Cite as: 529 U. S. 344 (2000)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
spares the railroads from tort liability, even for the inadequacy of devices designed only to secure the "minimum" protection Congress envisioned for all crossings. See 23 U. S. C. § 130(d). Counsel for petitioner Norfolk Southern Railway correctly conceded at oral argument that the relevant statutes do not compel releasing the railroads when the devices installed, though meeting federal standards for "minimum" protection, see ante, at 350, fail to provide adequate protection. The road is open for the Secretary of Transportation to enact regulations clarifying that point. See ante, at 359-360 (Breyer, J., concurring).
As persuasively explained by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Shots v. CSX Transp., Inc., 38 F. 3d 304 (1994) (Posner, C. J.), and reiterated by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in the instant case, 173 F. 3d 386 (1999), our prior decision in CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easter-wood, 507 U. S. 658 (1993), does not necessitate the ouster of state law the Court now commands. Easterwood, in which the tort claimant prevailed, dispositively held only that federal funding was necessary to trigger preemption, not that it was sufficient by itself to do so. Because federal funds did not in fact subsidize the crossing at issue in that case, id., at 671-673, any statement as to the automatic preemptive effect of federal funding should have remained open for reconsideration in a later case where federal funds did participate. I do not read the admittedly unclear language of 23 CFR §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) (1999) to dictate that Federal Highway Administration authorization of federal funding to install devices is tantamount to approval of each of those devices as adequate to protect safety at every crossing so funded. And I do not think a previous administration's argument to that effect as amicus curiae in Easterwood estops the Government from taking a different view now. I agree with the sound reasoning in Shots and would affirm the Court of Appeals' judgment.
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