In the past eight years, federal agencies preempted laws across a wide range of areas - health, safety, and environmental regulations as well as financial and consumer protections.
"We're saying no more of that approach," said Kenneth Baer, communications director at the White House Office of Management and Budget. "We're going back to making it clearer and more orderly and more defensible under the law."
In a memo to government department heads, Obama said that preemption of state law should be undertaken only with full consideration of the legitimate prerogatives of the states.
During President George W. Bush's second term, more than 50 federal regulations were proposed or adopted that included language to limit state lawsuits.
Decried by consumer advocates and embraced by industry, the Bush administration's rule-making authority represented its final act in a long-standing drive to shield companies from large lawsuits.
The Obama administration has "overturned actions taken by Bush administration bureaucrats who were influenced by powerful, well-connected corporations," said Les Weisbrod, president of the American Association for Justice, which represents trial lawyers around the country.
