Opinion ID: 2743654
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Federal Preemption Principles

Text: We begin by reviewing the general principles of federal preemption. The federal preemption doctrine is based upon the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the United States Constitution. See Arizona v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2492, 2500 (2012); Appeal of Sinclair Machine Prod’s, Inc., 126 N.H. 822, 826 (1985). Article VI provides that federal law “shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.” U.S. CONST. art. VI, cl. 2. “Under this principle, Congress has the power to preempt state law.” Arizona, 132 S. Ct. at 2500. “Consideration of issues arising under the Supremacy Clause starts with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States are not to be superseded by Federal Act unless that is the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.” Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U.S. 504, 516 (1992) (quotation, brackets and ellipsis omitted). “Accordingly, the purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone of pre-emption analysis.” Id. (quotation and brackets omitted). 4 To that end, courts look to the language of the pre-emption statute and the statutory framework surrounding it as well as the structure and purpose of the statute as a whole, as revealed not only in the text, but through the reviewing court’s reasoned understanding of the way in which Congress intended the statute and its surrounding regulatory scheme to affect interested parties. Janvey v. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, 793 F. Supp. 2d 825, 838 (N.D. Tex. 2011) (quotations omitted), aff’d, 712 F.3d 185 (5th Cir. 2013). “Congress’ intent may be explicitly stated in the statute’s language or implicitly contained in its structure and purpose.” Cipollone, 505 U.S. at 516 (quotation omitted). “Explicit statutory or regulatory language provides the clearest expression of preemptive intent.” Janvey, 793 F. Supp. 2d at 838. “When Congress has spoken expressly . . . the preemptive scope of a federal law is governed entirely by the express language.” Weber v. Heaney, 995 F.2d 872, 875 (8th Cir. 1993). As the Supreme Court explained in Cipollone: When Congress has considered the issue of pre-emption and has included in the enacted legislation a provision explicitly addressing that issue, and when that provision provides a reliable indicium of congressional intent with respect to state authority, there is no need to infer congressional intent to pre-empt state laws from the substantive provisions of the legislation. Cipollone, 505 U.S. at 517 (quotations and citation omitted). Since “[p]reemption of any type fundamentally is a question of congressional intent,” Teper v. Miller, 82 F.3d 989, 993 (11th Cir. 1996) (quotation omitted), our preemption analysis begins with the source of the alleged preemption. See DerGazarian v. Dow Chemical Co., 836 F. Supp. 1429, 1431 (W.D. Ark. 1993). We, therefore, turn to an examination of the relevant sections of the FECA.