334
The effect of the prevailing wage statute on ERISA-covered apprenticeship programs in California is substantially similar to the effect of New York law on ERISA plans choosing whether to provide health insurance benefits in New York through the Blues, or through a commercial carrier. The prevailing wage statute alters the incentives, but does not dictate the choices, facing ERISA plans. In this regard, it is "no different from myriad state laws in areas traditionally subject to local regulation, which Congress could not possibly have intended to eliminate." Travelers, 514 U. S., at 668. We could not hold pre-empted a state law in an area of traditional state regulation based on so tenuous a relation without doing grave violence to our presumption that Congress intended nothing of the sort. We thus conclude that California's prevailing wage laws and apprenticeship standards do not have a "connection with," and therefore do not "relate to," ERISA plans.12
III
For the reasons stated herein, the judgment below is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins, concurring.
Since ERISA was enacted in 1974, this Court has accepted certiorari in, and decided, no less than 14 cases to resolve conflicts in the Courts of Appeals regarding ERISA preemption of various sorts of state law.1 The rate of accept-12 Because we determine that § 1777.5 does not "relate to" ERISA plans, we need not determine whether ERISA's saving clause, § 514(d), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(d), nonetheless forestalls pre-emption.
1 In addition to the case at bar, the Court has addressed the application of ERISA's pre-emption provision in the following cases: New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co., 514 U. S. 645 (1995); John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Harris Trust and Sav.
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