70
Opinion of the Court
statement in a House Report that the 1971 Act "preempts the field on boating standards or regulations." H. R. Rep. No. 92-324, p. 11 (1971). The statement was made prior to the amendment containing the saving clause, and nothing in the entire report suggests that it meant the occupied "field" to include judge-made common law.
Respondent ultimately relies upon one of the FBSA's main goals: fostering uniformity in manufacturing regulations. Uniformity is undoubtedly important to the industry, and the statute's pre-emption clause was meant to "assur[e] that manufacture for the domestic trade will not involve compliance with widely varying local requirements." S. Rep. 20. Yet this interest is not unyielding, as is demonstrated both by the Coast Guard's early grants of broad exemptions for state regulations and by the position it has taken in this litigation. Absent a contrary decision by the Coast Guard, the concern with uniformity does not justify the displacement of state common-law remedies that compensate accident victims and their families and that serve the Act's more prominent objective, emphasized by its title, of promoting boating safety.
The judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
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