Once-esoteric questions involving the federal preemption of state law (especially state tort law and consumer protection statutes) have become the subject of a contentious public debate. Consumer advocates, plaintiffs' attorneys, and state officials argue that broad federal preemption claims--often by federal regulatory agencies and without a clear Congressional mandate--interfere with the states' historic role in protecting citizens against corporate misconduct. Corporations and federal agencies respond that preemption is often the only viable safeguard against unwarranted state interferences with the national economy. Aggressive trial lawyers and attorneys general, they say, upset carefully crafted regulatory compromises at the federal level. Preemption disputes along these lines have become a focal point of political debate and judicial decisions in a wide range of regulatory arenas, including financial regulation, automobile safety, clean-air laws, the regulation of telecommunications, energy, and other network industries, securities law, consumer products standards, pharmaceutical drugs, pesticides, outboard motors, and mattresses.

In all these areas, billions of dollars hang on regulatory nuances and arcane points of legal interpretation. But the preemption debate is being waged in the context of broader, sometimes constitutional, arguments and presumptions concerning the role and utility of federalism and “states' rights” in a modern, highly mobile, and integrated economy. Legal scholars are sharply divided both over the substance of those arguments and the extent to which they should dominate economic considerations or statutory language in what is, after all, a large universe of highly particular, industry- or area-specific preemption arrangements. Most scholars agree, however, that preemption law--especially the federal courts' muddled doctrine in this field--merits a serious re-examination.

AEI's two-day conference, organized by Richard A. Epstein of the University of Chicago Law School and Michael S. Greve, the John G. Searle Scholar at AEI, will provide a forum for such re-examination. Leading legal scholars and practicing attorneys will discuss in panels various facets of preemption law, including its constitutional backdrop; its trajectory over the past two centuries; its present contours and economic implications in such areas as network industries, environmental law, financial and securities regulation, and pharmaceuticals; and its prospects in light of recent developments in Congress, regulatory agencies, the states, and the courts.

Seating for the conference and the conference dinner, featuring a keynote address by Kenneth W. Starr, will be limited.

For more conference information, including additional articles on preemption, please visit www.federalismproject.org/preemption.

THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 2006

2:00 p.m.	Registration
2:15	Welcome
	Speaker:	Richard A. Epstein, University of Chicago Law School
2:30	Panel I	Constitutional Foundations
	Panelists:	Viet Dinh, Georgetown University Law Center
		Michael S. Greve, AEI
	Moderator:	Nelson Lund, George Mason University School of Law
4:00	Break
4:15	Panel II	The Progressives, the Lochner Court, and the New Deal
	Panelists:	Stephen Gardbaum, UCLA School of Law
		Samuel Issacharoff, New York University School of Law
		Catherine Sharkey, Columbia University School of Law
	Moderator:	Mark Tushnet, Georgetown University School of Law
6:30	Dinner and Keynote Address
	Introduction:	Christopher DeMuth, AEI
	Speaker:	Kenneth W. Starr, Pepperdine University School of Law

FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 2006

8:30 a.m.	Breakfast
9:00	Panel III	Modern Preemption Regimes: Financial and Network Industries
	Panelists:	Richard A. Epstein, University of Chicago Law School
		Randal Picker, University of Chicago Law School
	Moderator:	The Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
10:30	Break
10:45	Panel IV	Modern Preemption Regimes: Environment, Health, and Safety
	Panelists:	Coleen Klasmeier, Sidley Austin
		Thomas W. Merrill, Columbia University Law School
		Daniel Troy, Sidley Austin
12:15	Moderator:   Luncheon	Alan Untereiner, Robbins Russell
12:30 p.m.	Panel V	Federalism, Politics, and Preemption
	Panelists:	Anne Van Aacken, Max Planck Institute
		Robert Gasaway, Kirkland & Ellis
		Ashley Parrish, Kirkland & Ellis
		Ernest A. Young, University of Texas School of Law
	Moderator:	The Honorable Stephen F. Williams, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
2:30	Closing Remarks
	Speaker:	Richard A. Epstein, University of Chicago Law School