Cite as: 521 U. S. 898 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
law]"). As we have suggested earlier, supra, at 907, that says nothing about whether state executive officers must administer federal law. Accord, New York, 505 U. S., at 178- 179. As for FERC, it stated (as we have described earlier) that "this Court never has sanctioned explicitly a federal command to the States to promulgate and enforce laws and regulations," 456 U. S., at 761-762, and upheld the statutory provisions at issue precisely because they did not commandeer state government, but merely imposed preconditions to continued state regulation of an otherwise pre-empted field, in accord with Hodel, 452 U. S., at 288, and required state administrative agencies to apply federal law while acting in a judicial capacity, in accord with Testa, see FERC, supra, at 759-771, and n. 24.14
The Government also maintains that requiring state officers to perform discrete, ministerial tasks specified by Congress does not violate the principle of New York because it
14 The dissent points out that FERC cannot be construed as merely following the principle recognized in Testa that state courts must apply relevant federal law because "[a]lthough the commission was serving an adjudicative function, the commissioners were unquestionably not 'judges' within the meaning of [the Supremacy Clause]." Post, at 969. That is true enough. But the answer to the question of which state officers must apply federal law (only " 'judges' within the meaning of [the Supremacy Clause]") is different from the answer to the question of which state officers may be required by statute to apply federal law (officers who conduct adjudications similar to those traditionally performed by judges). It is within the power of the States, as it is within the power of the Federal Government, see Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22 (1932), to transfer some adjudicatory functions to administrative agencies, with opportunity for subsequent judicial review. But it is also within the power of Congress to prescribe, explicitly or by implication (as in the legislation at issue in FERC), that those adjudications must take account of federal law. The existence of this latter power should not be unacceptable to a dissent that believes distinguishing among officers on the basis of their title rather than the function they perform is "empty formalistic reasoning of the highest order," post, at 952. We have no doubt that FERC would not have been decided the way it was if nonadjudicative responsibilities of the state agency were at issue.
929
Page: Index Previous 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007