904
Stevens, J., dissenting
bility might accelerate the rate of increase would actually further the only goal explicitly mentioned in the standard itself: reducing the number of deaths and severity of injuries of vehicle occupants. Had gradualism been independently important as a method of achieving the Secretary's safety goals, presumably the Secretary would have put a ceiling as well as a floor on each annual increase in the required percentage of new passive restraint installations. For similar reasons, it is evident that variety was not a matter of independent importance to the Secretary. Although the standard allowed manufacturers to comply with the minimum percentage requirements by installing passive restraint systems other than airbags (such as automatic seatbelts), it encouraged them to install airbags and other nonbelt systems that might be developed in the future. The Secretary did not act to ensure the use of a variety of passive restraints by placing ceilings on the number of airbags that could be used in complying with the minimum requirements.20 Moreover, even if variety and gradualism had been independently important to the Secretary, there is nothing in the standard, the accompanying commentary, or the history of airbag regulation to support the notion that the Secretary intended to advance those purposes at all costs, without regard to the detrimental consequences that pre-emption of tort liability could have for the achievement of her avowed purpose of reducing vehicular injuries. See Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U. S., at 257.
My disagreement with Honda and the Government runs deeper than these flaws, however. In its brief, the Government concedes that "[a] claim that a manufacturer should have chosen to install airbags rather than another type of
20 Of course, allowing a suit like petitioners' to proceed against a manufacturer that had installed no passive restraint system in a particular vehicle would not even arguably pose an "obstacle" to the auto manufacturers' freedom to choose among several different passive restraint device options. Cf. ante, at 878, 881.
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