escrow accounts. The Flagg court extensively discussed the OTS’s authority to promulgate 12 C.F.R. § 560.2, and concluded that the preemption regulation was well within HOLA’s broad grant of authority to the OTS. Id. at 183-84. According to the court in Flagg, 12 C.F.R. § 560.2 reflects Congress’s goal of “provid[ing] a consistent nationwide playing field while giving individual institutions a level of flexibility.” Id. at 184. As Flagg makes clear, the OTS possessed the authority to promulgate 12 C.F.R. § 560.2 for the purpose of preempting state laws that the agency believes burden the ability of federal savings associations to exercise their federally-granted powers free from burdensome state regulation. See id. at 183; see also de la Cuesta, 458 U.S. at 153-54, 102 S.Ct. 3014 (<HOLDING>). a. The Applicability of 12 C.F.R. § 560.2 The
holding that where a regulation could not fairly be read to have spoken at all on an issue an agencys proposed interpretation of the regulation as it pertained to that issue was not a reasonable interpretation of the regulation recognizing that when an agency promulgates a regulation that is intended to preempt state law the regulation should not be disturbed unless there is evidence that it is contrary to congressional intent holding that a secretarys interpretation of a departments regulation is controlling unless plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation recognizing that a treaty is a supreme law of the land and therefore generally not subject to state regulation absent congressional cessation holding that ojrdinarily when a regulation is not promulgated in compliance with the apa the regulation is invalid however when equity demands the regulation can be left in place while the agency follows the necessary procedures citation omitted