Safari reopens last open tabs?
Solution 1:
This is a new feature in Mac OS X Lion. See here (Resume).
You can disable this in System Preferences > General
and untick the "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps, but will be system wide.
Another solution is to hold ⌥ Option+⌘ Command+Q when quitting, the app will then not save the state.
Solution 2:
In case you didn't have the foresight to shut down with a special command, you can always hold down Shift when starting Safari (or any other Resume-able app) to prevent it from restoring the previous state.
Solution 3:
In addition to the great ⌥ Option+⌘ Command+Q tip, another way to think about it: If you always close all your tabs (⌘ Command+W) before you quit, there won't be any state to save. Then when you restart Safari, you'll get your preference of a blank page, home page, etc.
Solution 4:
Note that as per this other answer to a similar question, is is actually possible to disable resume on a per-app basis, forcing Safari to start with a new window and as such take your 'empty page' preference into account.