Cite as: 525 U. S. 366 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
Our view is unaffected by 47 U. S. C. § 152(b) (§ 2(b) of the 1934 enactment), which reads:
"Except as provided in sections 223 through 227 . . . , inclusive, and section 332 . . . , and subject to the provisions of section 301 of this title . . . , nothing in this chapter shall be construed to apply or to give the Commission jurisdiction with respect to . . . charges, classifications, practices, services, facilities, or regulations for or in connection with intrastate communication service . . . ."
The local-competition provisions are not identified in § 152(b)'s "except" clause. Seizing on this omission, respondents argue that the 1996 Act does nothing to displace the presumption that the States retain their traditional authority over local phone service.
Respondents' argument on this point is (necessarily) an extremely subtle one. They do not contend that the "noth(1992), and that there must be " 'clear and manifest' showing of congressional intent to supplant traditional state police powers," post, at 420, quoting from Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947). But the question in these cases is not whether the Federal Government has taken the regulation of local telecommunications competition away from the States. With regard to the matters addressed by the 1996 Act, it unquestionably has. The question is whether the state commissions' participation in the administration of the new federal regime is to be guided by federal-agency regulations. If there is any "presumption" applicable to this question, it should arise from the fact that a federal program administered by 50 independent state agencies is surpassing strange.
The appeals by both Justice Thomas and Justice Breyer to what might loosely be called "States' rights" are most peculiar, since there is no doubt, even under their view, that if the federal courts believe a state commission is not regulating in accordance with federal policy they may bring it to heel. This is, at bottom, a debate not about whether the States will be allowed to do their own thing, but about whether it will be the FCC or the federal courts that draw the lines to which they must hew. To be sure, the FCC's lines can be even more restrictive than those drawn by the courts—but it is hard to spark a passionate "States' rights" debate over that detail.
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