202
Opinion of White, J.
hardly seems more constitutionally acceptable if the federal statute that "commands" specific action also applies to private parties. The alleged diminution in state authority over its own affairs is not any less because the federal mandate restricts the activities of private parties.
Even were such a distinction to be logically sound, the Court's "anticommandeering" principle cannot persuasively be read as springing from the two cases cited for the proposition, Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 288 (1981), and FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742, 761-762 (1982). The Court purports to draw support for its rule against Congress "commandeer-[ing]" state legislative processes from a solitary statement in dictum in Hodel. See ante, at 161: "As an initial matter, Congress may not simply 'commandee[r] the legislative processes of the States by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program' " (quoting Hodel, supra, at 288). That statement was not necessary to the decision in Hodel, which involved the question whether the Tenth Amendment interfered with Congress' authority to pre-empt a field of activity that could also be subject to state regulation and not whether a federal statute could dictate certain actions by States; the language about "commandeer-[ing]" States was classic dicta. In holding that a federal statute regulating the activities of private coal mine operators was constitutional, the Court observed that "[i]t would . . . be a radical departure from long-established precedent for this Court to hold that the Tenth Amendment prohibits Congress from displacing state police power laws regulating private activity." 452 U. S., at 292.
The Court also claims support for its rule from our decision in FERC, and quotes a passage from that case in which we stated that " 'this Court never has sanctioned explicitly a federal command to the States to promulgate and enforce laws and regulations.' " Ante, at 161 (quoting 456 U. S., at
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