Cite as: 529 U. S. 861 (2000)
Stevens, J., dissenting
preferring instead to put the burden on petitioners to show that their tort claim would not frustrate the Secretary's purposes. Ante, at 882 (noting that petitioners' arguments "cannot, by themselves, change the legal result"). In view of the important principles upon which the presumption is founded, however, rejecting it in this manner is profoundly unwise.
Our presumption against pre-emption is rooted in the concept of federalism. It recognizes that when Congress legislates "in a field which the States have traditionally occupied . . . [,] we start with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress." Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S., at 230; see Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U. S. 519, 525 (1977). The signal virtues of this presumption are its placement of the power of pre-emption squarely in the hands of Congress, which is far more suited than the Judiciary to strike the appropriate state/federal balance (particularly in areas of traditional state regulation), and its requirement that Congress speak clearly when exercising that power. In this way, the structural safeguards inherent in the normal operation of the legislative process operate to defend state interests from undue infringement. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 552 (1985); see United States v. Morrison, ante, at 660-663 (Breyer, J., dissenting); Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 528 U. S. 62, 93-94 (2000) (Stevens, J., dissenting); Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson, 513 U. S. 265, 292-293 (1995) (Thomas, J., dissenting); Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 460-464 (1991). In addition, the presumption serves as a limiting principle that prevents federal judges from running amok with our potentially boundless (and perhaps inadequately considered) doctrine of implied conflict pre-emption based on frustration of purposes—i. e., that state law is pre-empted if it "stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execu-
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