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Opinion of Kennedy, J.
lish, supra, at 79 (quoting Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941)). The plurality would hold today that state occupational safety and health standards regulating an issue on which a federal standard exists conflict with Congress' purpose to "subject employers and employees to only one set of regulations." Ante, at 99. This is not an application of our pre-emption standards, it is but a conclusory statement of pre-emption, as it assumes that Congress intended exclusive federal jurisdiction. I do not see how such a mode of analysis advances our consideration of the case.
Our decisions establish that a high threshold must be met if a state law is to be pre-empted for conflicting with the purposes of a federal Act. Any conflict must be "irreconcilable . . . . The existence of a hypothetical or potential conflict is insufficient to warrant the pre-emption of the state statute." Rice v. Norman Williams Co., 458 U. S. 654, 659 (1982); see also English, supra, at 90 ("The 'teaching of this Court's decisions . . . enjoin[s] seeking out conflicts between state and federal regulation where none clearly exists' " (quoting Huron Portland Cement Co. v. Detroit, 362 U. S. 440, 446 (1960)); Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Comm'n, 461 U. S. 190, 222-223 (1983). In my view, this type of pre-emption should be limited to state laws which impose prohibitions or obligations which are in direct contradiction to Congress' primary objectives, as conveyed with clarity in the federal legislation.
I do not believe that supplementary state regulation of an occupational safety and health issue can be said to create the sort of actual conflict required by our decisions. The purpose of state supplementary regulation, like the federal standards promulgated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), is to protect worker safety and health. Any potential tension between a scheme of federal regulation of the workplace and a concurrent, supplementary state scheme would not, in my view, rise to the level
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