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II
Article VI, cl. 2, of the Constitution provides that the laws of the United States “shall be the supreme Law of the Land; . . . any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding.” Consistent with that command, we have long recognized that state laws that conflict with federal law are “without effect.” Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 746 (1981) .
Our inquiry into the scope of a statute’s pre-emptive effect is guided by the rule that “ ‘[t]he purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone’ in every pre-emption case.” Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U. S. 470, 485 (1996) (quoting Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 375 U. S. 96, 103 (1963) ). Congress may indicate pre-emptive intent through a statute’s express language or through its structure and purpose. See Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U. S. 519, 525 (1977) . If a federal law contains an express pre-emption clause, it does not immediately end the inquiry because the question of the substance and scope of Congress’ displacement of state law still remains. Pre-emptive intent may also be inferred if the scope of the statute indicates that Congress intended federal law to occupy the legislative field, or if there is an actual conflict between state and federal law. Freightliner Corp. v. Myrick, 514 U. S. 280, 287 (1995) .
When addressing questions of express or implied pre-emption, we begin our analysis “with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States [are] not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.” Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947) . That assumption applies with particular force when Congress has legislated in a field traditionally occupied by the States. Lohr, 518 U. S., at 485; see also Reilly, 533 U. S., at 541–542 (“Because ‘federal law is said to bar state action in [a] fiel[d] of traditional state regulation,’ namely, advertising, we ‘wor[k] on the assumption that the historic police powers of the States [a]re not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that [is] the clear and manifest purpose of Congress’ ” (citation omitted)). Thus, when the text of a pre-emption clause is susceptible of more than one plausible reading, courts ordinarily “accept the reading that disfavors pre-emption.” Bates v. Dow Agrosciences LLC, 544 U. S. 431, 449 (2005) .
Congress enacted the Labeling Act in 19653in response to the Surgeon General’s determination that cigarette smoking is harmful to health. The Act required that every package of cigarettes sold in the United States contain a conspicuous warning, and it pre-empted state-law positive enactments that added to the federally prescribed warning. 79 Stat. 283. Congress amended the Labeling Act a few years later by enacting the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969.4The amendments strengthened the language of the prescribed warning, 84 Stat. 88, and prohibited cigarette advertising in “any medium of electronic communication subject to [FCC] jurisdiction,” id., at 89. They also broadened the Labeling Act’s pre-emption provision. See Cipollone, 505 U. S., at 520 (plurality opinion) (discussing the difference in scope of the pre-emption clauses of the 1965 and 1969 Acts). The Labeling Act has since been amended further to require cigarette manufacturers to include four more explicit warnings in their packaging and advertisements on a rotating basis.5
The stated purpose of the Labeling Act is
“to establish a comprehensive Federal program to deal with cigarette labeling and advertising with respect to any relationship between smoking and health, whereby—
“(1) the public may be adequately informed that cigarette smoking may be hazardous to health by inclusion of a warning to that effect on each package of cigarettes; and
“(2) commerce and the national economy may be (A) protected to the maximum extent consistent with this declared policy and (B) not impeded by diverse, nonuniform, and confusing cigarette labeling and advertising regulations with respect to any relationship between smoking and health.” 79 Stat. 282, 15 U. S. C. §1331.
The requirement that cigarette manufacturers include in their packaging and advertising the precise warnings mandated by Congress furthers the Act’s first purpose. And the Act’s pre-emption provisions promote its second purpose.
As amended, the Labeling Act contains two express pre-emption provisions. Section 5(a) protects cigarette manufacturers from inconsistent state labeling laws by prohibiting the requirement of additional statements relating to smoking and health on cigarette packages. 15 U. S. C. §1334(a). Section 5(b), which is at issue in this case, provides that “[n]o requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health shall be imposed under State law with respect to the advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of this chapter.” §1334(b).
Together, the labeling requirement and pre-emption provisions express Congress’ determination that the prescribed federal warnings are both necessary and sufficient to achieve its purpose of informing the public of the health consequences of smoking. Because Congress has decided that no additional warning statement is needed to attain that goal, States may not impede commerce in cigarettes by enforcing rules that are based on an assumption that the federal warnings are inadequate. Although both of the Act’s purposes are furthered by prohibiting States from supplementing the federally prescribed warning, neither would be served by limiting the States’ authority to prohibit deceptive statements in cigarette advertising. Petitioners acknowledge that “Congress had no intention of insulating tobacco companies from liability for inaccurate statements about the relationship between smoking and health.” Brief for Petitioners 28. But they maintain that Congress could not have intended to permit the enforcement of state fraud rules because doing so would defeat the Labeling Act’s purpose of preventing nonuniform state warning requirements. 15 U. S. C. §1331. 6As we observed in Cipollone, however, fraud claims “rely only on a single, uniform standard: falsity.” 505 U. S., at 529 (plurality opinion).
Although it is clear that fidelity to the Act’s purposes does not demand the pre-emption of state fraud rules, the principal question that we must decide is whether the text of §1334(b) nevertheless requires that result.
III
We have construed the operative phrases of §1334(b) in two prior cases: Cipollone, 505 U. S. 504 , and Reilly, 533 U. S. 525 . On both occasions we recognized that the phrase “based on smoking and health” modifies the state-law rule at issue rather than a particular application of that rule.
In Cipollone, the plurality, which consisted of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices White, O’Connor, and Stevens, read the pre-emption provision in the 1969 amendments to the Labeling Act to pre-empt common-law rules as well as positive enactments. Unlike Justices Blackmun, Kennedy, and Souter, the plurality concluded that the provision does not preclude all common-law claims that have some relationship to smoking and health. 505 U. S., at 521–523. To determine whether a particular common-law claim is pre-empted, the plurality inquired “whether the legal duty that is the predicate of the common-law damages action constitutes a ‘requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health … with respect to … advertising or promotion,’ giving that clause a fair but narrow reading.” Id., at 524.
Applying this standard, the plurality held that the plaintiff’s claim that cigarette manufacturers had fraudulently misrepresented and concealed a material fact was not pre-empted. That claim alleged a violation of the manufacturers’ duty not to deceive—a duty that is not “based on” smoking and health. Id., at 528–529. Respondents in this case also allege a violation of the duty not to deceive as that duty is codified in the MUTPA. The duty codified in that state statute, like the duty imposed by the state common-law rule at issue in Cipollone, has nothing to do with smoking and health. 7
Petitioners endeavor to distance themselves from that holding by arguing that respondents’ claim is more analogous to the “warning neutralization” claim found to be pre-empted in Cipollone. Although the plurality understood the plaintiff to have presented that claim as a “theory of fraudulent misrepresentation,” id., at 528, the gravamen of the claim was the defendants’ failure to warn, as it was “predicated on a state-law prohibition against statements in advertising and promotional materials that tend to minimize the health hazards associated with smoking,” id., at 527. Thus understood, the Cipollone plurality’s analysis of the warning neutralization claim has no application in this case.8
Petitioners nonetheless contend that respondents’ claim is like the pre-empted warning neutralization claim because it is based on statements that “might create a false impression” rather than statements that are “inherently false.” Brief for Petitioners 39. But the extent of the falsehood alleged does not alter the nature of the claim. Nothing in the Labeling Act’s text or purpose or in the plurality opinion in Cipollone suggests that whether a claim is pre-empted turns in any way on the distinction between misleading and inherently false statements. Petitioners’ misunderstanding is the same one that led the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, when confronted with a “light” descriptors claim, to reach a result at odds with the Court of Appeals’ decision in this case. See Brown,479 F. 3d, at 391–393. Certainly, the extent of the falsehood alleged may bear on whether a plaintiff can prove her fraud claim, but the merits of respondents’ claim are not before us.
Once that erroneous distinction is set aside, it is clear that our holding in Cipollone that the common-law fraud claim was not pre-empted is directly applicable to the statutory claim at issue in this case. As was true of the claim in Cipollone, respondents’ claim that the deceptive statements “light” and “lowered tar and nicotine” induced them to purchase petitioners’ product alleges a breach of the duty not to deceive.9To be sure, the presence of the federally mandated warnings may bear on the materiality of petitioners’ allegedly fraudulent statements, “but that possibility does not change [respondents’] case from one about the statements into one about the warnings.” 501 F. 3d, at 44. 10
Our decision in Reilly is consistent with Cipollone’s analysis. Reilly involved regulations promulgated by the Massachusetts attorney general “ ‘in order to address the incidence of cigarette smoking and smokeless tobacco use by children under legal age … [and] in order to prevent access to such products by underage customers.’ ” 533 U. S., at 533 (quoting 940 Code Mass. Regs. §21.01 (2000)). The regulations did not pertain to the content of any advertising; rather, they placed a variety of restrictions on certain cigarette sales and the location of outdoor and point-of-sale cigarette advertising. The attorney general promulgated those restrictions pursuant to his statutory authority to prevent unfair or deceptive trade practices. Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 93A, §2 (West 1996). But although the attorney general’s authority derived from a general deceptive practices statute like the one at issue in this case, the challenged regulations targeted advertising that tended to promote tobacco use by children instead of prohibiting false or misleading statements. Thus, whereas the “prohibition” in Cipollone was the common-law fraud rule, the “prohibitions” in Reilly were the targeted regulations. Accordingly, our holding in Reilly that the regulations were pre-empted provides no support for an argument that a general prohibition of deceptive practices is “based on” the harm caused by the specific kind of deception to which the prohibition is applied in a given case. It is true, as petitioners argue, that the appeal of their advertising is based on the relationship between smoking and health. And although respondents have expressly repudiated any claim for damages for personal injuries, see App. 26a, their actual injuries likely encompass harms to health as well as the monetary injuries they allege. These arguments are unavailing, however, because the text of §1334(b) does not refer to harms related to smoking and health. Rather, it pre-empts only requirements and prohibitions—i.e., rules—that are based on smoking and health. The MUTPA says nothing about either “smoking” or “health.” It is a general rule that creates a duty not to deceive and is therefore unlike the regulations at issue in Reilly.11
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