Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05281/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05281-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 891
Nature of Suit: Agricultural Acts
Cause of Action: 

---

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 9, 2014 Decided March 28, 2014 

No. 13-5281 

AMERICAN MEAT INSTITUTE, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS

v. 

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, ET AL., 

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:13-cv-01033) 

Catherine E. Stetson argued the cause for appellants. 

With her on the briefs were Jonathan L. Abram, Judith E. 

Coleman, Mary Helen Wimberly, and Elizabeth B. Prelogar. 

Daniel Tenny, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were 

Stuart F. Delery, Assistant Attorney General, Ronald C. 

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Mark B. Stern, Attorney. 

Terence P. Stewart was on the brief for intervenors 

United States Cattlemen’s Association, et al. in support of 

appellees. 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 1 of 15
2

Zachary B. Corrigan was on the brief for amici curiae

Food and Water Watch, Inc., et al. in support of appellees. 

Jonathan R. Lovvorn and Aaron D. Green were on the 

brief for amicus curiae American Grassfed Association, et al. 

in support of appellees.

Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, SRINIVASAN, Circuit 

Judge, and WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS. 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: In 2013 the 

Agricultural Marketing Service (“AMS”), a branch of the 

Department of Agriculture, adopted a rule modifying its prior 

rule implementing Congress’s requirements of country-oforigin labeling (“COOL”). Mandatory Country of Origin 

Labeling, 78 Fed. Reg. 31,367 (May 24, 2013) (“2013 rule”). 

The rule requires retailers of “muscle cuts” of meat, i.e., 

covered meat other than ground meat (which is governed by 7 

U.S.C. § 1638a(a)(2)(E)), to list (with some qualifications) the 

countries of origin and production steps—born, raised or 

slaughtered—occurring in each country. Id. at 31,367/3. The 

AMS’s previous rule had merely required a list of the 

countries of origin (again with some qualifications) preceded 

by the phrase “Product of.” Mandatory Country of Origin 

Labeling, 74 Fed. Reg. 2658, 2706 (Jan. 15, 2009) (“2009 

rule”). The 2013 rule also eliminated the prior rule’s 

allowance for commingling—a practice by which cuts from 

animals of different origins, but processed on the same day, 

could all bear identical labels. 

The appellants, a group of trade associations representing 

livestock producers, feedlot operators, and meat packers, 

whom we’ll collectively call American Meat Institute 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 2 of 15
3

(“AMI”), challenged the 2013 rule in district court as a 

violation of the COOL statute and the First Amendment. AMI 

moved for a preliminary injunction halting enforcement, and 

the district court denied the motion. Agreeing with the district 

court that AMI is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its 

claims, and believing that any error in the district court’s 

balancing of the other factors governing issuance of a 

preliminary injunction could not on these facts outweigh the 

likely outcome on the merits, we affirm. 

* * * 

 The COOL statute, 7 U.S.C. § 1638a, adopted in 2008, 

assigns retailers an obligation to inform consumers of a cut’s 

country of origin. This may be quite complicated where an 

animal was born, raised, and slaughtered in more than one 

country. Id. § 1638a(a)(2). The statute sets forth four 

categories of muscle-cut meat and how to determine the 

country of origin depending on the locale of the production 

steps: 

(A) United States country of origin[.] A retailer . . . may 

designate the covered commodity as exclusively having a 

United States country of origin only if the covered 

commodity is derived from an animal that was . . . 

exclusively born, raised, and slaughtered in the United 

States . . . . 

(B) Multiple countries of origin[.] A retailer of a covered 

commodity . . . that is derived from an animal that is (I) 

not exclusively born, raised, and slaughtered in the 

United States; (II) born, raised, or slaughtered in the 

United States, and (III) not imported into the United 

States for immediate slaughter, may designate the country 

of origin of such covered commodity as all of the 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 3 of 15
4

countries in which the animal may have been born, 

raised, or slaughtered. 

(C) Imported for immediate slaughter[.] A retailer of a 

covered commodity . . . that is derived from an animal 

that is imported into the United States for immediate 

slaughter shall designate the origin . . . as . . . the country 

from which the animal was imported; and . . . the United 

States. 

(D) Foreign country of origin[.] A retailer of a covered 

commodity . . . that is derived from an animal that is not 

born, raised, or slaughtered in the United States shall 

designate a country other than the United States as the 

country of origin . . . . 

Id. (emphases added). The parties call meat covered by 

§ 1638a(a)(2)(A) “Category A meat,” that covered by 

§ 1638a(a)(2)(B) “Category B meat,” and so on. The COOL 

statute also requires the Secretary of Agriculture to 

“promulgate such regulations as are necessary to implement” 

the statutory regime. Id. § 1638c(b). 

 The 2009 rule did not demand explicit identification of 

the country for each of the three production steps—born, 

raised and slaughtered. It called more simply for labeling 

with a phrase starting “Product of,” followed by mention of 

one or more countries. 7 C.F.R. § 65.400 (2010). So 

Category A meat would be labeled, “Product of the United 

States”; Category B meat would be labeled, “Product of the 

United States and X”; Category C meat would be labeled, 

“Product of X and the United States”; and Category D meat 

would be labeled “Product of X.” See id.; see also id. 

§ 65.300 (2010). 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 4 of 15
5

The 2009 rule also made allowance for a production 

practice known as “commingling.” This occurs when a firm 

processes meat from animals with different countries of origin 

on a single production day. 7 C.F.R. § 65.300(e)(2), (e)(4) 

(2010). The rule allowed retailers to label commingled meat 

cuts with all the countries of origin for all the commingled 

animals. As a result, Category A meat processed on the same 

day as Category B or C meat could be labeled “Product of 

United States and X.” Id. 

In the year of the 2009 rule’s adoption, Canada and 

Mexico filed a complaint with the Dispute Settlement Body of 

the World Trade Organization, which found the rule to be in 

violation of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to 

Trade. 2013 rule, 78 Fed. Reg. at 31,367/2. The gravamen of 

the WTO’s ruling appears to have been an objection to the 

relative imprecision of the information required by the 2009 

rule. See Appellate Body Report, United States—Certain 

Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) Requirements, ¶ 343, 

WT/DS384/AB/R (Jun. 29, 2012). A WTO arbitrator gave 

the United States until May 23, 2013, to bring its COOL 

requirements into compliance with the ruling. 2013 rule, 78 

Fed. Reg. at 31,367/2. 

 The 2013 rule increased the required level of precision. 

Now, except for Category D meat, each country of origin 

would generally be preceded by the production step that 

occurred in that country. Id. at 31,385/3. For instance, 

instead of saying, “Product of the United States,” a label for 

Category A meat will now read, “Born, Raised, and 

Slaughtered in the United States.” Id. Similarly, Category B 

meat might now have to be labeled, “Born in X, Raised and 

Slaughtered in the United States,” and Category C meat “Born 

and Raised in X, Slaughtered in the United States.” Id. The 

2013 rule also eliminated the special allowance for 

commingled meat. Id. at 31,367/3. 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 5 of 15
6

AMI challenged the 2013 rule in district court as (1) 

exceeding the authority granted by the COOL statute, and (2) 

violating the First Amendment. AMI also moved for a 

preliminary injunction halting enforcement of the 2013 rule, 

which the district court denied. AMI contends on appeal to us 

that the district court erred in its determination that AMI is 

unlikely to succeed on the merits of either claim. We review 

questions of law—AMI’s substantive claims—de novo. 

Sherley v. Sebelius, 644 F.3d 388, 393 (D.C. Cir. 2011). 

Because we disagree with AMI on its chances of success on 

the merits, we affirm the district court. 

* * * 

At oral argument the question arose whether AMI has 

standing to raise its claims. None of the appellants is a 

retailer, the type of market actor expressly covered by the bulk 

of the COOL requirements. See 7 U.S.C. § 1638a(a). But 

§ 1638a(e) requires that upstream producers “provide 

information to the retailer indicating the country of origin of 

the covered commodity.” In effect, then, the appellants are 

required to make the same disclosures that retailers are, only 

to a different recipient. Accordingly, we are satisfied that the 

challenged regulations inflict on AMI the sort of injury-in-fact 

needed for Article III standing. See Lujan v. Defenders of 

Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). 

We thus turn to AMI’s arguments as to why the COOL 

statute does not authorize the 2013 rule: (1) the rule “bans” 

commingling, and therefore alters production practices over 

which the COOL statute gives the Secretary no authority; and 

(2) production-step labeling is both outside of and contrary to 

the plain language of the COOL statute. We are not 

persuaded. 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 6 of 15
7

AMI’s argument that the rule unlawfully “bans” 

commingling fails at a key first step—the 2013 rule does not 

actually ban any element of the production process. It simply 

requires that meat cuts be accurately labeled with the three 

phases of production named in the statute. It appears that 

under current practices meat packers cannot achieve that 

degree of accuracy with commingled production. The 

necessary changes to production are, to be sure, costly for the 

packers, but, contrary to AMI’s claim, the new rule does not 

“force the segregated handling of animals with varying 

geographical histories,” except in the sense that compliance 

with any regulation may induce changes in unregulated 

production techniques that a profit-seeking producer would 

not otherwise make. 

This practical burden on an existing practice would be 

problematic if the statute required an exception for the 

practice. But AMI points, at most, to a statutory ambiguity on 

the issue of commingling. AMI contends that since 

§ 1638a(a)(2)(B)(i) allows retailers to designate “all of the 

countries in which the animal may have been born, raised, or 

slaughtered” (emphasis added), the statute expressly 

contemplates an allowance, where animals processed in a 

single day have traversed different countries, for listing all 

such countries, as did the 2009 rule. Although the use of 

“may have been” in § 1638a(a)(2)(B)(i) is perhaps ambiguous, 

it by no means renders the absence of a commingling 

allowance unreasonable. In a section dealing with ground 

meat Congress expressly authorized retailers to provide “a list 

of all reasonably possible countries of origin.” Id. 

§ 1638a(a)(2)(E). This at least hints at the kind of flexibility 

AMI desires—in a different context. In contrast, Category 

B’s use of the words “may have been” appears next to 

references to “an” animal and “the” animal. See id. 

§ 1638a(a)(2)(B)(i). Congress’s use of singular articles 

certainly supports the agency’s reading of the statute as 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 7 of 15
8

allowing it to require labels reflecting the origin of the actual 

animal from which a cut derives, rather than just the origin of 

any animals that may have been processed on the same day. 

We return to AMI’s use of the “may have been” language in 

connection with its next argument—the only one in which it 

actually relies on “may have been.” 

AMI also contends that the entire production-step 

labeling regime—the rule’s requirement that each animal have 

what AMI calls a “passport”—is inconsistent with the statute. 

First, AMI argues that the statute authorizes the agency only 

to require a list of the countries of origin, not a breakdown of 

which production step occurred where. But the statute 

ubiquitously invokes distinctions between three phases of 

production—where the animal from which a cut derives was 

born, raised, and slaughtered—so that the agency’s choice to 

require labels linking each step to the relevant country appears 

reasonable. 

Second, AMI contends the regulations are in direct 

conflict with what it views to be permissive language 

regarding Category B meat: a retailer “may designate the 

country of origin . . . as all of the countries in which the 

animal may have been born, raised, or slaughtered.” 

§ 1638a(a)(2)(B)(i) (emphases added). But the next 

subparagraph, § 1638a(a)(2)(B)(ii), reminds the reader that 

“nothing in [subparagraph (i)] alters the mandatory 

requirement to inform consumers of the country of origin of 

covered commodities under [§ 1638a(a)(1)].” With that in 

mind, it seems a stretch to read the “may” and “may have 

been” language as either rendering compliance with 

subsection B permissive (which even AMI seems not to 

advocate) or assuring producers that they may mingle their 

cattle in a such a way that they can only guess at a particular 

animal’s migrations. 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 8 of 15
9

The agency does in fact allow leeway within category B. 

If an animal is raised in the United States as well as 

another country (or multiple countries), the raising 

occurring in the other country (or countries) may be 

omitted from the origin designation except if the 

animal was imported for immediate slaughter as 

defined in § 65.180 or where by doing so the muscle 

cut covered commodity would be designated as having 

a United States country of origin (e.g., “Born in 

Country X, Raised and Slaughtered in the United 

States” in lieu of “Born and Raised in Country X, 

Raised in Country Y, Raised and Slaughtered in the 

United States”). 

2013 rule, 78 Fed. Reg. at 31,385/3 (quoting 7 C.F.R. 

§ 65.300(e) as amended by the 2013 rule). It thus assures 

flexibility, bounded mainly by precluding attribution entirely 

to the United States in cases where another country has also 

played a role in the three-step process. Despite AMI’s two 

objections, AMS’s interpretation of the statute is a reasonable 

one, and thus entitled to be upheld. See Entergy Corp. v. 

Riverkeeper, Inc., 556 U.S. 208, 218 (2009); Am. Elec. Power 

Serv. Corp. v. FCC, 708 F.3d 183, 186 (D.C. Cir. 2013). 

* * * 

AMI argues that compulsion to make the disclosures 

required by the 2013 rule violates its First Amendment rights. 

Its first step in this contention is that we should apply the 

general test for commercial speech formulated in Central 

Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission, 

447 U.S. 557, 566 (1980), rather than that of Zauderer v. 

Office of Disciplinary Counsel, 471 U.S. 626, 651 (1985), a 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 9 of 15
10

standard that applies only to requirements that a commercial 

actor disclose factual and non-controversial information. 

To begin, all parties agree that the rule involves 

commercial speech. In addition, it restricts speech only in the 

sense of requiring a disclosure, a prerequisite to invoking 

Zauderer. See id. at 650-51. Finally, the disclosure is purely 

factual and non-controversial. Unlike the challengers in 

United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U.S. 405, 411 (2001), 

or R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. FDA, 696 F.3d 1205, 1212, 

1216-17 (D.C. Cir. 2012), AMI has not articulated an 

objection to the content of the message conveyed by the 

mandated speech. While it has objected to the term 

“slaughtered,” it has not expressed any problem with the 

euphemism that the 2013 rule allows retailers to substitute—

“harvested.” 78 Fed. Reg. at 31,368/2. 

AMI invokes International Dairy Foods Association v. 

Amestoy, 92 F.3d 67 (2d Cir. 1996), in which the court 

invalidated a Vermont statute requiring dairy manufacturers to 

disclose treatment of their cows with recombinant Bovine 

Somatotropin (“rBST”), a treatment that the U.S. Food and 

Drug Administration had found to have no significant effect 

on the milk. The government (although disagreeing with the 

case) suggests that the disclosure required there might have 

been seen by consumers “as a concession that the treatment 

might affect the quality of the milk,” Resp. Br. at 31, and thus 

a more significant intrusion on First Amendment rights than 

the disclosure here. Although the government later seeks to 

justify the COOL requirements as possibly reassuring 

consumers who are anxious about potentially lax foreign 

practices, it seems a good deal less likely that consumers 

would draw negative hints from COOL information than from 

the required declarations about use of rBST. Reference to an 

apparently novel additive on milk cartons might well lead to 

an inference that the additive might have a dangerous effect, 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 10 of 15
11

whereas the appearance of countries of origin on packages of 

meat seems susceptible to quite benign inferences, including 

simply that the retailers take pride in identifying the source of 

their products. Accordingly, without resolving whether 

Amestoy was correctly decided, we find it distinguishable and 

(if correct) no obstacle to characterizing the disclosure here as 

purely factual and non-controversial. 

In the case of a rule mandating such a disclosure, 

Zauderer found Central Hudson review—particularly its 

“least restrictive alternative” element—to be unnecessary. 

Zauderer, 471 U.S. at 651 & 651-52 n.14. Reasoning that 

commercial speech warrants protection mainly due to its 

information-producing function, the Supreme Court found that 

a commercial actor has only a “minimal” First Amendment 

interest in not providing purely factual information with 

which the actor does not disagree. Id. at 651. Such mandates 

do not violate an advertiser’s First Amendment rights, it said, 

“as long as disclosure requirements are reasonably related to 

the State’s interest in preventing deception of consumers.” Id. 

AMI would read that formula as excluding all other 

justifying interests. Neither party has called our attention to 

any Supreme Court case extending Zauderer beyond 

mandates correcting deception, and we have found none. 

Other circuits, however, have extended it to, for example, 

government interests in telling buyers that mercury-containing 

light bulbs do contain mercury and may not be disposed of 

until steps have been taken to “ensure that [the mercury] does 

not become part of solid waste or wastewater,” Nat’l Elec. 

Mfrs. Ass’n v. Sorrell, 272 F.3d 104, 107 n.1 (2d Cir. 2001), 

and in alerting health benefit providers of the background 

decisions made by pharmacy benefit managers in their sales to 

the providers, Pharm. Care Mgmt. Ass’n v. Rowe, 429 F.3d 

294, 298-99, 308-10 (1st Cir. 2005) (Torruella, J.); id. at 316 

(Boudin, C.J. & Dyk, J.) (giving Zauderer a very broad 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 11 of 15
12

reading); id. at 297-98 (per curiam) (explaining that the 

opinion of Chief Judge Boudin and Judge Dyk is controlling 

on the First Amendment issue). Although AMI’s preferred 

analysis has an appealing symmetry (deception as the evil to 

be corrected, disclosure of purely factual and noncontroversial information as the permissible cure), Zauderer’s 

characterization of the speaker’s interest in opposing forced 

disclosure of such information as “minimal” seems inherently 

applicable beyond the problem of deception. See, e.g., N.Y. 

Rest. Ass’n v. N.Y. City Bd. of Health, 556 F.3d 114, 133 (2d 

Cir. 2009) (applying Zauderer to requirement that restaurant 

menus include calorie content information). 

 AMI argues, however, that our prior decisions in 

Reynolds and National Association of Manufacturers v. 

NLRB, 717 F.3d 947, 959 n.18 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (“NAM”), 

held that Zauderer applied only to disclosure mandates aimed 

at correcting deception. Indeed those opinions contain 

language quoting or echoing Zauderer’s reference to that 

specific interest. Reynolds, 696 F.3d at 1213; NAM, 717 F.3d 

at 959 n.18. We do not believe that these passages are 

correctly construed as holdings. 

In the first place, both decisions pointed to features of 

those cases that render wholly inapplicable Zauderer’s 

characterization of the speaker’s interest as “minimal”: they 

rejected any idea that the mandated disclosures were of 

“purely factual and uncontroversial” information. Reynolds, 

696 F.3d at 1212 (quoting Zauderer, 471 U.S. at 651). In 

Reynolds we found that the “inflammatory images and the 

provocatively-named hotline [could not] rationally be viewed 

as pure attempts to convey information to consumers.” 696 

F.3d at 1216-17. And in NAM we approvingly cited 

plaintiffs’ description of the notice they were required to post 

“as one-sided, as favoring unionization,” because the required 

notice made no mention of other worker rights that were 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 12 of 15
13

highly relevant to those required to be highlighted in the 

mandated notices. 717 F.3d at 958. In cases where there was 

clearly no basis for classifying the speaker’s interest as 

minimal, it is hard to read the court’s use of Zauderer’s 

language (which formulated the rule in terms of the facts 

before it, i.e., a mandate aimed at curing deception) as a 

holding that would preclude Zauderer’s application to 

mandates justified by other interests. Indeed, in Reynolds, in 

the very paragraph quoting Zauderer’s language about 

deception, we went on to incorporate language from Pacific 

Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, 475 U.S. 

1, 15-16 n.12 (1986), precluding Zauderer’s application to 

messages “biased against or . . . expressly contrary to the . . . 

views” of the entity subject to the mandate. 696 F.3d at 1213-

14. Reynolds’s amalgamation of distinctions—the problem to 

be cured and the character of the mandate—militates against 

viewing it as a holding that the first alone was fatal to 

Zauderer review. 

NAM in fact did not apply the First Amendment at all, but 

rested instead on 29 U.S.C. § 158(c), which, it carefully 

explained, goes significantly beyond merely incorporating the 

First Amendment. 717 F.3d at 955. In a footnote, to be sure, 

we addressed an NLRB footnote invoking Zauderer, and there 

we relied on the anti-deception purpose present in Zauderer. 

Id. at 959 n.18. But in a case turning on a statute, a footnote 

response to a party’s footnote on a constitutional issue 

altogether lacks the earmarks of a constitutional holding. 

 Finding that Zauderer is best read as applying not only to 

mandates aimed at curing deception but also to ones for other 

purposes, and that neither Reynolds nor NAM represents a 

holding to the contrary, we adopt that reading, with the 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 13 of 15
14

incidental advantage of avoiding the creation of a split with 

the First and Second Circuits.1 

What then are the government interests here? AMI 

argues that the rule merely satisfies consumers’ curiosity. But 

we can see non-frivolous values advanced by the information. 

Obviously it enables a consumer to apply patriotic or 

protectionist criteria in the choice of meat. And it enables one 

who believes that United States practices and regulation are 

better at assuring food safety than those of other countries, or 

indeed the reverse, to act on that premise. See, e.g., 148 

CONG. REC. H1538 (daily ed. Apr. 24, 2002) (statement of 

Rep. Hooley, co-sponsor of COOL amendment to 2002 Farm 

Bill) (asserting possible consumer interests in food safety and 

in favoring American producers); 149 CONG. REC. S14,117 

(daily ed. Nov. 6, 2003) (statement of Sen. Johnson) (same). 

We cannot declare these goals so trivial or misguided as to fall 

below the threshold needed to justify the “minimal” intrusion 

on AMI’s First Amendment interests. Thus AMI has failed to 

show a likelihood of success on the merits. 

* * * 

Besides the plaintiff’s likelihood of success on the merits, 

grant of a preliminary injunction also turns on the existence of 

irreparable harm, the balance of equities, and the public 

interest. Sherley, 644 F.3d at 392. This circuit has repeatedly 

 1

 We recognize that reasonable judges may read Reynolds as 

holding that Zauderer can apply only where the government’s 

interest is in correcting deception. Accordingly, we suggest that the 

full court hear this case en banc to resolve for the circuit whether, 

under Zauderer, government interests in addition to correcting 

deception can sustain a commercial speech mandate that compels 

firms to disclose purely factual and non-controversial information. 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 14 of 15
15

declined to take sides in a circuit split on the question of 

whether likelihood of success on the merits is a freestanding 

threshold requirement to issuance of a preliminary injunction. 

Id. at 393. We need not take sides today. Even if the sliding 

scale approach to assessing eligibility for preliminary 

injunctions survived Winter v. Natural Resources Defense 

Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008), a plaintiff with a weak 

showing on the first factor would have to show that all three 

of the other factors “so much favor the plaintiffs that they 

need only have raised a ‘serious legal question’ on the 

merits.” Sherley, 644 F.3d at 398. Given that plaintiffs’ lack 

of success on the merits turns on the regulation’s surviving 

Zauderer’s balancing test, it would be remarkable if we could 

find an abuse of discretion in the district court’s finding 

against plaintiffs. There is, moreover, a public interest factor 

that we did not consider in our constitutional analysis, that of 

allowing the United States’s effort to comply with the WTO 

ruling to take effect. We are clearly in a poor position to 

assess the effects of any noncompliance. Accordingly, the 

judgment of the district court is 

 Affirmed. 

USCA Case #13-5281 Document #1485877 Filed: 03/28/2014 Page 15 of 15