Interpretation ID: aiam2172
Assistant General Counsel
General Motors Corporation
General Motors Building
Detroit
Michigan 48202;
Dear Mr. Allen: This is in response to your letter of December 2, 1975, asking thi agency's opinion as to whether Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 115, *Vehicle Identification Number*, would preempt any differing State law or regulation specifying the content of a vehicle identification number. You asked the question in the context of a vehicle equipment Safety Commission action recommending such a regulation to the States.; Standard No. 115 requires a vehicle identification that is unique to manufacturer during any ten-year period. It does not specify the length or the content of the number. The question, therefore, becomes whether the Federal safety standard on vehicle identification numbers was intended generally to cover all aspects of those numbers, and preempt any differing State rules, analogously to the situation in which Standard 108 was held to be preemptive in *Motorcycle Industry Council v. Younger*, No. CIV S74-126 (E. D. Cal. 1974). The guiding rule, as set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in *Florida Lime & Avocado Growers v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 141-142 (1963), is 'whether both regulations can be enforced without impairing federal superintendence of the field.' Under the accepted doctrines as set forth in cases such as *Thorpe v. Housing Authority of Durham*, 393 U.S. 268 (1969), and *Chrysler v. Tofany*, 419 F.2d 499, 511-12 (2d Cir. 1969), the interpretation of this question by the administering agency is 'of controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation.'; The NHTSA has determined that the safety standard on vehicl identification numbers, No. 115, is intended to cover all aspects of vehicle identification numbering relative to the vehicles to which it applies, and that any aspects for which there are no specific requirements were intended by this agency to be left to the discretion of the manufacturers. State regulations differing from the Federal standard on this subject are found to 'impair the federal superintendence of the field,' within the meaning of the *Florida Lime* doctrine, and any such State regulation would be preempted under section 103(d), 15 U.S.C. 1392(d).; Sincerely, Frank A. Berndt, Acting Chief Counsel