Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, 530 U.S. 363, 11 (2000)

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Cite as: 530 U. S. 363 (2000)

Opinion of the Court

Paul, 373 U. S. 132, 142-143 (1963), and where "under the circumstances of [a] particular case, [the challenged state law] stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress." Hines, supra, at 67. What is a sufficient obstacle is a matter of judgment, to be informed by examining the federal statute as a whole and identifying its purpose and intended effects:

"For when the question is whether a Federal act overrides a state law, the entire scheme of the statute must of course be considered and that which needs must be implied is of no less force than that which is expressed. If the purpose of the act cannot otherwise be accomplished—if its operation within its chosen field else must be frustrated and its provisions be refused their natural effect—the state law must yield to the regulation of Congress within the sphere of its delegated power." Savage, supra, at 533, quoted in Hines, supra, at 67, n. 20.

Applying this standard, we see the state Burma law as an obstacle to the accomplishment of Congress's full objectives under the federal Act.7 We find that the state law undermines the intended purpose and "natural effect" of at least three provisions of the federal Act, that is, its delegation of effective discretion to the President to control economic

7 The State concedes, as it must, that in addressing the subject of the federal Act, Congress has the power to preempt the state statute. See Reply Brief for Petitioners 2; Tr. of Oral Arg. 5-6.

We add that we have already rejected the argument that a State's "statutory scheme . . . escapes pre-emption because it is an exercise of the State's spending power rather than its regulatory power." Wisconsin Dept. of Industry v. Gould Inc., 475 U. S. 282, 287 (1986). In Gould, we found that a Wisconsin statute debarring repeat violators of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq., from contracting with the State was preempted because the state statute's additional enforcement mechanism conflicted with the federal Act. 475 U. S., at 288-289. The fact that the State "ha[d] chosen to use its spending power rather than its police power" did not reduce the potential for conflict with the federal statute. Ibid.

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