Cite as: 529 U. S. 89 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
that its crew has "complete[d] a comprehensive training program approved by the [State]." The State requires the vessel's master to "be trained in shipboard management" and licensed deck officers to be trained in bridge resource management, automated radar plotting aids, shiphandling, crude oil washing, inert gas systems, cargo handling, oil spill prevention and response, and shipboard fire fighting. The state law mandates a series of "weekly," "monthly," and "quarterly" drills.
This state requirement under WAC § 317-21-230 does not address matters unique to the waters of Puget Sound. On the contrary, it imposes requirements that control the staffing, operation, and manning of a tanker outside of Wash-ington's waters. The training and drill requirements pertain to "operation" and "personnel qualifications" and so are pre-empted by 46 U. S. C. § 3703(a). Our conclusion that training is a field reserved to the Federal Government receives further confirmation from the circumstance that the STCW Convention addresses "training" and "qualification" requirements of the crew, Art. VI, and that the United States has enacted crew training requirements. E. g., 46 CFR pts. 10, 12, 13, 15 (1999).
The second Washington rule we find pre-empted is WAC § 317-21-250; see also Appendix, infra, at 119. Washington imposes English language proficiency requirements on a tanker's crew. This requirement will dictate how a tanker operator staffs the vessel even from the outset of the voyage, when the vessel may be thousands of miles from Puget Sound. It is not limited to governing local traffic or local peculiarities. The State's attempted rule is a "personnel qualification" pre-empted by § 3703(a) of Title II. In addition, there is another federal statute, 33 U. S. C. § 1228(a)(7), on the subject. It provides: "[N]o vessel . . . shall operate in the navigable waters of the United States . . . , if such vessel . . . while underway, does not have at least one licensed deck officer on the navigation bridge
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