Cite as: 519 U. S. 316 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
514 U. S., at 665.7 Given the paucity of indication in ERISA and its legislative history of any intent on the part of Congress to pre-empt state apprenticeship training standards, or state prevailing wage laws that incorporate them, we are reluctant to alter our ordinary "assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act." Rice, 331 U. S., at 230.8 Accordingly, as in
7 In Travelers, we were convinced that Congress did not intend preemption of New York's law both by the lack of any positive indication that Congress harbored such an intent, and by indirect evidence—the NHPRDA—that the Congress that enacted ERISA did not intend to supersede state laws like New York's regulation of hospital charges. 514 U. S., at 664-668. We face here a similar absence of positive indications on the part of Congress that apprenticeship or prevailing wage statutes would be superseded. The United States further argues that the Fitzgerald Act is analogous to the NHPRDA: Were we to hold § 1777.5 preempted "[t]hat result 'would leave States without the authority to do just what Congress was expressly trying to induce them to do by enacting the Fitzgerald Act.' " Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). In Travelers, we thought it implausible that the Congress that enacted ERISA intended to pre-empt state laws that the same Congress subsequently sought to encourage with the NHPRDA. It is not, however, inconceivable for the ERISA Congress to intend the pre-emption of state statutes resulting from the pre-existing Fitzgerald Act. So, the United States' analogy is not decisive. It does, however, aid our conclusion that Congress' silence on the pre-emption of state statutes that Congress previously sought to foster counsels against pre-emption here.
8 Respondents and two of their amici point to bills introduced in Congress for the purpose, at least in part, of overruling lower court decisions holding prevailing wage statutes like California's pre-empted. See Brief for Respondent 23, Brief for Signatory Members of the Coalition to Preserve ERISA Pre-emption as Amicus Curiae 11, and Brief for Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc., et al. as Amici Curiae 26-27 (all citing H. R. 1036, 103d Cong., 1st Sess. (1993); S. 1580, 103d Cong., 1st Sess. (1993)). It is argued that Congress' unwillingness to amend § 514(a) in response to these decisions is evidence that Congress believed that those opinions accurately interpreted ERISA's pre-emptive scope. We have rejected similar arguments before. See Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v.
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