author: Justice Souter Justice Thomas,

text:
    CHRISTOPHER, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE, et al. v. HARBURY
    No. 01-394.
    Argued March 18, 2002
    Decided June 20, 2002

      Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 422.

      Richard A. Cordray argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was Harry hitman.

      Solicitor General Olson argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General McCallum, Deputy Solicitor General Clement, Patricia A. Millett, Barbara L. Herwig, and Robert M. Loeb.

      Jennifer K. Harbury, respondent, argued the cause and filed a brief pro se

      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America by Jeffrey R. White and Laura C. Tharney; for the Brennan Center for Justice by Jodie L. Kelley; and for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area et al. by Robert E. Borton, Scott D. Wiener, Robert Rubin, Steven R. Shapiro, and Lucas Guttentag.

   Justice Souter

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Respondent-plaintiff in this case alleges that Government officials intentionally deceived her in concealing information that her husband, a foreign dissident, was being detained and tortured in his own country by military officers of his government, who were paid by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). One count of the complaint, brought after the husband’s death, charges that the official deception denied respondent access to the courts by leaving her without information, or reason to seek information, with which she could have brought a lawsuit that might have saved her husband’s life. The issue is whether this count states an actionable claim. We hold that it does not, for two reasons. As stated in the complaint, it fails to identify an underlying cause of action for relief that the plaintiff would have raised had it not been for the deception alleged. And even after a subsequent, informal amendment accepted by the Court of Appeals, respondent fails to seek any relief presently available for denial of access to courts that would be unavailable otherwise.

r — H

Respondent Jennifer Harbury, a United States citizen, is the widow of Efrain Bamaca-Velasquez, a Guatemalan rebel leader who vanished in his own country in March 1992. Since we are reviewing a ruling on motion to dismiss, we accept Harbury’s factual allegations and take them in the light most favorable to her. See Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence and Coordination Unit, 507 U. S. 163, 164 (1993). Bamaca was captured by Guatemalan army forces, including officers trained (in the United States), paid, and used as informants by the CIA. App. 27-28 (Respondent’s Second Amended Complaint ¶¶ 35-42, 46-47). He was detained and tortured for more than a year to obtain information of interest to the CIA, for which it paid. Id., at 28 (¶ ¶ 43, 46-47). Bamaca was summarily executed on orders of the same Guatemalan officers affiliated with the CIA, id., at 28-29 (¶¶ 48-49), sometime before September 1993, id., at 31 (¶ 66), 34 (¶ 84).

The CIA knew as early as March 18,1992, that the Guatemalan army had captured Bamaca alive and shared this information with the White House and State Department. Id., at 27 (¶ 35). Officials there, however, “intentionally misled” Harbury, by “deceptive statements and omissions, into believing that concrete information about her husband’s fate did not exist because they did not want to threaten their ability to obtain information from Mr. Bamaca through his detention and torture.” Id., at 31 (¶ 67).

Harbury makes three specific allegations of such Government deception, all involving State Department officials, while Bamaca was still alive. First, she says she contacted several unnamed State Department officials in March 1993 to express concerns about her husband, who, according to an eyewitness, was still alive. Id., at 29 (¶¶ 50, 55). They “promised to look into the matter and to assist her,” ibid., but they neither gave her nor made public any information about Bamaca, though CIA reports from as early as May 1998 confirmed he was still alive. Id., at 30 (¶¶ 56-59). Second, in August 1993, Marilyn McAfee, then Ambassador to Guatemala, advised Harbury to submit a written report to the effect that remains found in a grave purported to be her husband’s were not in fact his, as Harbury promptly did. Id., at 30-31 (¶¶ 60-63). Although McAfee promised that she would “investigate the matter immediately[,] report her findings,” and keep Harbury “properly informed regarding her husband’s situation,” ibid. (¶ 62), she gave Harbury no information, id., at 31 (¶ 64). Third, in September 1993 (the same month that the Government learned Bamaca was dead, ibid. (¶ 66)), Harbury engaged in a week-long hunger strike in Guatemala City to focus public attention on her husband’s plight, but the State Department told her nothing, id., at 31-32 (¶¶ 64-68).

According to Harbury’s allegations, the Government’s deceptions and omissions continued and intensified after Ba-maca was killed. From October 1993 until March 1995, officials of the State Department and National Security Council (NSC) repeatedly met and communicated with Harbury, id., at 32 (¶¶ 70-71), 34 (¶¶80, 83), 35 (¶86), Conveying the impression that they knew nothing for sure but were seeking “concrete information” about her husband and would keep her informed, id:, at 33 (¶ 75). At one point, in November 1994, National Security Adviser Anthony Lake told Harbury that the Government had “'scraped the bottom of the barrel’ ” to no avail in seeking information about her husband, id., at 34 (¶ 83). All along, however, the Government officials knew that Bamaca had been killed by the Guatemalan army, ibid. (¶ 84), but engaged in misleading statements and omissions because they did not want their complicity in Ba-maca’s torture and death revealed, id., at 36 (¶ 92). Harbury learned that her husband was dead only in March 1995 when a congressman publicly announced that Bamaca had been killed on the orders of a Guatemalan army colonel who was also a paid agent of the CIA, ibid. (¶ 91).

II

A year later, in March 1996, Harbury filed suit in the District Court for the District of Columbia against the CIA, the State Department, the NSC, and members of each in their official and individual capacities. The complaint, as amended, listed 28 causes of action under federal, state, and international law. App. 38-62. Although only the access-to-courts counts directly concern us here, it is important to know Harbury’s other claims, in order to determine whether she has stated a tenable claim for denial of judicial access.

A

Harbury’s complaint sought relief in four categories other than access to courts. First, on behalf of Bamaca’s estate, she raised claims against the CIA defendants under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment for his imprisonment, torture, and execution, seeking declaratory and injunc-tive relief, and money damages against the officials in their individual capacities on the theory of Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971). App. 38-42 (counts 1-5). Next, on her own behalf, Harbury sued all the Government defendants for declaratory and injunctive relief and money damages under Bivens for violating her “right to familial integrity” under the First, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments by imprisoning, torturing, and executing her husband. Id., at 42-48 (counts 6-13). Third, she alleged common law torts invoking the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U. S. C. §§ 2401(b) and 2676, App. 54, (1) on behalf of herself and her husband’s estate against the CIA defendants for intentional infliction of emotional distress by causing and conspiring to cause Bamaca’s imprisonment, torture, and execution, id., at 55 (counts 18-19); (2) on behalf of her husband’s estate against the CIA defendants for negligent supervision resulting in his false imprisonment, assault and battery, and wrongful death, id., at 56-58 (counts 20-22); and (3) on her own behalf against the State Department and NSC defendants for intentional and negligent misrepresentation, constructive fraud, interference with the right to possess a spouse’s dead body, id., at 58-62 (counts 24-27), and intentional infliction of emotional distress by making “intentionally deceptive statements and omissions . . . about her husband, including concealing whether or not he was alive” id., at 58 (count 23). Fourth, Harbury brought a tort claim said to arise under international law against the CIA defendants on behalf of herself and her husband’s estate. Id., at 62 (count 28).

In addition to these counts for direct harm, Harbury relied on the First and Fifth Amendments in raising four claims that the deceptive statements and omissions of the State Department and NSC defendants had unconstitutionally impeded her access to courts, id., at 49-51 (counts 14-15), as well as her rights to speak freely and to petition the Government, id., at 51-54 (counts 16-17). The basic theory as to access to courts was that if the officials had shared what they knew or simply said “no comment” rather than affirmatively misleading Harbury into thinking they were doing something, she might have been able “to take appropriate actions to save her husband’s life.” Id., at 37 (¶ 98). Harbury alleged that she “was foreclosed from effectively seeking adequate legal redress.” Ibid.

B

For failure to state a claim, the District Court dismissed all counts for declaratory and injunctive relief (counts 1-3, 6-9, 14, 16). It also dismissed all the Bivens counts: those on behalf of Bamaca’s estate for his torture and execution said to have violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights (counts 4-5), and those brought on Harbury’s own behalf based on the claimed violation of her constitutional rights of familial association (counts 10-13), access to courts (count 15), and free speech and access to Government (count 17). But the District Court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss the tort claims at common law (counts 18-27) and international law (count 28).

With respect to the access-to-courts claims (including Har-bury’s Bivens claim on this theory), the District Court acknowledged that five Courts of Appeals “have held that conspiracies to destroy or cover-up evidence of a crime that render a plaintiff’s judicial remedies inadequate or ineffective violat[e] the right of access,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 43a, but held that Harbury had not stated a valid cause of action for two reasons. First, the court held that Harbury’s claim “would have to be dismissed” (without prejudice) because, having filed no prior suit, she had “nothing more than a guess” as to how the alleged coverup might “have prejudiced her rights to bring a separate action.” Id., at 46a. Second, the District Court reasoned that the defendants in any event would be entitled to qualified immunity in their individual capacities because, unlike officials in coverup cases who destroyed, manufactured, or hid evidence, the defendants here did not act contrary to “clearly established constitutional norms that a reasonable official would understand” in being less than “forthcoming in discussing the intelligence that they received about Bamaca.” Id., at 48a-49a.

C

Harbury did not pursue her claims for declaratory or in-junctive relief, and appealed only the dismissal of the Bivens causes of action. Harbury v. Deutch, 233 F. 3d 596, 600-601 (CADC 2000). The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the Bivens claims of violations of Bamaca’s due process rights, 233 F. 3d, at 604, Harbury’s rights of familial association, id., at 606-607, and her free speech and petition rights. It reversed the dismissal, however, of Harbury’s Bivens claim against the State Department and NSC defendants for denial of access to courts. Id., at 607-611.

The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that a plaintiff who merely alleges without factual basis in the conduct of a prior lawsuit that “ ‘key witnesses ... may now be dead or missing,. .. crucial evidence may have been destroyed, and .. . memories may have faded’ ” generally falls short of raising a claim for denial of access to courts. Id., at 609 (quoting the District Court). The court held, however, that Harbury’s allegations stated a valid access claim insofar as she alleged that the Government’s conduct had “effectively prevented her from seeking emergency injunc-tive relief in time to save her husband’s life.” Ibid. The District of Columbia Circuit went on to conclude that “[b]e-cause his death completely foreclosed this avenue of relief, nothing would be gained by requiring Harbury to postpone this aspect of her access to courts cause of action until she finishes prosecuting her tort claims.” Ibid. Nor did the court hold that qualified immunity would bar suit because, in its words, “we think it should be obvious to public officials that they may not affirmatively mislead citizens for the purpose of protecting themselves from suit.” Id., at 611.

D

Three categories of claims were left in the case after the Court of Appeals’s decision: the various common law tort claims including intentional infliction of emotional distress, the international law claim against the CIA defendants (neither of which the District Court had dismissed), and Har-bury’s Bivens claims against the State Department and NSC defendants for preventing access to courts (which the Court of Appeals reinstated). The defendant officials petitioned for review of the court’s holding as to the claim of denial of access to courts, but Harbury did not cross-petition on the other Bivens claims, leaving the Bivens access claim the sole matter before us. We granted certiorari, 534 U. S. 1064 (2001), because of the importance of this issue to the Government in its conduct of the Nation’s foreign affairs, and now reverse.

Ill

A

This Court’s prior cases on denial of access to courts have not extended over the entire range of claims that have been brought under that general rubric elsewhere, but if we consider examples in the Courts of Appeals as well as our own, two categories emerge. In the first are claims that systemic official action frustrates a plaintiff or plaintiff class in preparing and filing suits at the present time. Thus, in the prison-litigation cases, the relief sought may be a law library for a prisoner’s use in preparing a case, Bounds v. Smith, 430 U. S. 817, 828 (1977); Lewis v. Casey, 518 U. S. 343, 346-348 (1996), or a reader for an illiterate prisoner, id., at 347-348, or simply a lawyer, ibid. In denial-of-access cases challenging filing fees that poor plaintiffs cannot afford to pay, the object is an order requiring waiver of a fee to open the courthouse door for desired litigation, such as direct appeals or federal habeas petitions in criminal cases, or civil suits asserting family-law rights, e. g., Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S. 371, 372 (1971) (divorce filing fee); M. L. B. v. S. L. J, 519 U. S. 102, 106-107 (1996) (record fee in parental-rights termination action). In cases of this sort, the essence of the access claim is that official action is presently denying an opportunity to litigate for a class of potential plaintiffs. The opportunity has not been lost for all time, however, but only in the short term; the object of the denial-of-access suit, and the justification for recognizing that claim, is to place the plaintiff in a position to pursue a separate claim for relief once the frustrating condition has been removed.

The second category covers claims not in aid of a class of suits yet to be litigated, but of specific cases that cannot now be tried (or tried with all material evidence), no matter what official action may be in the future. The official acts claimed to have denied access may allegedly have caused the loss or inadequate settlement of a meritorious case, e. g., Foster v. Lake Jackson, 28 F. 3d 425, 429 (CA5 1994); Bell v. Milwaukee, 746 F. 2d 1205, 1261 (CA7 1984) (“[T]he cover-up and resistance of the investigating police officers rendered hollow [the plaintiff’s] right to seek redress”), the loss of an opportunity to sue, e. g., Swekel v. River Rouge, 119 F. 3d 1259, 1261 (CA6 1997) (police coverup extended throughout “time to file suit... under... statute of limitations”), or the loss of an opportunity to seek some particular order of relief, as Harbury alleges here. These cases do not look forward to a class of future litigation, but backward to a time when specific litigation ended poorly, or could not have commenced, or could have produced a remedy subsequently unobtainable. The ultimate object of these sorts of access claims, then, is not the judgment in a further lawsuit, but simply the judgment in the access claim itself, in providing relief obtainable in no other suit in the future.

While the circumstances thus vary, the ultimate justification for recognizing each kind of claim is the same. Whether an access claim turns on a litigating opportunity yet to be gained or an opportunity already lost, the very point of recognizing any access claim is to provide some ef-feetive vindication for a separate and distinct right to seek judicial relief for some wrong. However unsettled the basis of the constitutional right of access to courts, our cases rest on the recognition that the right is ancillary to the underlying claim, without which a plaintiff cannot have suffered injury by being shut out of court. We indicated as much in our most recent case on denial of access, Lewis v. Casey, supra, where we noted that even in forward-looking prisoner class actions to remove roadblocks to future litigation, the named plaintiff must identify a “nonfrivolous,” “arguable” underlying claim, id., at 353, and n. 3, and we have been given no reason to treat backward-looking access claims any differently in this respect. It follows that the underlying cause of action, whether anticipated or lost, is an element that must be described in the complaint, just as much as allegations must describe the official acts frustrating the litigation. It follows, too, that when the access claim (like this one) looks backward, the complaint must identify a remedy that may be awarded as recompense but not otherwise available in some suit that may yet be brought. There is, after all, no point in spending time and money to establish the facts constituting denial of access when a plaintiff would end up just as well off after litigating a simpler case without the denial-of-access element. Like any other element of an access claim, the underlying cause of action and its lost remedy must be addressed by allegations in the complaint sufficient to give fair notice to a defendant. See generally Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N. A., 534 U. S. 506, 513-515 (2002). Although we have no reason here to try to describe pleading standards for the entire spectrum of access claims, this is the place to address a particular risk inherent in backward-looking claims. Characteristically, the action underlying this sort of access claim will not be tried independently, a fact that enhances the natural temptation on the part of plaintiffs to claim too much, by alleging more than might be shown in a full trial focused solely on the details of the predicate action.

Hence the need for care in requiring that the predicate claim be described well enough to apply the “nonfrivolous” test and to show that the “arguable” nature of the underlying claim is more than hope. And because these backward-looking cases are brought to get relief unobtainable in other suits, the remedy sought must itself be identified to hedge against the risk that an access claim be tried all the way through, only to find that the court can award no remedy that the plaintiff could not have been awarded on a presently existing claim.

The particular facts of this case underscore the need for care on the part of the plaintiff in identifying, and by the court in determining, the claim for relief underlying the access-to-courts plea. The action alleged on the part of all the Government defendants (the State Department and NSC defendants sued for denial of access and the CIA defendants who would have been timely sued on the underlying claim but for the denial) was apparently taken in the conduct of foreign relations by the National Government. Thus, if there is to be judicial enquiry, it will raise concerns for the separation of powers in trenching on matters committed to the other branches. See Department of Navy v. Egan, 484 U. S. 518, 529 (1988) (“ ‘[F]oreign policy [is] the province and responsibility of the Executive’ ”); Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 333 U. S. 103, 111 (1948) (“[T]he very nature of executive decisions as to foreign policy is political, not judicial”). Since the need to resolve such constitutional issues ought to be avoided where possible, cf. Department of Housing and Urban Development v. Rucker, 535 U. S. 125, 134-135 (2002); Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 345-348 (1936) (Brandéis, J., concurring), the trial court should be in a position as soon as possible in the litigation to know whether a potential constitutional ruling may be obviated because the allegations of denied access fail to state a claim on which relief could be granted.

In sum, the right of a defendant in a backward-looking access suit to obtain early dismissal of a hopelessly incomplete claim for relief coincides in this case with the obligation of the Judicial Branch to avoid deciding constitutional issues needlessly. For the sake of each, the complaint should state the underlying claim in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a), just as if it were being independently pursued, and a like plain statement should describe any remedy available under the access claim and presently unique to it.

B

Under these standards, Harbury’s complaint did not come even close to stating a constitutional claim for denial of access upon which relief could be granted. While we cannot read the complaint without appreciating Harbury’s anguish, neither can we read it without appreciating the position of the District Judge who described Harbury’s various requests for relief as “nearly unintelligible.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 32a. Although the counts stating the Bivens claim for denial of judicial access seemed to confirm that Harbury intended to state a backward-looking claim, the complaint failed to identify the underlying cause of action that the alleged deception had compromised, going no further than the protean allegation that the State Department and NSC defendants’ “false and deceptive information and concealment foreclosed Plaintiff from effectively seeking adequate legal redress.” App. 50 (¶ 175). The District Court and the defendants were left to guess at the unstated cause of action supposed to have been lost, and at the remedy being sought independently of relief that might be available on the 24 other counts set out in the complaint.

Nothing happened in the Court of Appeals to improve Harbury’s position. That court, too, was frustrated by the failure to identify the predicate claim and the need for relief otherwise unattainable, but it gave Harbury’s counsel an opportunity at oral argument to supply the missing allegations. Counsel responded that Harbury would have brought an action for intentional infliction of emotional distress as one wrong for which she could have sought the injunctive relief that might have saved her husband’s life:

“[I]f defendants had disclosed the information they possessed about Bamaca, Harbury could have sought an emergency injunction based on an underlying tort claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Even if the NSC and State Department officials had simply said they could not discuss Bamaca’s situation, counsel explained, Harbury would have filed her FOIA requests immediately, thus perhaps obtaining the information necessary to seek an injunction in time to save her husband’s life. Instead, believing defendants’ reassurances, Harbury waited for the State Department and NSC officials to complete their ‘investigation.’” 233 F. 3d, at 609.

The Court of Appeals adopted this theory in saying that the “adequate legal redress” alleged for purposes of Harbury’s access claims meant emergency injunctive relief in a now futile lawsuit for intentional infliction of emotional distress, and it accepted this amendment as a sufficient statement of an underlying cause of action. Ibid.

We think, however, that treating the amendment as an adequate statement was error. For even on the assumption that Harbury could surmount all difficulties raised by treating the underlying claim as one for intentional infliction of emotional distress, she could not satisfy the requirement that a backward-looking denial-of-aceess claim provide a remedy that could not be obtained on an existing claim. We have no choice but to assume that what Harbury intends to claim as intentional infliction of emotional distress is set out in the counts of her complaint naming the “CIA defendants,” including the Guatemalan officer who allegedly tortured and killed her husband, App. 55 (counts 18-19). These are among the tort counts that survived the motion to dismiss under the portion of the District Court’s order not before us. If an intentional-infliction claim can be maintained at all, Harbury can seek damages and even conceivably some sort of injunctive relief for the demonstrated consequences of the infliction alleged. It is true that she cannot obtain in any present tort action the order she would have sought before her husband’s death, the order that might have saved her husband’s life. But neither can she obtain any such order on her access claim, which therefore cannot recompense Har-bury for the unique loss she claims as a consequence of her inability to bring an intentional-infliction action earlier. She has not explained, and it is not otherwise apparent, that she can get any relief on the access claim that she cannot obtain on her other tort claims, i. e., those that remain pending in the District Court. And it is just because the access claim cannot address any injury she has suffered in a way the presently surviving intentional-infliction claims cannot that Harbury is not entitled to maintain the access claim as a substitute, backward-looking action.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Thomas,

concurring in the judgment.

In Lewis v. Casey, 518 U. S. 348 (1996), after a review of the constitutional text, this Court’s precedent, and tradition, I could find no basis “for the conclusion that the constitutional right of access imposes affirmative obligations on the States to finance and support prisoner litigation.” Id., at 384-385 (concurring opinion). Likewise, I find no basis in the Constitution for a “right of access to courts” that effectively imposes an affirmative duty on Government officials either to disclose matters concerning national security or to provide information in response to informal requests. Notwithstanding the Court of Appeals’ attempt to characterize the right of access differently, see Harbury v. Deutch, 233 F. 3d 596, 611 (CADC 2000) (characterizing the right as “when public officials affirmatively mislead citizens in order to prevent them from filing suit”), I would decide this case solely on the ground that no such right is implicated here. For that reason, I concur in the judgment.

       Harbury says in a footnote in her brief before this Court that “[n]ew evidence exists suggesting that Mr. Bamaca in fact survived well into 1994 if not longer,” Brief for Respondent 23, n. 3, but the factual allegations in her complaint unequivocally state that the Government knew that Bamaca had been killed by September 1993.

       The injunctive relief Harbury sought in these (and other) counts was disclosure of information “concerning her husband’s death and the location of his body” and an order to prevent “[djefendants from taking such actions in the future.” App. 63.

       Harbury did not allege that the State Department and NSC defendants had an affirmative duty to disclose or to provide information about her husband in response to her informal requests.

       The Court of Appeals did not explicitly say that this Bivens claim (count 17) was dismissed, but, in reversing the District Court, it spoke only of a single claim of “access to courts.” 233 F. 3d, at 611 (“[W]e reverse the district court’s dismissal of Harbury’s access to courts claim”).

       The District of Columbia Circuit denied rehearing, Harbury v. Deutch, 244 F. 3d 956, 957 (2001) (per curiam), and rehearing en banc, 244 F. 3d 960, 961 (2001), with two judges dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc.

       The petitioners did not challenge below the existence of a cause of action under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971), and we express no opinion on the matter in deciding this case.

       See, e.g., Delew v. Wagner, 143 F. 3d 1219, 1222-1223 (CA9 1998); Swekel v. River Rouge, 119 F. 3d 1259, 1263-1264 (CA6 1997); Vasquez v. Hernandez, 60 F. 3d 325, 329 (CA7 1995); Foster v. Lake Jackson, 28 F. 3d 425, 429-431 (CA5 1994); Williams v. Boston, 784 F. 2d 430, 435 (CA1 1986); Bell v. Milwaukee, 746 F. 2d 1205, 1260-1266 (CA7 1984); Ryland v. Shapiro, 708 F. 2d 967, 974-975 (CA5 1983).

         E. g., Smith v. Bennett, 365 U. S. 708, 713-714 (1961) (filing fee for ha-beas petitions); Burns v. Ohio, 360 U. S. 252, 255-258 (1959) (fee for direct appeal in a criminal case); Mayer v. Chicago, 404 U. S. 189, 195-196 (1971) (same, as to petty crime); Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 16-20 (1956) (transcript fee for appellate review in a criminal case).

       All such cases have been decided in the Courts of Appeals, see n. 7, supra; we assume, without deciding, the correctness of the decisions.

       Some Courts of Appeals have held that an actual attempt to sue is a prerequisite to any such claim. See Delew, supra, at 1222-1228; Swekel, supra, at 1263-1264. See also App. to Pet. for Cert. 46a (District Court adopting this requirement). But cf. Swekel, supra, at 1264, n. 2 (“We recognize that in some instances it would be completely futile for a plaintiff to attempt to access the state court system. The Plaintiff, however, has not presented evidence that this is such a case”).

       Bifurcation into forward-looking and backward-looking access claims is a simplification, and not the only possible categorization, but it helps to focus the issues here.

       Decisions of this Court have grounded the right of access to courts in the Article IV Privileges and Immunities Clause, Chambers v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 207 U. S. 142, 148 (1907); Blake v. McClung, 172 U. S. 239, 249 (1898); Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 79 (1873), the First Amendment Petition Clause, Bill Johnson’s Restaurants, Inc. v. NLRB, 461 U. S. 731, 741 (1983); California Motor Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U. S. 508, 513 (1972), the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause, Murray v. Giarratano, 492 U. S. 1, 11, n. 6 (1989) (plurality opinion); Walters v. National Assn, of Radiation Survivors, 473 U. S. 305, 335 (1985), and the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection, Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 U. S. 551, 557 (1987), and Due Process Clauses, Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 576 (1974); Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S. 371, 380-381 (1971).

       It may be the case that an underlying action has already been tried to an inadequate result due to missing or fabricated evidence in an official cover-up, see, e. g., Foster, 28 F. 3d, at 427; Bell, 746 F. 2d, at 1223, or the claim may still be timely and subject to trial, but for a different remedy than the one sought under the access claim, or against different defendants.

         The District of Columbia Circuit rejected the holding of some Circuits, see n. 10, supra, that a filed suit on the underlying claim is a prerequisite for a backward-looking access claim, 233 F. 3d 596, 608-610 (2000), because it would foreclose access claims in the most heinous cases where a cover-up was so pervasive that any timely attempt to litigate would have seemed futile. In essence, the Court of Appeals rejected a rule requiring an attempt to litigate, even if frivolous, as a condition of bringing a nonfrivolous backward-looking access claim.

       “A pleading which sets forth a claim for relief... shall contain . ,. a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief_”

       The court repeatedly pressed counsel to identify the underlying claim. See Lodging for United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Petitioners 7,19, 44, 47 (respectively, “Now what would that [predicate] lawsuit have looked like? . . . Can you explain what that lawsuit would look like? . . . [AJccess to do what[?] . . . And what would that lawsuit have looked like?” (Tr. of Proceedings in Harbury v. Deutch, No. 99-5307 (Sept. 8, 2000))).

       Whether the Court of Appeals should have extended that opportunity is not an issue before us. We see counsel’s answer as amounting to an amendment of pleadings that still fails to cure the inadequacy of the denial-of-access claim. In providing the clarification, Harbury’s counsel appears to have been referring to the intentional-infliction counts against the CIA defendants alleged elsewhere in her complaint, App. 55 (counts 18-19). See infra, at 422. Whatever latitude is allowed by federal notice pleading, no one says Harbury should be allowed to construe “adequate legal redress” to mean causes of action that were not even mentioned in her complaint. As for Harbury’s position here, suffice it to say that a brief to this Court, see Brief for Respondent at 22-33 (listing causes of action that Harbury could have brought in 1993), is not the place to supplement pleadings in response to a motion in the trial court to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

       Harbury does not argue, based on her counsel’s argument before the Court of Appeals, that the allegation that official deception delayed a Freedom of Information Act filing, which, presumably, might have involved a lawsuit down the road if the defendants obstructed compulsory disclosure, can independently serve as an underlying cause of action for purposes of her access claim.

       Because the access claim as “amended” by Harbury’s counsel at argument still fails to indicate any remedy that would be available in addition to potential relief on presently existing tort claims, see infra, at 422, it is unnecessary to resolve any of the claim’s other difficulties in satisfying the need for nonfrivolous and arguable underlying causes of action. For example, Harbury alleges no acts of concealment by NSC officials prior to her husband’s death; it would appear that the Bivens' access claim should have been dismissed as to them on this ground alone. Nor does Harbury allege a plausible causal link between an injunction that might have been issued by a United States court and the behavior of the Guatemalan military alleged to have killed Harbury’s husband. It is also uncertain whether the underlying cause of action could be pursued consistently with respect for separation of powers. And, of course, all of this assumes the unlikely case that the Government would not certify the defendants’ action as exercises of their official capacity, or that if the Government did, an action could be maintained under the Federal Tort Claims Act. See 28 U. S. C. § 2680(h) (excluding certain intentional torts including assault, battery, false imprisonment, and misrepresentation); §2680(k) (excluding claims arising in a foreign country); cf. United States v. Shearer, 473 U. S. 52, 57 (1985) (no claim for negligent supervision of an employee resulting in wrongful death in the military context). But see U. S. Information Agency v. Krc, 989 F. 2d 1211, 1216 (CADC 1993) (“injunctive relief is available” under the Federal Tort Claims Act for an intentional-tort claim when the statute bars a damages remedy), cert, denied, 510 U. S. 1109 (1994).
      Indeed, even if Harbury’s underlying claim could navigate these concerns, it is not at all apparent that any or all of Harbury’s many factual allegations would make out a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. As a general matter, “[wjhere (extreme and outrageous] conduct is directed at a third person, the actor is subject to liability if he intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to a member of such person’s immediate family who is present at the time, whether or not such distress results in bodily harm.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46(2)(a) (1965). It is unclear that Harbury’s allegations meet either the intent or the presence requirements. While there is room to argue for an exception to presence in some situations, cf. Jenco v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 154 F. Supp. 2d 27, 33 (DC 2001) (allowing publication to substitute for presence), far from there being any allegation that the CIA defendants intended her husband’s situation to become known to the public, the entire thrust of Harbury’s pleadings is that every defendant tried to conceal it.

       See n. 17, supra. There is also an emotional-distress count against the State Department and NSC defendants, but based on their alleged deception, see App. 58 (count 23), that is, simply in duplication of the acts alleged to constitute denial of access, not on the acts underlying the predicate claim.

       While Harbury, if otherwise successful, might obtain injunctive relief requiring the CIA to reveal the location of her husband’s remains (if known), she could not get any injunction against continued deception on the part of the State Department. But this is irrelevant, since Harbury has given no indication that she contemplates any future litigation to which continued deception would be relevant; she has not, in other words, pleaded any surviving, forward-looking access claim.

       This might not be the case where, for example, the underlying claim had been tried or settled for an inadequate amount given official deception, see Foster, 28 F. 3d, at 427; Bell, 746 F. 2d, at 1223, and thus likely barred by res judicata, or where the statute of limitations had run, see Swekel, 119 F. 3d, at 1261.

       If Harbury’s existing tort claims should be dismissed for the reasons identified in n. 19, supra, or other reasons unrelated to the alleged deception by the State Department officials, she would still be unable to identify a predicate cause of action necessary to state a backward-looking access claim.


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice Ginsburg Justice Scalia,

license: Public Domain

text:
    CITY OF COLUMBUS et al. v. OURS GARAGE AND WRECKER SERVICE, INC., et al.
    No. 01-419.
    Argued April 23, 2002
    Decided June 20, 2002

      Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which O’Connor, J., joined, post, p. 442.

      Jeffrey S. Sutton argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Traci L. Lovitt, Ronald E. Laymon, and Susan E. Ashbrook.

      Malcolm L. Stewart argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Olson, Assistant Attorney General McCallum, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, Mark B. Stern, Dana Martin, Kirk K. Van Tine, Paul M. Geier, and Dale C. Andrews.

      Richard A. Cordray argued the cause for respondents. With him on the briefs was David A. Ferris

       Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Kansas et al. by Carla J. Stovall, Attorney General of Kansas, and Stephen R. McAllister, State Solicitor, joined by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Bill Lockyer of California, Ken Salazar of Colorado, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Robert A Butterworth of Florida, Steve Carter of Indiana, Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Mike McGrath of Montana, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Eliot Spitzer of New York, Betty D. Montgomery of Ohio, W. A Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Mark Barnett of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, and Christine 0. Grego-ire of Washington; for the City of Dallas by Christopher D. Bowers; for Miami-Dade County by Leonard Leigh Elias; for the City and County of San Francisco et al. by Rose-Ellen Heinz, Moses W. Johnson IV, Michael F. Dean, Charles M. Hinton, Jr., Brad Neighbor, Scott H. Howard, Henry W. Underhill, Jr., Michael G. Colantuono, William B. Conners, Michael A Cardozo, Leonard J. Koerner, George Rios, Valerie J. Armenio, Debra E. Corbett, and Robert E. Murphy; for the City of Toledo et al. by Barry

        M. Byron, John E. Gotherman, and James G. Burkhardt; and for Coalition for Local Sovereignty by Kenneth B. Clark.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Trucking Associations, Inc., et al. by Evan M. Tager, Beth L. Law, and Robert Digges, Jr.; for the California Dump Truck Owners Association by Edward J. Hegarty; for the Cargo Airline Association by Paul T. Friedman, Ruth N. Borenstein, Drew S. Days III, and Beth S. Brinkmann; for the Towing and Recovery Association of America by Erik S. Jaffe and Michael P. McGovern; and for VRC LLC et al. by James C. Mosser.

   Justice Ginsburg

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Federal preemption prescriptions relating to motor carriers, contained in 49 U. S. C. § 14501(c) (1994 ed., Supp. V), specifically save to States “safety regulatory authority . . . with respect to motor vehicles,” § 14501(c)(2)(A). This case presents the question whether the state power preserved in § 14501(c)(2)(A) may be delegated to municipalities, permitting them to exercise safety regulatory authority over local tow-truck operations.

The federal legislation preempts provisions by “a State [or] political subdivision of a State . . . related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier ... with respect to the transportation of property.” § 14501(c)(1). As an exception to this general rule, Congress provided that the preemption directive “shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.” § 14501(c)(2)(A). Section 14501(c)(l)’s statement of the general rule explicitly includes “State[s]” and their “political subdivision^].” The exception for safety regulation, however, specifies only “State[s]” and does not mention “political subdivision^].” § 14501(c)(2)(A).

We hold that § 14501(c) does not bar a State from delegating to municipalities and other local units the State’s authority to establish safety regulations governing motor carriers of property, including tow trucks. A locality, as § 14501(c) recognizes, is a “political subdivision” of the State. Ordinarily, a political subdivision may exercise whatever portion of state power the State, under its own constitution and laws, chooses to delegate to the subdivision. Absent a clear statement to the contrary, Congress’ reference to the “regulatory authority of a State” should be read to preserve, not preempt, the traditional prerogative of the States to delegate their authority to their constituent parts.

I

The Interstate Commerce Act, as amended by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994,108 Stat. 1606, and the ICC Termination Act of 1995, 109 Stat. 899, generally preempts state and local regulation “related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier ... with respect to the transportation of property”; enumerated matters, however, are not covered by the preemption provision. The Act prescribes:

“(1) General Rule. — Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3), a State, political subdivision of a State, or political authority of 2 or more States may not enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier . . . with respect to the transportation of property.
“(2) Matters not covered — Paragraph (1)—
“(A) shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles ... or the authority of a State to regulate motor carriers with regard to minimum amounts of financial responsibility relating to insurance requirements and self-insurance authorization;
“(B) does not apply to the transportation of household goods; and
“(C) does not apply to the authority of a State or a political subdivision of a State to enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision relating to the price of for-hire motor vehicle transportation by a tow truck, if such transportation is performed without the prior consent or authorization of the owner or operator of the motor vehicle.
“(3) State standard transportation PRACTICES —
“(A) Continuation. — [Section 14501(c)(1)] shall not affect any authority of a State, political subdivision of a State, or political authority of 2 or more States to enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision, with respect to the intrastate transportation of property by motor carriers, related to — [inter alia] uniform cargo liability rules ... if such law, regulation, or provision meets [various enumerated] requirements.” 49 U. S. C. § 14501(c).

Tow trucks, all parties to this case agree, are “motor carrier[s] of property” falling within § 14501(c)’s compass. This reading is corroborated by § 14501(c)(2)(C), which relates to nonconsensual tows, e. g., of illegally parked or abandoned vehicles. That provision plainly indicates that tow trucks qualify as “motor carrier[s] of property”; it exempts from federal preemption state and local regulation of “the price of for-hire motor vehicle transportation by a tow truck” when the towing “is performed without the prior consent ... of the [towed vehicle’s] owner or operator.”

Petitioner, the City of Columbus, Ohio (City), extensively regulates the operation of any tow truck that seeks to pick up vehicles within city limits. Columbus’ regulations require tow-truck operators to obtain city licenses, submit to city inspections, meet city standards for insurance and rec-ordkeeping, and conform their vehicles to the City’s detailed equipment requirements. See Columbus, Ohio, City Code §§ 549.02-549.06 (1991); App. to Pet. for Cert. 37a-52a.

Plaintiff-respondent Ours Garage and Wrecker Service, Inc., joined by a trade association of tow-truck operators, the Towing and Recovery Association of Ohio (TRAO), brought suit in Federal District Court against the City of Columbus and two city officials to enjoin enforcement of the City’s tow-truck regulations. The complaint alleged that Columbus' regulations were preempted by § 14501(c)(1). On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court ruled for the plaintiffs; the court declared the City’s tow-truck regulations preempted and enjoined their enforcement. Columbus and its officials appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

During the pendency of Columbus’ appeal, the Sixth Circuit decided Petrey v. Toledo, 246 F. 3d 548 (2001). Petrey held that city of Toledo tow-truck regulations, resembling those of Columbus, were preempted by § 14501(c). The court observed first that § 14501(c)(l)’s preemption rule explicitly applies to “a State [or] political subdivision of a State,” while the exception for safety regulations, § 14501(c)(2)(A), refers only to the “authority of a State.” The contrast in statutory language indicated to the court that Congress meant to limit the safety exception to States alone. Id., at 563. This reading, the court further reasoned, was consistent with Congress’ deregulatory purpose. “Congress intended to encourage market forces ... through the elimination of a myriad of complicated and potentially conflicting state regulations,” the court observed; “yet another level of regulation at the local level,” the court inferred, “would be disfavored.” Ibid.

Eleven weeks after rendering its judgment in Petrey, the Sixth Circuit decided this case. Holding Petrey dispositive, the appeals court affirmed the District Court’s injunction against enforcement of Columbus’ tow-truck regulations. 257 F. 3d 506, 507-508 (2001).

The Courts of Appeals have divided on the question whether § 14501(c)(2)(A)’s safety regulation exception to preemption encompasses municipal regulations. Compare Petrey, 246 F. 3d 548; Stucky v. San Antonio, 260 F. 3d 424 (CA5 2001); Tocher v. Santa Ana, 219 F. 3d 1040, 1051 (CA9 2000); and R. Mayer of Atlanta, Inc. v. Atlanta, 158 F. 3d 538 (CA11 1998) (all holding that local safety and insurance regulations are preempted), with Ace Auto Body & Towing, Ltd. v. New York, 171 F. 3d 765 (CA2 1999) (holding that local safety and insurance regulations are not preempted). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, see 534 U. S. 1073 (2002), and now reverse the Sixth Circuit’s judgment.

II

We begin our consideration of the question presented with an observation that is beyond genuine debate. Had 49 U. S. C. § 14501(c) contained no reference at all to “political subdivision's] of a State,” the preemption provision’s exception for exercises of the “safety regulatory authority of a State,” § 14501(c)(2)(A), undoubtedly would have embraced both state and local regulation. Accord, post, at 445 (Scalia, J., dissenting). The Court’s decision in Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier, 501 U. S. 597 (1991), would have been definitive. There the Court considered a provision of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act authorizing a “State [to] regulate the sale or use of any federally registered pesticide or device in the State,” 7 U. S. C. § 136v(a); the provision was “silent with reference to local governments.” 501 U. S., at 607. “Mere silence,” we held, “cannot suffice to establish a clear and manifest purpose to pre-empt local authority.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted).

As Justice White stated for the Court in Mortier, “[wjhen considering pre-emption, ‘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.’” Id., at 605 (quoting Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947)). Furthermore, Justice White explained:

“The principle is well settled that local governmental units are created as convenient agencies for exercising such of the governmental powers of the State as may be entrusted to them in its absolute discretion. The exclusion of political subdivisions cannot be inferred from the express authorization to the States because political subdivisions are components of the very entity the statute empowers.” 501 U. S., at 607-608 (internal quotation marks, citations, and alterations omitted).

This case is a closer call than Mortier. Here, the general preemption provision, § 14501(c)(1) — from which § 14501(c) (2)(A) excepts “the safety regulatory authority of a State”— explicitly preempts regulation both by “a State” and by a “political subdivision of a State.” The exception for state safety regulation is the first in a series of four statutory exceptions to the preemption rule. The third exception in the series, covering regulation of prices for nonconsensual tow-truck services, matches the general preemption provision; it explicitly applies to the “authority of a State or a political subdivision of a State.” § 14501(c)(2)(C). States and their political subdivisions are likewise linked in almost every other provision of §14501. See §§ 14501(a), 14501(b)(1), 14501(e)(3)(A), 14501(c)(3)(B), 14501(c)(3)(C).

Respondents Ours Garage and TRAO, in line with several Courts of Appeals, home in on the statute’s repeated references to both States and their political subdivisions; in contrast, they urge, the singularly bare reference to “[s]tate” authority in § 14501(c)(2)(A)’s exception for safety regulation must mean that Congress intended to limit the exception to States alone. See Brief for Respondents 15-16,26-29. Respondents rely particularly on Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16 (1983). In that case, we observed: “Where Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.” Id., at 23 (internal quotation marks omitted) (cited in Petrey, 246 F. 3d, at 561; Stucky, 260 F. 3d, at 441; and Tocher, 219 F. 3d, at 1051). The dissent asserts the same argument vigorously. In its words: “The only conceivable reason” for the separate enumeration of States and their political subdivisions in § 14501(c)(1) is to “establish . . . two separate categories of state power — state power exercised through political subdivisions and state power exercised by the State directly— that are later treated differently in the exceptions to the rule.” Post, at 445.

We acknowledge that § 14501(c)’s “disparate inclusion [and] exclusion” of the words “political subdivisions” support an argument of some force, one that could not have been made in Mortier. Nevertheless, reading § 14501(c)’s set of exceptions in combination, and with a view to the basic tenets of our federal system pivotal in Mortier, we conclude that the statute does not provide the requisite “clear and manifest indication that Congress sought to supplant local authority.” 501 U. S., at 611.

Respondents Ours Garage and TRAO, as just noted, contrast the first statutory exception to § 14501(c)’s preemption rule, i. e., the exception preserving “the safety regulatory authority of a State,” § 14501(c)(2)(A), with the third exception, preserving the “authority of a State or a political subdivision to enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision relating to the price” charged for nonconsensual towing, § 14501(c)(2)(C). See Brief for Respondents 15-16. The nonconsensual towing exception tracks the language and structure of the general preemption rule, omitting only the reference to a “political authority of 2 or more States.” Similarly styled, the fourth exception, for carrier-requested regulations in areas such as “uniform cargo liability” and antitrust immunity, § 14501(c)(3), completely parallels the wording of § 14501(c)(1): It provides that preemption “shall not affect any authority of a State, political subdivision of a State, or political authority of 2 or more States to enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision” in those areas.

The safety exception of § 14501(c)(2)(A), however, does not borrow language from § 14501(c)(1). It simply states that preemption “shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State.” Notably, the second statutory exception, on which respondents train no attention, is stated with similar economy. That exception mentions neither States nor political subdivisions; it simply says that the general preemption rule, § 14501(c)(1), “does not apply to the transportation of household goods,” § 14501(c)(2)(B). Yet it is abundantly clear that, notwithstanding this difference in verbal formulation, § 14501(c)(2)(B), like its neighbor § 14501(c)(2)(C), permits both state and local regulation. Accord, post, at 446 (Scalia, J., dissenting).

The inclusion of the phrase “the authority of a State or a political subdivision of a State to enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision” no doubt synchronizes the nonconsensual towing provision with § 14501(c)(l)’s main rule. The parallel structure of §§ 14501(c)(1) and 14501(c)(2)(C) does not imply, however, that § 14501(c)(2)(A)’s concise statement must be read to use the term “State” restrictively. Respondents’ inference from the absence of “political subdivision of a State” in § 14501(c)(2)(A) would be more persuasive if the omission were the sole difference in the expression of the general rule and the safety exception. In contrast to §§ 14501(c)(2)(C) and (c)(3), however, neither the safety exception nor the household-goods exception refers to the “authority ... to enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision.” The Russello presumption — that the presence of a phrase in one provision and its absence in another reveals Congress’ design — grows weaker with each difference in the formulation of the provisions under inspection.

Respondents’ restrictive reading of the term “State,” we note, introduces an interpretive conundrum of another kind. Section 14501(c)(1) preempts the power of both States and localities to “enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision.” (Emphasis added.) Those conjoined words travel together. If, as Ours Garage and TRAO argue, the safety exception of § 14501(c)(2)(A) reaches only States, then localities are preempted not only from enacting, but equally from enforcing, safety regulations governing motor carriers of property — even if those regulations are enacted by the state legislature. It is unlikely that Congress would preserve States’ power to enact safety rules and, at the same time, bar the ordinary method by which States enforce such rules— through their local instrumentalities.

Finally, we reiterate, reading the term “State” as used in §14501 to exclude political subdivisions would yield a decision at odds with our federal system’s traditional comprehension of “the safety regulatory authority of a State,” § 14501(c)(2)(A). To repeat the essential observation made in Mortier: “The principle is well settled that local governmental units are created as convenient agencies for exercising such of the governmental powers of the State as may be entrusted to them in its absolute discretion.” 501 U. S., at 607-608 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). Whether and how to use that discretion is a question central to state self-government. See, e. g., Holt Civic Club v. Tuscaloosa, 439 U. S. 60, 71 (1978) (States enjoy “extraordinarily wide latitude ... in creating various types of political subdivisions and conferring authority upon them”).

In Ohio, as in other States, the delegation of governing authority from State to local unit has long occupied the attention of the State’s lawmakers. See D. Wilcox, Municipal Government in Michigan and Ohio: A Study in the Relations of City and Commonwealth 52-54, 63 (1896) (citing Ohio Const., Art. XIII (1851)). The Ohio Constitution currently grants municipalities within the State general authority “to exercise all powers of local self-government and to adopt and enforce within their limits such local police, sanitary and other similar regulations, as are not in conflict with the general laws.” Art. XVIII, §3. Ohio’s Legislature has enacted several statutes empowering cities to regulate motor vehicles and highways. See, e.g., Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §715.22 (Anderson 2000) (municipality may regulate motor vehicles and highways); § 723.01 (“Municipal corporations shall have special power to regulate the use of the streets.”). Particularly relevant here, Ohio has exempted tow trucks from the State’s regulation of motor carriers, § 4921.02(A)(8), thus leaving tow-truck regulation largely to the cities, Cincinnati v. Reed, 27 Ohio App. 3d 115, 500 N. E. 2d 333 (1985).

It is the expressed intent of § 14501(c)(2)(A) that the preemption rule of § 14501(c)(1) “not restrict” the existing “safety regulatory authority of a State.” Compare § 14501(c)(2)(A) with §§ 14501(c)(2)(B) and (C) (preemption “does not apply” to state or local power to regulate in particular areas), and § 14501(c)(3) (preemption rule “shall not affect” multistate, state, or local authority to regulate particular areas at the behest of carriers). Preemption analysis “start[s] 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.” Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U. S. 470, 485 (1996) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Section 14501(c)(2)(A) seeks to save from preemption state power “in a field which the States have traditionally occupied.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). A saving provision of that order is hardly comparable to exercises of congressional spending authority that, as a condition for receipt of funds, explicitly restrict the prerogative of States to entrust governance of a matter to localities. Such programs typically make uniform statewide regulation a condition of funding, or, conversely, provide funds to localities on the condition that they be spent at that level in accordance with federal prescriptions and without state interference. See, e. g., 23 U. S. C. § 153 (grants to support traffic safety conditioned on a motorcycle helmet law that applies “throughout the State”); § 158 (highway grants withheld unless “State has in effect a law” setting the drinking age at 21); 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(l) (Medicaid grants available only if a State ensures that its plan for medical assistance is “in effect in all political subdivisions of the State, and, if administered by them, be mandatory upon them”); Lawrence County v. Lead-Deadwood School Dist. No. 40-1, 469 U. S. 256, 270 (1985) (State may not restrict local use of funds that the United States makes available to localities to spend at their discretion).

This case, by contrast, deals not with States’ voluntary agreements to relinquish authority vis-á-vis their political subdivisions in exchange for federal funds, but with preemption stemming from Congress’ power to regulate commerce, in a field where States have traditionally allowed localities to address local concerns. Congress’ clear purpose in § 14501(e)(2)(A) is to ensure that its preemption of States’ economic authority over motor carriers of property, § 14501(c)(1), “not restrict” the preexisting and traditional state police power over safety. That power typically includes the choice to delegate the State’s “safety regulatory authority” to localities. Forcing a State to refrain from doing so would effectively “restrict” that very authority. Absent a basis more reliable than statutory language insufficient to demonstrate a “clear and manifest purpose” to the contrary, federal courts should resist attribution to Congress of a design to disturb a State’s decision on the division of authority between the State’s central and local units over safety on municipal streets and roads.

III

The Court of Appeals supported its reading of § 14501(c)(2)(A) to disallow delegation from State to city in part by reference to the statute’s deregulatory purpose. See Petrey, 246 F. 3d, at 563; accord, Stucky, 260 F. 3d, at 444-446; Tocher, 219 F. 3d, at 1048, 1051; R. Mayer, 158 F. 3d, at 546. We now turn to that justification.

The Conference Report on the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 observed that “[s]tate economic regulation of motor carrier operations ... is a huge problem for national and regional carriers attempting to conduct a standard way of doing business.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 103-677, p. 87 (1994). Carrying more weight, in the Act itself Congress reported its finding that “the regulation of intrastate transportation of property by the States” unreasonably burdened free trade, interstate commerce, and American consumers. Pub. L. 103-305, § 601(a)(1), 108 Stat. 1605. Congress therefore concluded that “certain aspects of the State regulatory process should be preempted.” § 601(a)(2). These declarations of deregulatory purpose, however, do not justify interpreting through a deregulatory prism “aspects of the State regulatory process” that Congress determined should not be preempted.

A congressional decision to enact both a general policy that furthers a particular goal and a specific exception that might tend against that goal does not invariably call for the narrowest possible construction of the exception. Such a construction is surely resistible here, for § 14501(c)(l)’s preemption rule and § 14501(c)(2)(A)’s safety exception to it do not necessarily conflict. The problem to which the congressional conferees attended was “[sjtate economic regulation”; the exemption in question is for state safety regulation. Corroboratively, the measure’s legislative history shows that the deregulatory aim of the legislation had been endorsed by a key interest group — the American Trucking Association— subject to “some conditions that would allow regulatory protection to continue for non-economic factors, such as ... insurance [and] safety.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 103-677, at 88. The conferees believed that the legislation “addressed] these conditions.” Ibid.; see also Ace Auto Body, 171 F. 3d, at 776.

The construction of § 14501 that respondents Ours Garage and TRAO advocate, moreover, does not guarantee uniform regulation. On respondents’ reading as on petitioners’, a State could, without affront to the statute, pass discrete, nonuniform safety regulations applicable to each of its several constituent municipalities. Ohio thus could adopt the Columbus regulations to govern in that city, the Toledo regulations to govern there, and so on down the line. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 37-38. Indeed, because § 14501(c)(2)(A) refers only to “political” subdivisions, nothing in the statute’s text would impede a State from creating an administrative agency organized into local offices, each of which could craft local rules suitable to its assigned jurisdiction. There is no reason to suppose that Congress meant to stop the States from spreading their authority among municipalities unless they employ such artificial or inefficient schemes.

Furthermore, 49 U. S. C. §31141 (1994 ed.) affords the Secretary of Transportation a means to prevent the safety exception from overwhelming the lawmakers’ deregulatory purpose. That provision authorizes the Secretary to void any “State law or regulation on commercial motor vehicle safety” that, in the Secretary’s judgment, “has no safety benefit . . . [or] would cause an unreasonable burden on interstate commerce.” §§ 31141(a), (c)(4); see also §31132(8) (“‘State law’ includes [for the purposes of §31141] a law enacted by a political subdivision of a State”); §31132(9) (parallel definition of “State regulation”). Under this authority, the Secretary can invalidate local safety regulations upon finding that their content or multiplicity threatens to clog the avenues of commerce.

We reiterate that § 14501(c)(2)(A) shields from preemption only “safety regulatory authority” (and “authority of a State to regulate ... with regard to minimum amounts of financial responsibility relating to insurance requirements”). Local regulation of prices, routes, or services of tow trucks that is not genuinely responsive to safety concerns garners no exemption from § 14501(c)(l)’s preemption rule.

* * *

For the reasons stated, we hold that § 14501(c)(2)(A) spares from preemption local as well as state regulation. We express no opinion, however, on the question whether Columbus’ particular regulations, in whole or in part, qualify as exercises of “safety regulatory authority” or otherwise fall within § 14501(c)(2)(A)’s compass. This question, which was not reached by the Court of Appeals, remains open on remand.

The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Scalia,

with whom Justice O’Connor joins, dissenting.

The dispute in the present case arises from the fact that a reference to “State” power or authority can be meant to include all that power or authority, including the portion exercised by political subdivisions (as, for example, in the ordinary reference to “the State’s police power”); but can also be meant to include only that power or authority exercised at the state level (as, for example, in the phrase “State and local governmental authority”). The issue is whether, when 49 U. S. C. § 14501(c)(2)(A) (1994 ed., Supp. V) excepts from the preclusionary command of § 14501(c)(1) “the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles,” it means to except the safety regulatory authority of cities and counties as well. In my view it plainly does not.

There are four exceptions to the preclusionary rule of § 14501(c)(1), which read as follows:

“(2) Matters not covered. — [The preemption rule]—
“(A) shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles, the authority of a State to impose highway route controls or limitations based on the size or weight of the motor vehicle or the hazardous nature of the cargo, or the authority of a State to regulate motor carriers with regard to minimum amounts of financial responsibility relating to insurance requirements and self-insurance authorization;
“(B) does not apply to the transportation of household goods; and
“(C) does not apply to the authority of a State or a political subdivision of a State to enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision relating to the price of for-hire motor vehicle transportation by a tow truck, if such transportation is performed without the prior consent or authorization of the owner or operator of the motor vehicle.
“(3) State standard transportation PRACTICES.—
“(A) Continuation. — [The preemption rule] shall not affect any authority of a State, political subdivision of a State, or political authority of 2 or more States to enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision, with respect to the intrastate transportation of property by motor carriers, related to — [inter alia] uniform cargo liability rules, ... if such law, regulation, or provision meets the requirements of subparagraph (B).” §§ 14501(c)(2), (3) (emphases added).

It is impossible to read this text without being struck by the fact that the term “political subdivision of a State” is added to the term “State” in some of the exceptions, §§ 14501(c)(2)(C), (c)(3), but not in the exception at issue here, § 14501(c)(2)(A). “ ‘[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.’ ” Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983). The only way to impart some purpose and intent here is to assume that the word “State” is used in its narrower sense, so that political subdivisions are not covered by the term. The Court admits that the rule applied in Rus-sello “supports] an argument of some force,” ante, at 434, that the exception for the “safety regulatory authority of a State” does not include local safety regulation.

But while the Russello argument is strong, it alone does not fully describe the clarity with which § 14501(c)(2)(A) excludes political subdivisions. For the clarity begins not just with the various exceptions, but with the very preemption rule to which the exceptions are appended. That rule reads:

“Except as provided [in §§ 14501(c)(2), (3)], a State, political subdivision of a State, or political authority of 2 or more States may not enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier... or any motor private carrier, broker, or freight forwarder with respect to the transportation of property.” 49 U. S. C. § 14501(c)(1).

Since the lawmaking power of a political subdivision of a State is a subset of the lawmaking power of the State, Hess v. Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation, 513 U. S. 30, 47 (1994); Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier, 501 U. S. 597, 607-608 (1991), the preemption rule would have precisely the same scope if it omitted the reference to “political subdivision of a State.” It is a well-established principle of statutory construction (and of common sense) that when such a situation occurs, when “two words or expressions are coupled together, one of which generically includes the other, it is obvious that the more general term is used in a meaning excluding the specific one.” J. Sutherland, Statutes and Statutory Construction §266, p. 349 (1891). The only conceivable reason for this specification of “political subdivision” apart from “State” is to establish, in the rule, the two separate categories of state power — state power exercised through political subdivisions and state power exercised by the State directly — that are later treated differently in the exceptions to the rule.

The situation is comparable to the following hypothetical using the term “football” (which may be used to include soccer, see Webster’s New International Dictionary 983 (2d ed. 1950)): Assume a statute which says that “football and soccer shall not be played on the town green” (§ 14501(c)(1)), except that “football and soccer may be played on Saturdays” (§ 14501(c)(2)(C)), “football and soccer may be played on summer nights” (§ 14501(c)(3)(A)), and “football may be played on Mondays” (§ 14501(c)(2)(A)). In today’s opinion, the Court says soccer may be played on Mondays. I think it clear that soccer is not to be regarded as a subset of football but as a separate category. And the same is true of “political subdivision” here.

II

The Court reaches the opposite conclusion merely because § 14501(c) exhibits uneven drafting. First, the Court notes that § 14501(c)(2)(A) does not “trac[k] the language and structure of the general preemption rule.” Ante, at 434. Whereas other exceptions to the rule refer to the authority of a State or other political entity “to enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision,” § 14501(c)(2)(A) merely refers to the “safety regulatory authority of a State.” Second, the Court notes that another exception to the preemption rule, § 14501(c)(2)(B), is “stated with similar economy.” Ante, at 435. It addresses merely the subject of regulation (transportation of household goods) instead of both the subject and the source of regulation (a State, political subdivision, or political authority of two or more States). This has, the Court notes, the same effect as its neighbor, § 14501(c)(2)(C), of permitting both state and local regulation. Ibid. These inconsistencies in the statute’s drafting style, the Court contends, undermine the conclusion we would ordinarily draw from the absence of the term “ ‘political subdivision’ ” in § 14501(c)(2)(A). Ibid.

The weakness of this argument should be self-evident. How can inconsistencies of style, on points that have nothing to do with the issue of separating state and local authority, cause the text’s crystal-clear distinction between state and local authority to disappear? It would certainly reflect more orderly draftsmanship if the statute consistently used the formulation “to enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision,” rather than replacing it in § 14501(c)(2)(A) with the equivalent phrase “regulatory authority of a State”; and if the statute referred to subject matter alone (á la § 14501(c)(2)(B)) either never at all, or else whenever the exception applied to all three categories of States, subdivisions of States, and political authorities of two or more States. But it is impossible to imagine how this imperfect draftsmanship in unrelated matters casts any doubt upon the precise meaning of the subject-matter-plus-source provisions where they appear. Unless the Court is appealing to some hitherto unknown canon of interpretation — perhaps (borrowed from the law of evidence) negligens in uno, negligens in omnibus — the diverse styles of §14501(c)’s exceptions have nothing to do with whether we should take seriously the references to States and subdivisions of States where they appear.

What is truly anomalous here is not the fact that the terminology of § 14501(c) is diverse with regard to presently irrelevant matters, but the fact that the Court has today come up with a judicial interpretation of § 14501(c) that renders the term “political subdivision of a State,” which appears throughout, utterly superfluous throughout. Although the Court claims that the Russello presumption . . . grows weaker with each difference in the formulation of the provisions under inspection,” ante, at 435-436, it cites no authority for that proposition — nor could it, because we have routinely applied the Russello presumption in cases where a statute employs different “verbal formulation[s]” in sections that include particular language and in sections that omit such language. See, e. g., Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co., 534 U. S. 438, 452-454 (2002); Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S. 167, 173-174 (2001); Holm v. United States, 524 U. S. 236, 249-250 (1998); United States v. Gonzales, 520 U. S. 1, 5 (1997).

III

Lacking support in the text of the statute, the Court invokes federalism concerns to justify its decision. “Absent a basis more reliable than statutory language insufficient to demonstrate a 'clear and manifest purpose’ to the contrary,” the Court reasons, “federal courts should resist attribution to Congress of a design to disturb a State’s decision on the division of authority between the State’s central and local units over safety on municipal streets and roads.” Ante, at 439-440. Well of course we think there is “clear and manifest purpose here”; but besides that, the Court's federalism concerns are overblown. To begin with, it should not be thought that the States’ power to control the relationship between themselves and their political subdivisions — their “traditional prerogative ... to delegate” (or to refuse to delegate) “their authority to their constituent parts,” ante, at 429 — has hitherto been regarded as sacrosanct. To the contrary. To take only a few examples, the Federal Government routinely gives directly to municipalities substantial grants of funds that cannot be reached or directed by “the politicians upstate” (or “downstate”), see, e. g., Office of Management and Budget, 2001 Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance AEI-1 to AEI-29; Lawrence County v. Lead-Deadwood School Dist. No. 40-1, 469 U. S. 256, 270 (1985); and many significant federal programs require laws or regulations that must be adopted by the state government and cannot be delegated to political subdivisions, see, e. g., 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a) (Medicaid); 23 U.S.C. §§153, 158 (Federal-Aid Highway System); 42 U. S. C. §§ 7407(a), 7410 (1994 ed.) (Clean Air Act). This “interference” of the Federal Government with the States’ “traditional prerogative ... to delegate their authority to their constituent parts” has long been a subject of considerable debate and controversy. See, e.g., Hills, Dissecting the State: The Use of Federal Law to Free State and Local Officials from State Legislatures’ Control, 97 Mich. L. Rev. 1201 (1999).

With such major impositions as these already on the books, treating § 14501(c)(1) as some extraordinary federal obstruction of state allocation of power is absurd. That provision preempts the authority of political subdivisions to regulate “a price, route, or service of any motor carrier ... or any motor private carrier, broker, or freight forwarder with respect to the transportation of property.” (Emphasis added.) The italicized language massively limits the scope of preemption to include only laws, regulations, and other provisions that single out for special treatment “motor carriers of property.” § 14501(c). States and political subdivisions remain free to enact and enforce general traffic safety laws, general restrictions on the weight of cars and trucks that may enter highways or pass over bridges, and other regulations that do not target motor carriers “with respect to the transportation of property.” In addition, the exception contained in § 14501(c)(2)(A) allows a State — but not a political subdivision — to apply special safety rules (rules adopted under its “safety regulatory authority”) to motor carriers of property.

This relatively modest burden on the “historic powers of the States” to delegate authority to political subdivisions, Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 461 (1991) (internal quotation marks omitted), is unambiguously imposed by the statute. The Court repeatedly emphasizes the fact that § 14501(c)(2)(A) declares that § 14501(c)(1) shall “ ‘not restrict’ the existing ‘safety regulatory authority of a State,’ ” ante, at 438 — which, it says, “includes the choice to delegate . . . to localities,” ante, at 439. This entirely begs the question, which is precisely whether the statute’s reference to the authority of a “State” includes authority possessed by a municipality on delegation from the State. As I have described, the text and structure of the statute leave no doubt that it does not — that “State” does not include “subdivision of a State.” Even when we are dealing with the traditional powers of the States, “[e]videnee of pre-emptive purpose is sought in the text and structure of the statute at issue.” CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood, 507 U. S. 658, 664 (1993) (emphasis added); see also Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947).

* * *

I believe the text and structure of § 14501(c) show plainly that “the safety regulatory authority of a State” does not encompass the authority of a political subdivision. For this reason, I respectfully dissent.

       The court excepted regulations governing the city’s own purchase of towing services, which it held fell within the “municipal proprietor” exception applicable to federal preemption rules. See Petrey, 246 F. 3d, at 558-559.

       The dissent insists that § 14501(c)(2)(B) is irrelevant because its phrasing “ha[s] nothing to do with the issue of separating state and local authority.” Post, at 446 (emphasis deleted). We ultimately draw the same conclusion, of course, regarding the phrasing of the safety exception in § 14501(c)(2)(A). The dissent, although it urges that “we should take seriously the references to States and subdivisions of States where they appear,” post, at 447, rests upon the fact that subdivisions of States do not appear in the safety exception — as they also do not in the household-goods exception of § 14501(c)(2)(B). That § 14501(c)(2) comprises three exceptions, each differently stated, seems to us indeed relevant to the interpretive weight that may be attached to the variation among them.

       Faced with this argument, the dissent is converted, however temporarily, to the view that “federal interference with the ‘historic powers of the States’ must be evinced by a ‘plain statement.’ ” Post, at 450, n. 4 (quoting Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 461 (1991)). The dissent finds no plain statement in § 14501(c)(l)’s prohibition on local enforcement because it can be read to mean only that “a political subdivision may not enact new laws or enforce its previously enacted laws” relating to motor carriage of property. Post, at 450, n. 4. This is by no means the most natural reading of the preemption provision. The suggestion of the dissent is that, as applied to localities, § 14501(c)(1) preempts only local enforcement of locally enacted laws. See ibid. This interpretation raises the startling possibility that, although § 14501(c)(1) prohibits both States and localities from “enactflng]” new laws, it permits localities (but not States) to enforce previously enacted state laws relating to motor carriage of property.

       Nor, the dissent’s suggestion notwithstanding, see post, at 448, is § 14501 similar to the Clean Air Act, which mandates that States undertake an environmental planning process that of necessity cannot respect local political boundaries. See 42 U. S. C. §§ 7407(c), 7410(a)(1) (1994 ed.) (States must develop implementation plans for air quality in each of its “air quality control region[s],” whose borders are defined by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency based not upon local jurisdictional lines but upon criteria she “deems necessary or appropriate for the attainment ... of [national] ambient air quality standards”); cf. 33 U. S. C. § 1313(d)(1)(A) (under the Clean Water Act, each State must develop pollution abatement plans based upon a “priority ranking” of all “waters within its boundaries for which... effluent limitations ... are not stringent enough to implement [applicable] water quality standard[s]”). Even so, States may delegate implementation authority under the Clean Air Act to their political subdivisions, subject to the requirement that the State bear ultimate oversight responsibility. See § 7410(a)(2)(E)(iii) (State must provide “necessary assurances that, where the State has relied on a local or regional government, agency, or instrumentality for the implementation of any [state] plan provision, the State has responsibility for ensuring adequate implementation of such plan provision”).

       Nor was it reached in Petrey v. Toledo, 246 F. 3d 548 (CA6 2001), which the Sixth Circuit stated “controls the disposition of this case,” 257 F. 3d 506, 508 (2001). See Petrey, 246 F. 3d, at 563-564.

       Not only is this point (as the text proceeds to discuss) irrelevant in principle; it is misleading in its description of fact, suggesting that the two neighboring sections produce the same result with different language. It is true enough that § 14501(c)(2)(C), like § 14501(c)(2)(B), permits both state and local regulation. But § 14501(c)(2)(C), unlike § 14501(c)(2)(B), also permits regulation by a “political authority of 2 or more States.”

       The Court thinks these examples are “hardly comparable” to § 14501(c) because many involve Spending Clause legislation. Ante, at 438. A sufficient answer is that one of them does not, see 42 U. S. C. § 7410 (1994 ed.) (Clean Air Act), and that other examples not involving Spending Clause legislation could be added, see, e. g., 33 U. S. C. §§ 1313(d), 1362(3) (Clean Water Act). But in any event, a siphoning off of the States’ “historic powers” to delegate has equally been achieved, whether it has come about through the coercion of deprivation of Spending Clause funds or through other means. The point is that it is not unusual for Congress to interfere in this matter.

       The Court thinks the Clean Air Act is a bad example merely because a State can rely on political subdivisions to enforce the State’s implementation plan. Ante, at 439, n. 4; see 42 U. S. C. §§ 7407(a), 7410(a)(2)(E)(iii). So what? Only States may adopt implementation plans; this duty cannot be delegated to localities. Moreover, as I explain in n. 4, infra, the statute at issue here is no different. Under 49 U. S. C. §§ 14501(c)(1) and (c)(2)(A), a State may enact regulations pursuant to its “safety regulatory authority” and rely on localities to enforce those regulations.

       This interpretation of the statutory scheme “introduces an interpretive conundrum of another kind,” the Court asserts, because § 14501(c)(1) declares that a political subdivision may not “enact or enforce” laws, regulations, or other provisions relating to motor carriers of property. Ante, at 436. In the Court’s view, if the term “State” does not include “subdivision of a State,” § 14501(c)(1) will prevent a State from relying on localities to “enforce” rules adopted under its “safety regulations.” Ante, at 435-486. But the conclusion that § 14501(c)(1) prevents a political subdivision from enforcing regulations enacted by the State can only be reached by ignoring (for this issue) the rule that the Court is so insistent upon elsewhere: that federal interference with the “historic powers of the States” must be evinced by a “plain statement,” Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 461 (1991). A natural reading of the phrase “a... political subdivision of a State . . . may not enact or enforce a law” — and a reading faithful to Gregory’s plain statement rule — is that a political subdivision may not enact new laws or enforce its previously enacted laws. The Court believes this reading “raises the startling possibility,” ante, at 436, n. 3, that § 14501(c)(1) prevents States but not political subdivisions from enforcing previously enacted state regulations relating to motor carriage of property. I think not. A possibility so startling (and unlikely to occur) is well enough precluded by the rule that a statute should not be interpreted to produce absurd results. The municipalities’ reserved power to enforce state law does not include the power to enforce state law that the State has no continuing power to enact or enforce.