Cite as: 505 U. S. 504 (1992)
Opinion of Scalia, J.
I
The Court's threshold description of the law of preemption is accurate enough: Though we generally " 'assum[e] that the historic police powers of the States [are] not to be superseded by . . . Federal Act unless that [is] the clear and manifest purpose of Congress,' " ante, at 516 (quoting Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947)), we have traditionally not thought that to require express statutory text. Where state law is in actual conflict with federal law, see, e. g., Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Comm'n, 461 U. S. 190, 204 (1983), or where it "stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress," Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941), or even where the nature of Congress's regulation, or its scope, convinces us that "Congress left no room for the States to supplement it," Rice, supra, at 230, we have had no difficulty declaring that state law must yield. The ultimate question in each case, as we have framed the inquiry, is one of Congress's intent, as revealed by the text, structure, purposes, and subject matter of the statutes involved. See, e. g., English v. General Electric Co., 496 U. S. 72, 78-79 (1990); Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85, 95 (1983). The Court goes beyond these traditional principles, however, to announce two new ones. First, it says that express pre-emption provisions must be given the narrowest possible construction. This is in its view the consequence of our oft-repeated assumption that, absent convincing evidence of statutory intent to pre-empt, " 'the historic police powers of the States [are] not to be superseded,' " see ante, at 516. But it seems to me that assumption dissolves once there is conclusive evidence of intent to pre-empt in the express words of the statute itself, and the only remaining question is what the scope of that pre-emption is meant to be. Thereupon, I think, our responsibility is to apply to the text ordinary principles of statutory construction.
545
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