A federal appeals court today will hear arguments on whether New York State can force airlines to provide passengers with cups of water, air-conditioning, and working restrooms during long delays on the tarmac.

The state law containing the requirements was passed last year after reports in February that passengers had been stranded on planes at John F. Kennedy International Airport for more than nine hours. Supporters of the recent state law describe it as requiring just the bare, basic human necessities.

“This is simply to ensure that airline passengers are treated better than prisoners of war,” one of the law’s sponsors, Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, a Democrat of Queens, said.

The airline industry calls the law an illegal attempt by a state to regulate an industry that is subject only to federal regulation.

Allowing New York’s law, the Air Transport Association of America argues in a brief, is an invitation to other states or cities to pass laws requiring airlines to provide “more onerous” requirements that would prove costly. The association warns that if New York’s law is upheld, other states could require airlines to provide vegetarian meals, minimum-legroom standards, and oversize restrooms to accommodate the disabled.

The Air Transport Association lost the first round in the litigation last December when a federal judge in Albany, Lawrence Kahn, upheld New York’s law. The judge found that the state has authority to regulate in the “field of health and safety” that is not preempted by federal regulations.

Veterans of President Clinton’s Justice Department will argue the case today before a panel of judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The airline industry’s position will be argued by a former U.S. solicitor general, Seth Waxman, who is now in the Washington office of the law firm Wilmer Hale.

Attorney General Cuomo’s solicitor general, Barbara Underwood, will argue for the state. She was Mr. Waxman’s deputy in the solicitor general’s office and served briefly as acting solicitor general during President Bush’s first term.

Other states, including Michigan and Washington, as well as Congress, are currently considering bills similar to New York’s. Washington’s bill provides a financial reward to passengers delayed more than 12 hours.

New York’s law requires planes grounded for more than three hours to provide fresh air, lights, food, and water, and to change the rest rooms’ holding tanks if needed. The law allows the attorney general’s office to impose a $1,000 penalty for each violation per passenger.

A recent Supreme Court ruling bodes poorly for the state law. Last month the high court ruled that federal law preempted a Maine law that required truckers to take steps to ensure they didn’t deliver tobacco purchased through online vendors. The Supreme Court ruled that federal regulations of the trucking industry preempted the state law, which is the precise issue in the airlines case being heard today.

The judges hearing today’s arguments are Richard Wesley, Debra Livingston, and Brian Cogan.