this appeal presents a narrow question did section two of the fair sentencing act modify the statutory penalties for hogsheads statute of conviction possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine the answer is yes and i'd like to cover three points to explain why st the meaning of the word modified back in this court's precedent in shaw and hudson and finally why this court should follow the reasoning of the st and th circuits in smith and woodson not the rd circuit in bert's the meaning of the word modified when section two raise the threshold crack cocaine grades associated with a forty one dollars b one a and b one b s penalty is necessarily raised the weight associated with the onesies penalty so in other specified quantities of more than five times that amount of to twenty eight gram are penalize by p one c and that is the modification provision was modified congress could have said so similarly if the st step act was concerned primarily with mandatory minimums congress would have indicated us much but section two is not aimed at doing away with or lowering the mandatory minimum or the or the a put the ball ranges a five to four years or ten to life instead it addresses the a valid concern and the reason is because section two of the fair sentencing act which is what you know is is doing the modifying in the st st that only changed the weights associated with crack cocaine in a brain one b s penalty subsections so there really is no danger that this would apply to any other substances other than crack the th circuit and was and has described what is meant by the modification to the statutory penalties there is a recognition that when congress said modification or modify modified the statutory penalties i  but to do that you've got a you've got a bend the text a little bit well i don't disagree that you have to bend the text because again as i said if congress had intended to limit section t only to be one a and b one b it could have said so it could have said the tax of the statutory penalties of which was modified instead of saying the statutory penalties of which were penalize under p one c they didn't just evaporate or cease to be penalize in some way they came within the ambit of the one c and under shot and hudson that inquiry is whether statute the penalties of that statute of conviction were changed not what happened to individual to spending and some hypothetical where st they're convicted before twenty and then you know what would have happened with their conduct with the quantity with which they were charged after twenty and sure didn't say anything about and when she was modified right shot does not speak but under the ordinary meaning of the word modified again as of a transformation is not required it is a change however slight and when congress raised that feeling pardon me when it raised the floor a court needs to look only at the defendant's statute of conviction not to the quantities of crack involved in the offense and in the adopting that straightforward categorical approach the court rejected the government's position that courts should instead look at each defendant's conduct to determine whether they are eligible for the review allowed by the st death act the that issue here arguing that the court should look to whether individual defendants sentenced before two thousand and ten would be subject to the same penalty subsection now and that is the effects test is laid out in birth in the rd circuit and it would mark a departure from what this court said in shock it is also not with the st step act instr and this this court decided hudson and hudson underscores the importance of not imposing those extra textual limitations on the st step ex a quick ability such as  the mandatory minimum issue raised by the government in this case judges and may have pleased the court's peter reid for the united states i'd like to start my addressing judge kane's questions about shaw that address judge hamilton's questions about the text or for finishing up by addressing the four circuits arguments and woodson and woodson's reasoning is contrary to this court's precedent in the st mr shaw shocks plain that when analyzing whether there is a covered offense you st identify the cut the statute of conviction  b one c offenses there is not a single instance changed it's possible that you'll be subject to a different statutory penalty well but only by changing the statute conviction i don't mean to quibble but my problem is we're always being told to pay such close attention to statutory text sure that if i were to do that closely here i would conclude that the fear that the st up act had no effect on any were b or c because the penalty provisions remain the same now that's obviously a wrong answer but it's a wrong answer to current to correct that i have to spend a little time before and after passage of the fair sentencing act not a single one and the reason for this is pretty simple the onesies statutory penalties there's no mandatory minimum there's no way for the for congress to have modified down the  to apply a ladder of penalties for crack crimes you know that really the whole the whole latter was affected any not zero to twenty eight grams under b one c and i think that reflects this court's precedent from there let you thousands and jones and the kotto which said look you don't need to prove drug quantity under b one  so i don't think it's quite right to say that b one c is modified and that kind of latter like fashion because that's the way this court has read it once in the past and the nd reason your honor i did that i think the th circuit's reasoning errors is even if you think that the drug funny element in c has also been modified that doesn't really answer the question that we're asking here today which is ten but it's not the same for b one c for pure one c if that was your stashing a conviction before twenty ton then yes your stats try penalties are exactly the same before and after twenty time nothing has changed because  is already has your own mandatory minimum or a zero statutory minimum with my remaining time i'd like to address a question about the that's the st circuits alternative argument which is that view one c does not have to be modified at all i think that this is simply incorrect you have to have a modification to be onesies statutory penalties in order for there to be a covered offense and there are two reasons for this the st is that if b one is alone is considered the statute of conviction that statute covers all sorts of different drug offenses you have to look at the specific provision in the one  determine whether you really have whether there's really been a modification section here and i think opposing counsel agreed with this and her response the same question because when you look at section two of the fair sentencing act it modified provisions in the one you have to determine whether those provisions the ones that were modified in section two are actually implicated by the statute of conviction in this case and the answer is no  tantalized by a forty one dollars being one c and that tracks with the language of the st step act which talks about a violation of a federal criminal statute the statutory penalties of which were modified by section t or section three next i'd like to address a question judge himself in that you had raised about what congress was trying to get x and i think on that point it's helpful to look at the title of both section two and section three in the beefier sentencing act section two is titled cocaine sentencing disparity and reduction section three is titled elimination of mandatory minimum sentence for simple minimums finally the government's insistence that there is something in either of these acts about the elements of the offense is simply wrong and that is not found in the past and where i see that my time expired so i would ask this court to vacate the district court's order and remand with instructions to determine whether to exercise its discretion to impose a reduced sentence under the st step back and