cases where implied regula-
tory pre-emption is at issue, we generally “expect an admin-
istrative regulation to declare any intention to pre-empt
state law with some speciﬁcity. ” 23 California Coastal

22 Recently, one commentator has argued that our doctrine of
frustration-of-purposes (or “obstacle”) pre-emption is not supported by the
text or history of the Supremacy Clause, and has suggested that we at-
tempt to bring a measure of rationality to our pre-emption jurisprudence
by eliminating it. Nelson, Preemption, 86 Va. L. Rev. 225, 231–232 (2000)
(“Under the Supremacy Clause, preemption occurs if and only if state law
contradicts a valid rule established by federal law, and the mere fact that
the federal law serves certain purposes does not automatically mean that
it contradicts everything that might get in the way of those purposes”).
Obviously, if we were to do so, there would be much less need for the
presumption against pre-emption (which the commentator also criticizes).
As matters now stand, however, the presumption reduces the risk that
federal judges will draw too deeply on malleable and politically unaccount-
able sources such as regulatory history in ﬁnding pre-emption based on
frustration of purposes.

23 The Court brushes aside our speciﬁcity requirement on the ground
that the cases in which we relied upon it were not cases of implied conﬂict
pre-emption. Ante, at 884. The Court is quite correct that Hillsborough
County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., 471 U. S. 707 (1985),
and California Coastal Comm’n v. Granite Rock Co., 480 U. S. 572 (1987),
are cases in which ﬁeld pre-emption, rather than conﬂict pre-emption, was
at issue. This distinction, however, does not take the Court as far as it