Gade v. National Solid Wastes Management Assn., 505 U.S. 88, 4 (1992)

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Cite as: 505 U. S. 88 (1992)

Opinion of O'Connor, J.

and health plan); 29 U. S. C. § 672(g) (States that develop approved plans may receive funding for up to 50% of the costs of operating their occupational health and safety programs). To allow a State selectively to "supplement" certain federal regulations with ostensibly nonconflicting standards would be inconsistent with this federal scheme of establishing uniform federal standards, on the one hand, and encouraging States to assume full responsibility for development and enforcement of their own OSH programs, on the other.

We cannot accept petitioner's argument that the OSH Act does not pre-empt nonconflicting state laws because those laws, like the Act, are designed to promote worker safety. In determining whether state law "stands as an obstacle" to the full implementation of a federal law, Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S., at 67, "it is not enough to say that the ultimate goal of both federal and state law" is the same, International Paper Co. v. Ouellette, 479 U. S. 481, 494 (1987). "A state law also is pre-empted if it interferes with the methods by which the federal statute was designed to reach th[at] goal." Ibid.; see also Michigan Canners & Freezers Assn., Inc. v. Agricultural Marketing and Bargaining Bd., 467 U. S. 461, 477 (1984) (state statute establishing association to represent agricultural producers pre-empted even though it and the federal Agricultural Fair Practices Act "share the goal of augmenting the producer's bargaining power"); Wisconsin Dept. of Industry v. Gould Inc., 475 U. S. 282, 286-287 (1986) (state statute preventing three-time violators of the National Labor Relations Act from doing business with the State is pre-empted even though state law was designed to reinforce requirements of federal Act). The OSH Act does not foreclose a State from enacting its own laws to advance the goal of worker safety, but it does restrict the ways in which it can do so. If a State wishes to regulate an issue of worker safety for which a federal standard is in effect, its

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