Category Archives Issue 305

President Barack Obama (D) has released a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies instructing them to “include statements of preemption in regulations only when such statements have a sufficient legal basis.” Under the Bush administration, a number of health and safety agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, often placed such statements in a regulation’s preamble, attempting to prevent those injured by the consumer products subject to the regulation from bringing state-law based product-liability litigation against manufacturers. Acknowledging the previous practice, the memorandum indicates that its purpose “is to state the general policy of my Administration that preemption of State law by executive departments and agencies should be undertaken only with full consideration of the legitimate prerogatives of the States and with a sufficient legal basis for preemption. Executive departments and agencies should be mindful that in our Federal system, the citizens of the several States have…