Cite as: 522 U. S. 211 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
negative implication to the effect that Congress did not intend state relation-back provisions or grace periods to control a trustee's power to avoid preferences. Section 546 of the Code puts certain limits on the avoidance powers set forth elsewhere, as in the provision of § 546(b)(1)(A) that the "rights and powers of a trustee under sections 544, 545, and 549 of this title are subject to any generally applicable law that . . . permits perfection of an interest in property to be effective against an entity that acquires rights in such property before the date of perfection." Not only does the series skip from § 545 to § 549, but the omission of § 547 becomes all the more pointed when read against the other subsections of § 546, all of which refer explicitly to powers and proceedings under § 547. See 11 U. S. C. §§ 546(a), (c)-(g). So, it is hard to resist the implication that Congress quite specifically intended a trustee's power to avoid prepetition preferences to prevail over any state rules permitting relation back.
There is further support for this reading in the circumstances of the 1994 amendment to the Bankruptcy Code that extended the perfection period under § 547(c)(3)(B) from 10 to 20 days. See Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1994, § 203(1), Pub. L. 103-394, 108 Stat. 4122. At the time this legislation was passed, most States had some version of Article 9-301(2) of the Uniform Commercial Code, which provides that
"[i]f the secured party files with respect to a purchase money security interest before or within ten days after the debtor receives possession of the collateral, he takes priority over the rights of a transferee in bulk or of a lien creditor which arise between the time the security interest attaches and the time of filing." Uniform Commercial Code § 9-301(2), 3A U. L. A. 10 (1992).
Forty-two States had adopted modifications extending the grace period to 20 days or more after the debtor's first possession of the collateral. See Uniform Commercial Code § 9-301, 3A U. L. A. 10, 14-15 (1992 and Supp. 1997); Cal.
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