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Page Number: 17

14 

ONEOK, INC. v. LEARJET, INC. 

Opinion of the Court 

517–518.  Contra,  post,  at  8.  States  have  a  “long  history 
of ”  providing  “common-law  and  statutory  remedies 
against  monopolies  and  unfair  business  practices.”    ARC 
America,  490  U. S.,  at  101;  see  also  Watson  v.  Buck,  313 
U. S.  387,  404  (1941)  (noting  the  States’  “long-recognized 
power  to  regulate  combinations  in  restraint  of  trade”).
Respondents’  state-law  antitrust  suits  relied  on  this  well 
established state power. 

B 
Petitioners  point  to  two  other  cases  that  they  believe 
support  their  position.    The  first  is  Mississippi  Power  & 
Light Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Moore, 487 U. S. 354 (1988).
There, the Court held that the Federal Power Act—which 
gives  FERC  the  authority  to  determine  whether  rates
charged by public utilities in electric energy sales are “just 
and reasonable,” 16 U. S. C. §824d(a)—pre-empted a state
inquiry  into  the  reasonableness  of  FERC-approved  prices
for  the  sale  of  nuclear  power  to  wholesalers  of  electricity
(which led to higher retail electricity rates).  487 U. S., at 
373–377.  Petitioners argue that this case shows that state 
regulation  of  similar  sales  here—i.e.,  by  a  pipeline  to  a
direct  consumer—must  also  be  pre-empted.  See  Reply
Brief 11–12.  Mississippi Power, however, is best read as a 
conflict  pre-emption  case,  not  a  field  pre-emption  case.
See  487  U. S.,  at  377  (“[A]  state  agency’s  ‘efforts  to  regu­
late  commerce  must  fall  when  they  conflict  with  or  inter­
fere with federal authority over the same activity’ ” (quot­
ing Chicago & North Western Transp. Co. v. Kalo Brick & 
Tile Co., 450 U. S. 311, 318–319 (1981))). 

Regardless,  the  state  inquiry  in  Mississippi  Power  was 
pre-empted  because  it  was  directed  at  jurisdictional  sales 
in  a  way  that  respondents’  state  antitrust  lawsuits  are 
not.  Mississippi’s  inquiry  into  the  reasonableness  of
FERC-approved  purchases  was  effectively  an  attempt  to
“regulate in areas where FERC has properly exercised its