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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 13–271
_________________
ONEOK, INC., et al. PETITIONERS
v. LEARJET, INC.,
et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
[April 21, 2015]
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, a group of manufacturers, hospitals, and other
institutions that buy natural gas directly from interstate
pipelines sued the pipelines, claiming that they engaged in
behavior that violated state antitrust laws. The pipelines’
behavior affected
both federally regulated
wholesale
natural-gas prices
and nonfederally regulated
retail
natural-gas prices. The question is whether the federal Natural Gas
Act pre-empts these lawsuits. We have said that, in passing the
Act, “Congress occupied the field of matters relating to wholesale
sales and transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce.”
Schneidewind v.
ANR Pipeline Co.,485 U. S.
293,305 (1988). Nevertheless, for the reasons given below, we
conclude that the Act does not pre-empt the state-law antitrust
suits at issue here.
I
A
The Supremacy Clause provides that “the Laws of the United
States” (as well as treaties and the Constitution itself )
“shall be the supreme Law of the Land . . . any Thing in
the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary
notwithstanding.” Art. VI, cl. 2. Congress may
consequently pre-empt,
i.e., invalidate, a state law through
federal legislation. It may do so through express language in a
statute. But even where, as here, a statute does not refer
expressly to pre-emption, Congress may implicitly pre-empt a state
law, rule, or other state action. See
Sprietsma v.
Mercury Marine,537 U. S. 51,64 (2002).
It may do so either through “field” pre-emption or “conflict”
pre-emption. As to the former, Congress may have intended “to
foreclose any state regulation in the
area,” irrespective of
whether state law is consistent or inconsistent with “federal
standards.”
Arizona v.
United States, 567 U. S.
___, ___ (2012) (slip op., at 10) (emphasis added). In such
situations, Congress has forbidden the State to take action in the
field that the federal statute pre-empts.
By contrast, conflict pre-emption exists where “compliance with
both state and federal law is impossible,” or where “the state law
‘stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the
full purposes and objectives of Congress.’ ”
California
v.
ARC America Corp.,490 U. S. 93,100,101 (1989). In
either situation, federal law must prevail.
No one here claims that any relevant federal statute expressly
pre-empts state antitrust lawsuits. Nor have the parties argued at
any length that these state suits conflict with federal law.
Rather, the interstate pipeline companies (petitioners here) argue
that Congress implic-itly “ ‘occupied
the field of
matters relating to wholesale sales and transportation of
natural gas in interstate commerce.’ ” Brief for Petitioners
18 (quoting
Schneidewind,
supra, at 305 (emphasis
added)). And they contend that the state antitrust claims advanced
by their direct-sales customers (respondents here) fall within that
field. The United States, supporting the pipelines, argues
similarly. See Brief for United States as
Amicus Curiae 15.
Since the parties have argued this case almost exclusively in terms
of field pre-emption, we consider only the field pre-emption
question.
B
1
Federal regulation of the natural-gas industry began at a time
when the industry was divided into three segments. See 1 Regulation
of the Natural Gas Industry §1.01 (W. Mogel ed. 2008) (hereinafter
Mogel);
General Motors Corp. v.
Tracy,519 U. S.
278,283 (1997). First, natural-gas producers sunk wells in large
oil and gas fields (such as the Permian Basin in Texas and New
Mexico). They gathered the gas, brought it to transportation
points, and left it to interstate gas pipelines to transport the
gas to distant markets. Second, interstate pipelines shipped the
gas from the field to cities and towns across the Nation. Third,
local gas distributors bought the gas from the interstate pipelines
and resold it to business and residential customers within their
localities.
Originally, the States regulated all three segments of the
industry. See 1 Mogel §1.03. But in the early 20th century, this
Court held that the Commerce Clause forbids the States to regulate
the second part of the business—
i.e., the interstate
shipment and sale of gas to local distributors for resale. See,
e.g., Public Util. Comm’n of R. I. v.
Attleboro Steam & Elec. Co.,273 U. S. 83–90 (1927);
Missouri ex rel. Barrett v.
Kansas Natural Gas
Co.,265 U. S. 298–308 (1924). These holdings left a
regula-tory gap. Congress enacted the Natural Gas Act,52Stat.821,
to fill it. See
Phillips Petroleum Co. v.
Wisconsin,347 U. S. 672–684, n. 13 (1954) (citing
H. R. Rep. No. 709, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 1–2 (1937);
S. Rep. No. 1162, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 1–2 (1937)).
The Act, in §5(a), gives rate-setting authority to the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC, formerly the Federal Power
Commission (FPC)). That authority allows FERC to determine whether
“any rate, charge, or classification . . . collected by
any natural-gas company in connection with any transportation or
sale of natural gas,
subject to the jurisdiction of
[
FERC],” or “any rule, regulation, practice, or contract
affecting
such rate, charge, or classification is unjust,
unreasonable, unduly discriminatory, or preferential.”15
U. S. C. §717d(a) (emphasis added). As the italicized
words make clear, §5(a) limits the scope of FERC’s authority to
activities “in connection with any transportation or sale of
natural gas,
subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission.”
Ibid. (emphasisadded). And the Act, in §1(b), limits FERC’s
“jurisdiction” to (1) “the transportation of natural gas in
interstate commerce,” (2) “the sale in interstate commerce of
natural gas for resale,” and (3) “natural-gas companies engaged in
such transportation or sale.” §717(b). The Act leaves regulation of
other portions of the industry—such as production, local
distribution facilities, and direct sales—to the States. See
Northwest Central Pipeline Corp. v.
State Corporation
Comm’n of Kan.,489 U. S. 493,507 (1989) (Section 1(b) of
the Act “expressly” provides that “States retain jurisdiction over
intrastate transportation, local distribution, and
distribution facilities, and over ‘the production or gathering of
natural gas’ ”).
To simplify our discussion, we shall describe the firms that
engage in interstate transportation as “jurisdictional sellers” or
“interstate pipelines” (though various brokers and others may also
fall within the Act’s jurisdictional scope). Similarly, we shall
refer to the sales over which FERC has jurisdiction as
“jurisdictional sales” or “wholesale sales.”
2
Until the 1970’s, natural-gas regulation roughly tracked the
industry model we described above. Interstate pipelines would
typically buy gas from field producers and resell it to local
distribution companies for resale. See
Tracy,
supra,
at 283. FERC (or FPC), acting under the authority of the Natural
Gas Act, would set interstate pipeline wholesale rates using
classical “cost-of-service” ratemaking methods. See
Public Serv.
Comm’n of N. Y. v.
Mid-Louisiana Gas Co.,463
U. S. 319,328 (1983). That is, FERC would determine a
pipeline’s revenue requirement by calculating the costs of
providing its services, including operating and maintenance
expenses, depreciation expenses, taxes, and a reasonable profit.
See FERC, Cost-of-Service Rates Manual 6 (June 1999). FERC would
then set wholesale rates at a level designed to meet the pipeline’s
revenue requirement.
Deregulation of the natural-gas industry, however, brought about
changes in FERC’s approach. In the 1950’s, this Court had held that
the Natural Gas Act required regulation of prices at the interstate
pipelines’
buying end—
i.e., the prices at which field
producers sold natural gas to interstate pipelines.
Phillips
Petroleum Co.,
supra, at 682, 685. By the 1970’s, many
in Congress thought that such efforts to regulate field prices had
jeopardizednatural-gas supplies in an industry already dependent
“on the caprice of nature.”
FPC v.
Hope Natural Gas
Co.,320 U. S. 591,630 (1944) (opinion of Jackson, J.); see
id., at 629 (recognizing that “the wealth of Midas and the
wit of man cannot produce . . . a natural gas field”).
Hoping to avoid future shortages, Congress enacted forms of field
price deregulation designed to rely upon competition, rather than
regulation, to keep field prices low. See,
e.g., Natural Gas
Policy Act of 1978,92Stat.3409, codified in part at15
U. S. C. §3301
et seq. (phasing out
regulation of wellhead prices charged by producers of natural gas);
Natural Gas Wellhead Decontrol Act of 1989,103Stat.157 (removing
price controls on wellhead sales as of January 1993).
FERC promulgated new regulations designed to further this
process of deregulation. See,
e.g., Regulation of Natural
Gas Pipelines after Partial Wellhead Decontrol, 50 Fed. Reg. 42408
(1985) (allowing “open access” to pipelines so that consumers could
pay to ship their own gas). Most important here, FERC adopted an
approach that relied on the competitive marketplace, rather than
classical regulatory rate-setting, as the main mechanism for
keeping
wholesale natural-gas rates at a reasonable level.
Order No. 636, issued in 1992, allowed FERC to issue blanket
certificates that permitted jurisdictional sellers (typically
interstate pipelines) to charge market-based rates for gas,
provided that FERC had first determined that the sellers lacked
market power. See 57 Fed. Reg. 57957–57958 (1992);
id., at
13270.
After the issuance of this order, FERC’s oversight of the
natural-gas market largely consisted of (1) ex ante examinations of
jurisdictional sellers’ market power, and (2) the availability of a
complaint process under §717d(a). See Brief for United States as
Amicus Curiae 4. The new system also led many large gas
consumers—such as industrial and commercial users—to buy their own
gas directly from gas producers, and to arrange (and often pay
separately) for transportation from the field to the place of
consumption. See
Tracy, 519 U. S., at 284. Insofar as
interstate pipelines sold gas to such consumers, they sold it for
direct consumption rather than resale.
3
The free-market system for setting interstate pipeline rates
turned out to be less than perfect. Interstate pipelines,
distributing companies, and many of the customers who bought
directly from the pipelines found that they had to rely on
privately published price indices to determine appropriate prices
for their natural-gas contracts. These indices listed the prices at
which natural gas was being sold in different (presumably
competitive) markets across the country. The information on which
these in-dices were based was voluntarily reported by natural-gas
traders.
In 2003, FERC found that the indices were inaccurate, in part
because much of the information that natural-gas traders reported
had been false. See FERC, Final Report on Price Manipulation in
Western Markets (Mar. 2003), App. 88–89. FERC found that false
reporting had involved “inflating the volume of trades, omitting
trades, and adjusting the price of trades.”
Id., at 88. That
is, sometimes those who reported information simply fabricated it.
Other times, the information reported reflected “wash trades,”
i.e., “
prearranged pair[s] of trades of the same good
between the same parties, involving no economic risk and no net
change in beneficial ownership.”
Id., at 215. FERC concluded
that these “efforts to manipulate price indices compiled by trade
publications” had helped raise “to extraordinary levels” the prices
of both jurisdictional sales (that is, interstate pipeline sales
for resale) and nonjurisdictional direct sales to ultimate
consumers.
Id., at 86, 85.
After issuing its final report on price manipulation in western
markets, FERC issued a Code of Conduct. That code amended all
blanket certificates to prohibit jurisdictional sellers “from
engaging in actions without a legitimate business purpose that
manipulate or attempt to manipulate market conditions, including
wash trades and collusion.” 68 Fed. Reg. 66324 (2003). The code
also required jurisdictional companies, when they provided
information to natural-gas index publishers, to “provide accurate
and factual information, and not knowingly submit false or
misleading information or omit material information to any such
publisher.”
Id., at 66337. At the same time, FERC issued a
policy statement setting forth “minimum standards for creation and
publication of any energy price index,” and “for reporting
transaction data to index developers.”
Price Discovery in
Natural Gas and Elec. Markets, 104 FERC ¶61,121, pp. 61,407,
61,408 (2003). Finally, FERC, after finding that certain
jurisdictional sellers had “engaged in wash trading . . .
that resulted in the manipulation of [natural-gas] prices,”
terminated those sellers’ blanket marketing certificates.
Enron
Power Marketing, Inc., 103 FERC ¶61,343, p. 62,303 (2003).
Congress also took steps to address these problems. In
particular, it passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005,119Stat.594,
which gives FERC the authority to issue rules and regulations to
prevent “any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance” by
“any entity . . . in connection with the purchase or sale
of natural gas or the purchase or sale of transportation services
subject to the jurisdiction of” FERC,15 U. S. C.
§717c–1.
C
We now turn to the cases before us. Respondents, as we have
said, bought large quantities of natural gas directly from
interstate pipelines for their own consumption. They believe that
they overpaid in these transactions due to the interstate
pipelines’ manipulation of the natural-gas indices. Based on this
belief, they filed state-law antitrust suits against petitioners in
state and federal courts. See App. 244–246 (alleging violations of
Wis. Stat. §§133.03, 133.14, 133.18); see also App. 430–433 (same);
id., at 519–521 (same);
id., at 362–364 (alleging
violations of Kansas Restraint of Trade Act, Kan. Stat. Ann.
§50–101
et seq.); App. 417–419 (alleging violations of
Missouri Antitrust Law, Mo. Rev. Stat. §§416.011–416.161). The
pipelines removed all the state cases to federal court, where they
were consolidated and sent for pretrial proceedings to the Federal
District Court for the District of Nevada. See28 U. S. C.
§1407.
The pipelines then moved for summary judgment on the ground that
the Natural Gas Act pre-empted respondents’ state-law antitrust
claims. The District Court granted their motion. It concluded that
the pipelines were “jurisdictional sellers,”
i.e., “natural
gas companies engaged in” the “transportation of natural gas in
interstate commerce.” Order in No. 03–cv–1431 (D Nev., July 18,
2011), pp. 4, 11. And it held that respondents’ claims, which
were “aimed at” these sellers’ “alleged practices of false price
reporting, wash trades, and anticompetitive collusive behavior”
were pre-empted because “such practices,” not only affected
nonjurisdictional direct-sale prices but also “directly affect[ed]”
jurisdictional (
i.e., wholesale) rates.
Id., at
36–37.
The Ninth Circuit reversed. It emphasized that the
price-manipulation of which respondents complained affected not
only jurisdictional (
i.e., wholesale) sales, but also
nonjurisdictional (
i.e., retail) sales. The court construed
the Natural Gas Act’s pre-emptive scope narrowly in light of
Congress’ intent—manifested in §1(b) of the Act—to preserve for the
States the authority to regulate nonjurisdictional sales
.
And it held that the Act did not pre-empt state-law claims aimed at
obtaining damages for excessively high
retail natural-gas
prices stemming from interstate pipelines’ price manipulation, even
if the manipulation raised
wholesale rates as well. See
In re Western States Wholesale Natural Gas Antitrust
Litigation, 715 F. 3d 716, 729–736 (2013).
The pipelines sought certiorari. They asked us to resolve
confusion in the lower courts as to whether the Natural Gas Act
pre-empts retail customers’ state antitrust law challenges to
practices that also affect wholesale rates. Compare
id., at
729–736, with
Leggett v.
Duke Energy Corp., 308
S. W. 3d 843 (Tenn. 2010). We granted the petition.
II
Petitioners, supported by the United States, argue that their
customers’ state antitrust lawsuits are within the field that the
Natural Gas Act pre-empts. See Brief for Petitioners 18 (citing
Schneidewind, 485 U. S., at 305); Brief for United
States as
Amicus Curiae 13 (same). They point out that
respondents’ antitrust claims target anticompetitive activities
that affected wholesale (as well as retail) rates. See Brief for
Petitioners 2. They add that the Natural Gas Act expressly grants
FERC authority to keep wholesale rates at reasonable levels. See
ibid. (citing 15 U. S. C. §§717(b), 717d(a)). In
exercising this authority, FERC has prohibited the very kind of
anticompetitive conduct that the state actions attack. See Part
I–B–3,
supra. And, petitioners contend, letting these
actions proceed will permit state antitrust courts to reach
conclusions about that conduct that differ from those that FERC
might reach or has already reached. Accordingly, petitioners argue,
respondents’ state-law antitrust suits fall within the pre-empted
field.
A
Petitioners’ arguments are forceful, but we cannot accept their
conclusion. As we have repeatedly stressed, the Natural Gas Act
“was drawn with meticulous regard for the continued exercise of
state power, not to handicap or dilute it in any way.”
Panhandle
Eastern Pipe Line Co. v.
Public Serv. Comm’n of Ind.,332
U. S. 507–518 (1947); see also
Northwest Central, 489
U. S., at 511 (the “legislative history of the [Act] is
replete with assurances that the Act ‘takes nothing from the State
[regulatory] commissions’ ” (quoting 81 Cong. Rec. 6721
(1937))). Accordingly, where (as here) a state law can be applied
to nonjurisdictional as well as jurisdictional sales, we must
proceed cautiously, finding pre-emption only where detailed
examination convinces us that a matter falls within the pre-empted
field as defined by our precedents. See
Panhandle Eastern,
supra, at 516–518;
Interstate Natural Gas Co. v.
FPC,331 U. S. 682–693 (1947).
Those precedents emphasize the importance of considering the
target at which the state law
aims in determining
whether that law is pre-empted. For example, in
Northern Natural
Gas Co. v.
State Corporation Comm’n of Kan.,372
U. S. 84 (1963), the Court said that it had “consistently
recognized” that the “significant distinction” for purposes of
pre-emption in the natural-gas context is the distinction between
“measures
aimed directly at interstate purchasers and
wholesales for resale, and those aimed at” subjects left to the
States to regulate.
Id., at 94 (emphasis added). And, in
Northwest Central, the Court found that the Natural Gas Act
did not pre-empt a state regulation concerning the timing of gas
production from a gas field within the State, even though the
regulation might have affected the costs of and the prices of
interstate wholesale sales,
i.e., jurisdictional sales. 489
U. S., at 514. In reaching this conclusion, the Court
explained that the state regulation aimed primarily at
“protect[ing] producers’ . . . rights—a matter firmly on
the States’ side of that dividing line.”
Ibid. The Court
contrasted this state regulation with the state orders at issue in
Northern Natural, which “ ‘inva-lidly invade[d] the
federal agency’s exclusive domain’ pre-cisely because” they were
“ ‘unmistakably and unambiguously
directed at
purchasers.’ ”
Id., at 513 (quoting
Northern
Natural,
supra, at 92; emphasis added). Here, too, the
lawsuits are directed at practices affecting
retail
rates–which are “firmly on the States’ side of that dividing
line.”
Petitioners argue that
Schneidewind constitutes con-trary
authority. In that case, the Court found pre-empted a state law
that required public utilities, such as interstate pipelines
crossing the State, to obtain state approval before issuing
long-term securities. 485 U. S., at 306–309. But the Court
there thought that the State’s securities regulation was aimed
directly at interstate pipelines. It wrote that the state law was
designed to keep “a natural gas company from raising its equity
levels above a certain point” in order to keep the company’s
revenue requirement low, thereby ensuring lower
wholesale
rates.
Id., at 307–308. Indeed, the Court expressly said
that the state law was pre-empted because it was “
directed
at . . . the control of rates and facilities of
natural gas companies,” “precisely the things over which FERC has
comprehensive author-ity.”
Id., at 308 (emphasis added).
The dissent rejects the notion that the proper test for purposes
of pre-emption in the natural gas context is whether the challenged
measures are “aimed directly at interstate purchasers and
wholesales for resale” or not.
Northern Natural,
supra, at 94. It argues that this approach is
“unprecedented,” and that the Court’s focus should be on
“
what the State seeks to regulate . . . , not
why the State seeks to regulate it.”
Post, at 6
(opinion of Scalia, J.). But the “target” to which our cases refer
must mean more than just the physical activity that a State
regulates. After all, a single physical action, such as reporting a
price to a specialized journal, could be the subject of many
different laws—including tax laws, disclosure laws, and others. To
repeat the point we made above, no one could claim that FERC’s
regulation of this physical activity for purposes of wholesale
rates forecloses every other form of state regulation that affects
those rates.
Indeed, although the dissent argues that
Schneidwind
created a definitive test for pre-emption in the natural gas
context that turns on whether “the matter on which the State
asserts the right to act is in any way regulated by the Federal
Act,”
post, at 3 (quoting 485 U. S., at 310,
n. 13),
Schneidewind could not mean this statement as
an absolute test. It goes on to explain that the Natural Gas Act
does not pre-empt “traditional” state regulation, such as state
blue sky laws (which, of course, raise wholesale—as well as
retail—investment costs).
Id., at 308, n. 11.
Antitrust laws, like blue sky laws, are not aimed at natural-gas
companies in particular, but rather all businesses in the
marketplace. See
ibid. They are far broader in their
application than, for example, the regulations at issue in
Northern Natural, which applied only to entities buying gas
from fields within the State. See 372 U. S., at 85–86,
n. 1; contra,
post, at 5–6 (stating that
Northern
Natural concerned “background market conditions”). This broad
applicability of state antitrust law supports a finding of no
pre-emption here.
Petitioners and the dissent argue that there is, or should be, a
clear division between areas of state and federal authority in
natural-gas regulation. See Brief for Petitioners 18;
post,
at 7. But that Platonic ideal does not describe the natural gas
regulatory world. Suppose FERC, when setting wholesale rates in the
former cost-of-service rate-making days, had denied cost recovery
for pipelines’ failure to recycle. Would that fact deny States the
power to enact and apply recycling laws? These state laws might
well raise pipelines’ operating costs, and thus the costs of
wholesale natural gas transportation. But in
Northwest
Central we said that “[t]o find field pre-emption of [state]
regulation merely because purchasers’ costs and hence rates might
be affected would be largely to nullify . . . §1(b).” 489
U. S., at 514.
The dissent barely mentions the limitations on FERC’s powers in
§1(b), but the enumeration of FERC’s powers in §5(a) is
circumscribed by a reference back to the limitations in §1(b). See
post, at 1–3. As we explained above, see Part I–B–1,
supra, those limits are key to understanding the careful
balance between federal and state regulation that Congress struck
when it passed the Natural Gas Act. That Act “was drawn with
meticulous regard for the continued exercise of state power, not to
handicap or dilute it in any way.”
Panhandle Eastern, 332
U. S., at 517–518. Contra,
post, at 8. States have a
“long history of” providing “common-law and statutory remedies
against monopolies and unfair business practices.”
ARC
America, 490 U. S., at 101; see also
Watson v.
Buck,313 U. S. 387,404 (1941) (noting the States’
“long-recognized power to regulate combinations in restraint of
trade”). Respondents’ state-law antitrust suits relied on this well
established state power.
B
Petitioners point to two other cases that they believe support
their position. The first is
Mississippi Power & Light
Co. v.
Mississippi ex rel. Moore,487 U. S. 354
(1988). There, the Court held that the Federal Power Act—which
gives FERC the authority to determine whether rates charged by
public utilities in electric energy sales are “just and
reasonable,”16 U. S. C. §824d(a)—pre-empted a state
inquiry into the reasonableness of FERC-approved prices for the
sale of nuclear power to wholesalers of electricity (which led to
higher retail electricity rates). 487 U. S., at 373–377.
Petitioners argue that this case shows that state regulation of
similar sales here—
i.e., by a pipeline to a direct
consumer—must also be pre-empted. See Reply Brief 11–12.
Mississippi Power, however, is best read as a conflict
pre-emption case, not a field pre-emption case. See 487 U. S.,
at 377 (“[A] state agency’s ‘efforts to regulate commerce must fall
when they conflict with or interfere with federal authority over
the same activity’ ” (quoting
Chicago & North Western
Transp. Co. v.
Kalo Brick & Tile Co.,450 U. S.
311–319 (1981))).
Regardless, the state inquiry in
Mississippi Power was
pre-empted because it was directed at jurisdictional sales in a way
that respondents’ state antitrust lawsuits are not. Mississippi’s
inquiry into the reasonableness of FERC-approved purchases was
effectively an attempt to “regulate in areas where FERC has
properly exercised its jurisdiction to determine just and
reasonable wholesale rates.” 487 U. S., at 374. By contrast,
respondents’ state antitrust lawsuits do not seek to challenge the
reason-ableness of any rates expressly approved by FERC. Rather,
they seek to challenge the background marketplace conditions that
affected both jurisdictional and nonjurisdic-tional rates.
Petitioners additionally point to
FPC v.
Louisiana
Power & Light Co.,406 U. S. 621 (1972). In that case,
the Court held that federal law gave FPC the authority to allocate
natural gas during shortages by ordering interstate pipelines to
curtail gas deliveries to all customers,
including retail
customers. This latter fact, the pipelines argue, shows that
FERC has authority to regulate index manipulation insofar as that
manipulation affects
retail (as well as wholesale) sales.
Brief for Petitioners 26. Accordingly, they contend that state laws
that aim at this same subject are pre-empted.
This argument, however, makes too much of too little. The
Court’s finding of pre-emption in
Louisiana Power rested on
its belief that the state laws in question
con-flicted with
federal law. The Court concluded that “FPC has authority to effect
orderly curtailment plans involving both direct sales and sales for
resale,” 406 U. S., at 631, because otherwise there would be
“unavoidable conflict between” state regulation of direct sales and
the “uniform federal regulation” that the Natural Gas Act foresees,
id., at 633–635. Conflict pre-emption may, of course,
invalidate a state law even though field pre-emption does not.
Because petitioners have not argued this case as a conflict
pre-emption case,
Louisiana Power does not offer them
significant help.
C
To the extent any conflicts arise between state antitrust law
proceedings and the federal rate-setting process, the doctrine of
conflict pre-emption should prove sufficient to address them. But
as we have noted, see Part I–A,
supra, the parties have not
argued conflict pre-emption. See also,
e.g., Tr. of Oral
Arg. 24 (Solicitor General agrees that he has not “analyzed this
[case] under a conflict preemption regime”). We consequently leave
conflict pre-emption questions for the lower courts to resolve in
the firstinstance.
D
We note that petitioners and the Solicitor General have argued
that we should defer to FERC’s determination that field pre-emption
bars the respondents’ claims. See Brief for Petitioners 22 (citing
Arlington v.
FCC, 569 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2013)
(slip op., at 10–14); Brief for United States as
Amicus
Curiae 32 (same). But they have not pointed to a specific FERC
determination that state antitrust claims fall within the field
pre-empted by the Natural Gas Act. Rather, they point only to the
fact that FERC has promulgated detailed rules governing
manipulation of price indices. Because there is no determination by
FERC that its regulation pre-empts the field into which
respondents’ state-law antitrust suits fall, we need not consider
what legal effect such a determination might have. And we conclude
that the detailed federal regulations here do not offset the other
considerations that weigh against a finding of pre-emption in this
context.
* * *
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.