Opinion ID: 721438
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Introduction to federal preemption

Text: 152 The Constitution provides that the laws of the federal government shall be the supreme Law of the Land; ... any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding. U.S. CONST. art. VI. That principle of supremacy is implemented through the doctrine of federal preemption, 70 under which state and local law may be stripped of its effect. Federal preemption may occur in a variety of circumstances: 153 It is well established that within constitutional limits Congress may pre-empt state authority by so stating in express terms. Absent explicit pre-emptive language, Congress' intent to supersede state law altogether may be found from a scheme of federal regulation so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it, because [ (a) ] the Act of Congress may touch a field in which the federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject, or [ (b) ] because the object sought to be obtained by the federal law and the character of obligations imposed by it may reveal the same purpose. Even where Congress has not entirely displaced state regulation in a specific area, state law is pre-empted to the extent that it actually conflicts with federal law. Such a conflict arises when compliance with both federal and state regulations is [ (a) ] a physical impossibility, or [ (b) ] where state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress. 154 Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. State Energy Resources Conserv. & Devel. Comm'n, 461 U.S. 190, 203-04, 103 S.Ct. 1713, 1722, 75 L.Ed.2d 752 (1983) (internal citations, quotation marks, and ellipses omitted). 155 Moreover, federal preemptive authority may be exercised not only through federal statutes but also regulations issued by administrative agencies. 71 When an agency announces its intent to pre-empt state authority in a particular area, 156 the correct focus is on the federal agency that seeks to displace state law and on the proper bounds of its lawful authority to [319 U.S.App.D.C. 93] undertake such action. The statutorily authorized regulations of an agency will pre-empt any state or local law that conflicts with such regulations or frustrates the purposes thereof. Beyond that, however, in proper circumstances the agency may determine that its authority is exclusive and pre-empts any state efforts to regulate in the forbidden area. It has long been recognized that many of the responsibilities conferred on federal agencies involve a broad grant of authority to reconcile conflicting policies. Where this is true, the Court has cautioned that even in the area of pre-emption, if the agency's choice to pre-empt represents a reasonable accommodation of conflicting policies that were committed to the agency's care by the statute, we should not disturb it unless it appears from the statute or its legislative history that the accommodation is not one that Congress would have sanctioned. 157 City of New York v. FCC, 486 U.S. 57, 64, 108 S.Ct. 1637, 1642, 100 L.Ed.2d 48 (1988) (citations and quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added). 158