19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

1 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT August Term, 2019 (Argued: Decembe r 11 , 2019 Decided: September 17 , 2020) Docket No. 1 9 - 118

P ANJIVA , I NC ., A N EW Y ORK CORPORATION , T RADE D ATA S ERVICES , I NC ., DBA I MPORT G ENIUS , AN A RIZONA CORPORATION , Plaintiffs

- Appellants,

v. U NITED S TATES C USTOMS AND B ORDER P ROTECTION , U NITED S TATES D EPARTMENT OF T REASURY , Defendants

- Appellees

.

Before: S ACK , P ARKER , and C HIN , Circuit Judges

.
S ection 431 of t he Smoot

- Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 requir es all "vessel[s] arriving in the United States" to maintain a "manifest" on which is recorded information about the just

- completed voyage and an account of what is "on
board." Pub. L. No. 71

- 361, § 431, 46 Stat. 590, 710 (1930). A n amendment passed
in 1984 requires the information contained in those manifests to " b e available for public disclosure." Pub. L. No. 98

- 573, Title II, § 203, 98 Stat. 2948, 2974 (1984)

. T he plaintiffs

- appellants, Panjiva, Inc., and Trade Data Services, Inc., dba19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

2 ImportGe nius, brought a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York asserting, among other things, that section 431 require s aircraft entering the United States to make available for public disclosure
such manifests detailing the journey and cargo aboard . The district court (J. Paul Oetken, Judge ) agreed with the government that the statute requires only
water borne vessels

— and not aircraft

— to publicly disclose such information , and ultimately dismissed part of the plaintiffs

- appellants' complaint. The plaintiffs

- appellants appeal that dismissal. For essentially the reasons articulated by the district court, we agree with its conclusion. The judgment is therefore:
AFFIRMED

. D AV ID A. B AHR , Bahr Law Offices, P.C., Eugene, Oregon, for P laintiffs

- Appellants; S TEPHEN C HA
- K IM As sistant United States Attorney, (Christopher Connolly, on the brief ), for Audrey Strauss, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. S ACK , Circuit Judge : BACKGROUND

The Smoot

- Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 is known principally for the tariffs it raised on imports to the United States and the ir alleged exacerbation of the Great
D epression. See Robert Whaples, Where Is There Economic Consensus Among19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

3 American Economic Historians? The Results of a Survey on Forty Propositions , 55 J

. Econ

. Hist

. 139 , 151 (1995). This appeal involves a lesser

- known component of the
Act

— section 431

— which required all "vessel[s] arriving in the United States" to
maintain a "manifest" on which is recorded information about the just

- completed voyage and an account of what is "on board." Pub. L. No. 71

- 361, § 431, 46 Stat. 590, 710 (1930). Through a series of amendments over its long life, including one that apparently contained a drafting error and is the focus of the case at bar , section
431 has come to comprise, as the di strict court put it in its decision in this case , "an amalgamation of language from incompatible statutes." Panjiva, Inc. v. U .S.
Custom s & Border Prot. , 342 F. Supp. 3d 481, 49 0 (S.D.N.Y. 2018).
The plaintiffs

- appellants, Panjiva, Inc., a New York Corporation ("Panjiva") , and Trade Data Services, Inc., dba ImportGenius, an Arizona Corporation ("ImportGenius") (collectively the " plaintiffs") brought a lawsuit in the United
States District Court for the Southern District of New York against t he defendants

appellees, United States Customs and Border Protection ("CBP") and the United States Department of Treasury (collectively, the " government") , assert ing, among other things, that somewhere within section 431's text is a requirement that airc raft entering the United States also make available for public disclosure specified19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

4 contents of manifests they have maintained detailing each journey and the cargo carried on th at journey

. The government disagreed, assert ing that the statute
req uires that only waterbo rne vessels

— and not aircraft

— publicly disclose such
information. The district court (J. Paul Oetken, Judge ) agreed with the government
and therefore dismissed the part of the plaintiffs

- appellants' complaint at issue
here

. (The plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the remainder of the complaint.) W e agree with the government's interpretation of the statute largel y f or the reasons
articu lated by the district court

. We therefore affirm i ts judgment. Statutory Background In the spring of 1930, early in America 's descent into t he Great Depression , Congress enacted the Smoot

- Hawley Tariff Act

. In addition to the controversial
tariffs , the Act imposed on imports to the United States, section 431 required "[t]he master of every vessel arriving in the United States" to "have on board his vessel a
manifest " "contain[ing]" specified information concerning the vessel's voyage and
cargo. Pub. L. No. 71

- 361, § 431, 46 Stat. at 710

. T he Act defined "ves sel" as "includ[ing] every description of water craft or other contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation in water , but

. . . not

. . . aircraft ." Id. , § 401(a), 46 Stat. at 708 (emphasis added).19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

5 I n 1984, fifty

- four years after the statute was enacted, Congress passed a Trade and Tariff Act which, among other things, amended the Smoot

- Hawley Act by adding a new subsection, (c)(1) , to section 431. Pub. L. No. 98

- 573, Title II, § 203, 98 Stat. 2948, 2949 (1984) . Paragraphs (A) through (G) of subsection (c)(1) specified
"information [which] , when contained in [ the ] manifest [required by the Smoot

Hawley Act ] , shall be available for public disclosure , " i d. , 98 Stat. at 2974 : (A) The name and address of ea ch importer or consignee and the name and address of the shipper to such importer or consignee, unless the importer or consignee has made a biennial certification, in accordance with procedures adopted by the Secretary of the Treasury, claiming confiden tial treatment of such information. (B) The general character of the cargo. (C) The number of packages and gross weight. (D) The name of the vessel or carrier. (E) The port of loading. (F) The port of discharge. (G) The country or origin of the shipment. Id.
The subsection that followed , 431( c)(2) , s et forth exceptions that the Secretary of the Treasury could invoke to withhold from the public the
information otherwise required to be disclosed by subsection (c)(1). Id.19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

6 Congress again addressed section 431 s ome t welve years later, in July 1996

. A s part of the Anti

- Counterfeiting Consumer Protection Act ("ACPA"), Congress
amended sub section 431(c)(1) "by inserting the phrase 'vessel or aircraft' before
'manifest.'" Pub. L. No. 104

- 153, § 11(1), 110 Stat. 1386, 1389 (July 2, 1996) . As of early July 1996, therefore, the c lause of subsection 431 (c)(1) requiring public
disclosure of information contained in manifest s provided that certain specified "information, when contained in [the] vessel or aircraft manifest [required to be kept by the master], shall be available for public disclosure." See id., 110 Stat. at
1389 (emphasis added).
The ACPA also amended section 431 (c)(1)(D), (E), and (F) , quoted above, requiring that the information to be made available for public disclosure include not only "the name of the vessel or carrier," but "the name of the vessel, aircraft , or carrier" ; and not only the "port" of loading or discharge , but the " sea port or airport " of loading and discharge. See id., 110 Stat. at 1389 (emphases added). Just t hree months later, in October 1996, though, Congress a mended section 431(c)(1) again, this time in what it named the Miscellaneous Trade and Technical
Correc tions Act ( the "Corrections Act"). Pub. L. No. 104

- 295, § 3(a)(3), 110 Stat. 3514, 3515 (October 11, 1996) . In a subsection entitled "Manifests," the Corrections19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

7 Act provided that the operative clause of sub section 431(c)(1) was to be
"amended

. . . by striking 'such manifest' and inserting 'a vessel manifest.'" Id. , 110
Stat. at 3515. The Co rrections Act did not amend paragraph s (c)(1)(A) through (G)

. The references to " aircraft " and " airport " remain. Congress has not amended any portion of section 431(c)(1) since.
The Corrections Act contained an obvious mistake: For three months and several days following July 2, 1996, the clause of section 431(c)(1) requiring public
disclosure did not contai n the phrase "such manifest

. " R ather, it stated, as noted
above , that "information, when contained in such vessel or aircraft manifest , shall be available for public disclosure." See Pub. L. No. 104

- 153, § 11(1), 110 Stat. at 1389 (emphasis added). The phrase "such manifest," therefore, was not there to be "stri[cken] , " as the Corrections Act purported to require

. Applying the law thus presents a challenge : I t is not apparent what the
statute in its current incarnation says.
T he House of Representatives' Office of Law Revision Council engages in
d rafting the provision of the U.S. Code corresponding to enacted statutes. 1 In editing 19 U.S.C. § 1431(c)(1)

— the provision of the U.S. Code that corresponds to

1 How regularly it does so is not clear from the record.19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

8 s ection 431(c)(1) of the Smoot

- Hawley Act

— in an effort to reflect the changes
effected b y the Corrections Act, it add ed a new subsection (c)(1), to section 431

. The r elevant part of 19 U.S.C. § 1431(c) (1) read (as it continues to read today ) : "Except as provided in subparagraph (2), the following information, when
contained in a vessel vessel or aircraft manifest, shall be available for public disclosure." 19 U.S.C. § 1431 (c)(1) (emphasis added). The Code includes a footnote concerning the repeated use of the word "vessel" : "S o in original." 19 U.S.C. § 1431
n.1. Factual Background
Plaintiffs are businesses that seek to serv ic e the "global trade community" by "aggregat[ing]" and analyzing "data," "including customs data , " from the
United States. Joint Appendix ( " JA " ) at 10 , 12. As discussed above, p ursuant to section 431 of the Smoot

- Hawley Tariff
Act , presently codified at 19 U.S.C. § 1431 , " E very vessel re quired to make entry [into the United States] shall have a manifest that complies with the requirements prescribed under subsection (d) [of the statute]. " 19 U.S.C. § 1431(a). Subsection (c) of section 1431 requires that some of that information " shall b e available for public disclosure. " 19 U.S.C. § 1431(c). Subsection (d) sets forth regulations19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

9 governing such manifests and their treatment, including the role to be played by the Secretary of the Treasury and the " Customs Service. " 19 U.S.C. § 1431(d). The plaintiffs wish to use , for business purposes, information tha t is
contained in the manifest s of aircraft entering the United States. To that end, in January 2015, ImportGenius submitted a request to CBP under the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") that sought "access to and copies of the portions of ALL aircraft manifests for inbound shipments f[ro]m January 1, 2014 to July 31, 2014 that have been designated for public disclosure by 19 U.S.C. § 1431(c)." JA at 17.
In October 2016, CBP denied the request. ImportGenius appealed CBP's denial in
December 2016 ; CBP denied the appeal in September 2017. In January 2017, Panjiva submitted a similar FOIA request to CBP seeking "access to and copies of the portions of ALL aircraft manifests for inbound shipments from December 5, 2016 to December 9, 2016 that have been designa ted for public disclosure by 19 U.S.C. § 1431(c)." JA at 21. Procedural History On October 26, 2017, b efore CBP responded to Panjiva's FOIA request, the plaintiffs filed an action against the government in the United States District Court
for the Southern District of New York. The complaint contained eight " counts " :19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

10 C ounts one through five alleged that the government had failed to comply with
various requirements of FOIA ; count s five 2 and eight alleged that the government's lack of FOIA compliance also violated the Admin istrative Procedure Act ("APA"); and counts six and seven alleged in essence that the government had
violated the Smoot

- Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 and the APA by failing upon request to disclose infor mation from aircraft manifests and by failing to promulgate regulations to facilitate public access to aircraft manifest information

. On January 12, 2018, the government filed a motion pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) to dismiss the complaint's Smoot

- Hawley Tariff
Act (counts 6 and 7) and APA /FOIA (counts 5 and 8) claims. O n September 24,
2018 , t he district court grante d the motion

. T he court's opinion began by address ing the Smoot

- Hawley Tariff Act
claims. See Panjiva , 342 F. Supp. 3d at 486

- 94. Those claims, the parties agree,
turn ed on a pure
— if challenging

— question o f statutory interpretation: whether section 431(c) (1) of the act require s public disclosure of water

- vessel manifests only (that is, disclosure of manifests maintained by water craft entering the country only ) or of aircraft manifests too

. T he court concl uded t hat only

2 Count Five contained an allegation under FOIA and an allegation under the APA.19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

11 information with respect to water

- vessel manifests is covered

. I t therefore dismissed counts six and seven of the complaint.
T he court then addressed the complaint's APA /FOIA claims , see Panjiva , 342 F. Supp. 3d at 49 4

- 96, conclud ing that they were duplicative of the Smoot

- Hawley
Tariff Act claims and t he r efore should be dismissed too

. On November 13, 2018, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the complaint's remaining FOIA claims. This appeal followed.
DISCUSSION On appeal, the plaintiffs raise a single argument: that the district court adopted an incorrect interpretation of section 431(c)(1) of the Smoot

- Hawley
Tariff Act by failing to recognize that it now requires public disclosure of
information in aircraft ma nifests, and th erefore erred in its dismissal of the plaintiffs' claims brought under that statute. Analysis

" We review a district court's grant of a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) de novo ." Edwards v. Sequoia Fund, Inc. , 938 F.3d 8, 12 (2d Cir. 2019). "When interpreting the meaning of a statute ," in this case, the Smoot

Hawley Tariff Act, " the starting point of inquiry is of course the language of the19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

12 statute itself." In re Edelman , 295 F.3d 171, 177 (2d Cir. 2002). "If the statutory terms are unambiguous, we construe the statute according to the plain meaning
of its words." Nwozuzu v. Holder , 726 F.3d 323, 327 (2d Cir. 2013). In other words, "[i]f the meaning is plain, the inquiry ends there." United States v. Rowland , 826 F.3d 100, 108 (2d Cir. 2016). "If, however, the terms are ambiguous or unclear, we may consider legislative history and other tools of statutory interpretation." Nwozuzu , 726 F.3d at 327

. 1. Ambiguity
T he government and the plaintiffs disagree at the threshold as to whether section 431(c)(1) 's language is unambiguous

. T he government contend s that the provision's language is ambiguous and tells us that we can and therefore should
look to other "tools , " including the statute's legislative history, to interpret it. T he plaintiffs a ssert to the contrary that the provision's text is clear and express , and
that it therefore would be "inappropriate" for us to "resort to collateral interpretive tools such as legislative history." Pls. Br. at 11. Determining the clarity of section 431(c)(1)'s text plainly requires us to first
determine what the text of section 431(c)(1) is

. Although determining the text of a19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

13 statute is usually a matter of routine, in the case at bar , it presents a substantial challenge. As discussed above, the relevant provision was clear throughout most of
the long life of the Smoot

- Hawley Tariff Act

. As enacted in 1930, section 431 provided that "every vessel," which the statute defined to include all "water craft"
and "not

. . . aircraft," Pub. L. No. 71

- 361, § 401(a), 46 Stat

. at 708 (1930), that "arriv[ed] in the United States" was required to "have on board . . . a manifest" containing information specified in the statute

. Id. , § 431 , 46 Stat. at 710. In 1984, Congress added a subsection, (c)(1), to section 431 that required statutorily enumerated "information . . . contained in such manifes t" to be made "available for public disclosure . . ." Pub. L. No. 98

- 5 73, § 203, 98 Stat. at 2974 (1984). So far so good: S ection 431 required all vessels (water craft) entering the United States to maintain a manifest, and section 431(c)(1) required sp ecific
information to be both included in "such" manifests and made "available for public disclosure." In 1996, t he c ombination of two amendments to the statute muddied the statutory waters

.19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

14 To repeat, f irst, in July of that year , Congress passed the ACPA, which amended section 431(c)(1) "by inserting 'vessel or aircraft' before 'manifest.'"
Pub. L. No 104

- 153, § 11(1), 110 Stat. at 1389 ( July 2, 1996). 3 As of that point, the
clause of sectio n 431(c)(1) covering public disclosure read: Except as provided in subparagraph (2), the following information, when contained in such vessel or aircraft manifest, shall be available for public disclosure.
See i d. , 110 Stat. at 1389. The list of each type of information to be disclosed followed, including the reference to "the name of the vessel, aircraft , or carrier,"
and the " sea port or airport " of loading and discharge

. See id. , 110 Stat. at 1389 (emphasis added).
A bout three months later, in October 1996 , Congress enacted the Corrections Act, which amended section 431(c)(1) yet again. See Pub. L. No. 104

- 295, § 3(a)(3), 110 Stat. at 3515 ( October 11, 1996). In relevant part, the Corrections Act provided that "Section 431(c)(1) of the Tariff Act . . . is amended

. . . by striking 'such manifest' and inserting 'a vessel manifest.'" Id. , 110 Stat. at
3515.

3 As described more fully above, the ACPA also amended the list of information that must be contained in a manifest to include references to "airports" and "aircraft." Pub. L. No. 104

- 153, § 11(2)

- (4) , 110 Stat. at 1389.19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

15 The problem, though , is that the phrase "such manifes t" no longer appeared in section 431(c)(1), because the ACPA had replaced "such manifest"
with "such vessel or aircraft manifest." It could not simply be amended. If one were to try to do what the statute seems to require

— that is, if one were to

remove the two words "such " and " manifest " separately

— the language that
remained would describe " information, when contained in

. . . vessel or
aircraft

. . . . " This reading makes no sense , let alone r esult s in statutory text that
is "clear

. "
Other subsections of section 431 manage , if anything, to add to the lack of clarity. Congress has never changed section 431's core instruction that it is only "vessel[s]"

— which are explicitly defined as "not includ[ing] aircraft"

— that
must "have . . . manifest[s]" when entering the United States. 46 Stat. at 708, 710. To this day, the corresponding section of the U.S. Code, 19 U.S.C. § 1431(a),
continues to read : " E very vess el required to make entry . . . shall have a manifest that complies with [ the statutory requirements] ." The definition of "vessel"
contained in the "definitions" section of the Tariff Act , 19 U.S.C. § 1401 , also states that "[t]he word 'vessel' includes every description of water craft or other contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation in water,19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

16 but does not include aircraft

. " (emphasis added). Thus, aside from the question of whether section 431(c)(1) requires the public disclosure of "aircraft manifests, " it is not even clear whether section 431 requires aircraft to possess and maintain manifests in the first place. We think , therefore, that because we are permitted to "consider

. . . other tools of statutory interpretation" when attempting to
understand "terms" that are merely "ambiguous [and] unclear," Nowzuzu , 726 F.3d at 327, so too can we use those tool s in odd circumstances such as these, to attempt to determine what the text of section 431(c)(1) now says, and then what
those words mean.
2. Tools of Statutory Interpretation

a. Canon Against Superfluity
I n addition to their argument that our analysis ought go no further than a plain reading of section 431's text, the plaintiffs also appear to assert that if we do go beyond the statute's plain meaning, their interpretation of the statute is aided by the so - called "canon against superfluity," see Microsoft Cor p. v. i 4 i Ltd. P'ship , 564 U.S. 91, 106 (2011), also known as the "canon against surplusage," see , e.g. , Marx v. Gen. Revenue Corp. , 568 U.S. 371, 385 (2013)

. It has been referred to as "a cardinal principle of statutory construction " which requires courts to "give effect, if19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

17 possible, to every clause and word of a statute

. " Williams v. Taylor , 529 U.S. 362, 404 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted)

. The plaintiffs rely on the canon to attack the government's interpretation of
sectio n 431, which, as described above, reads the statute as requiring only
waterborne vessels

— and not aircraft

— to publicly disclose information maintained in their manifests. The plaintiffs' contention is straightforward: T he government's interpretation of section 431 fails to "give effect" to words in both (1)
the provision's clause requiring public disclosure and (2) paragraphs (D), (E), and ( F) of the provision, which identify the specific types of information in manifests
that must be publicly disclosed

. T he plaintiffs assert first t hat the government's interpretation of section 431(c)(1)'s operative clause fails to give effect to the term "aircraft manifest ," which

was added to the clause by the ACPA ; the term "aircraft manifest," the plaintiffs
argue , is thereby rendered surplusage and thus the government's reading viola tes the canon. As the district court recognized, though, this argument relies on the plaintiffs ' assumptio n that after the ACPA was enacted, the Corrections Act " did
not remove " the term " aircraft manifes t" from section 431(c)(1) , Pls. Br. at 16 , thereby leaving it in section 431(c)(1) as surplus

. But whether the Corrections Act19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

18 removed the allegedly surplus term "a ircraft manifest" from the text of section 431(c)(1) is, as the district court put it , the " fundamental question " before us

. Panjiva , 342 F. Supp. 3d at 490. In other words, the Corrections Act ' s effect on section 431(c)(1) is precisely what we must dete rmine in order to resolve the issue
of " what the text [ of ] " section 431(c)(1) now says and means

. Id . Thus, because the plaintiffs assume the answer to this question, and because we on our own see little reason why the Corrections Act should be assumed not to have removed " aircraft
manifest " from section 431(c)(1), the plaintiffs ' contention is not pers uasive

. 4
The plaintiffs' second attack on the government's interpretation is that it does not give effect to the references to "airports" and "aircraft" in paragraphs (D), (E), and (F) of the subsection as amended by the ACPA

. Q uoted above, they
continue to require manifests to contain: (D) The name of the vessel, aircraft , or carrier. (E) The seaport or airport of loading. [and]

4 Th e plaintiffs attempt to support their argument by point ing to a decision by the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, Grupo Petrotemex, S.A. De C.V. v. Polymetrix AG , No. 16

- cv - 2401, 2018 WL 5307823 (D. Minn. Oct. 26, 2018), which , co ntrary to the district court in this case, concluded that the reading of section 431 proposed by the government essentially ignores the "plain language" of the provision that requires public disclosure of information in "aircraft manifests," id. at *6 n.6. We are of course not bound by that decision ; but in any event we disagree with its conclusion because, like the plaintiffs' argument here , it is based on an assumptio n as to what effect the Corrections Act had on the text of section 431 (c)(1)

.19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

19 (F) The seaport or airport of discharge. 19 U.S.C. §§ 1431(c)(1)(D), (E), (F). (emphases added).
This assertion, u nlike the plaintiffs' first contention, assumes nothing about
the effect of the Corrections Act . T he Corrections Act did not address
sub paragraphs (D), (E), and (F) of section 431(c)(1), and it is thus indisputable that the text of those parag raphs continues to refer to airports and aircraft. The plaintiffs are thus correct insofar as t he government's interpretation of section 431(c)(1) renders the airport and aircraft references superfluous

— if aircraft are not covered by section 431(c)(1) , for example, what is the word "aircraft" doing in paragraph (E) as a covered place of loading ? The Supreme Court has made clear , though , that " [t] he canon against surplusage is not an absolute rule ," Marx , 568 U.S. at 385 , and it "assists only where a competing interpretation gives effect 'to every clause and word of a statute.'" Microsoft Corp. , 564 U.S. at 106 (quoting Duncan v. Walker , 533 U.S. 167, 174 (2001))

. And however powerful this attack against the government's interpr etation of the provision may be, it cannot aid the plaintiffs' contrary reading of section 431(c)(1)
inasmuch as the plaintiffs do not even tell us what the words of section 431(c)(1)

are post

- Corrections Act , let alone give effect to every one of them

. T he closest the19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

20 plaintiffs come to offering a suggestion as to how section 431(c)(1)'s text now reads is by quoting 19 U.S.C. § 1431(c)(1), which , as we have noted, the House Office of
Law Revision Council decided was : "the following information, when c ontained
in a vessel vessel or aircraft manifest, shall be available for public disclosure." (emphasis added). Thus, although they attempt to dismiss it as "a minor syntactical issue," Pls. Br. at 6, the plaintiffs ' understand ing of the text of section 431(c)(1) to contain the phrase "vessel vessel" makes it obvious that their reading
of the statute also contains a superfluous term. In addition, t he plaintiffs' interpretation of section 431(c)(1) fails to give
effect to any clause or word in the Corrections Act amendment because their interpretation of section 431(c)(1) is only possible if the Corrections Act is
understood to have had no effec t on section 431(c)(1) at all. In other words, the parties agree that in the period after Co ngress enacted the ACPA in July 1996 and before it enacted the Corrections Act in October 1996, section 431(c)(1) explicitly required the government to publicly disclose manifests of both vessels and
aircraft. 5 Because the plaintiffs thus understand section 431(c)(1) to continue to

5 This assumes that section 431 requires an aircraft entering the country to have a manifest in the first place, which, as discussed above, is itself not clear.19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

21 impose the same requirements as it did before the Corrections Act was enacted , as the district court observed, their interpretation "render[s] the Corrections Act amendment entirely su perfluous." Panjiva , 342 F. Supp. 3d at 491. We conclude, therefore, that the canon against surplusage offers little to our analysis : B oth the plaintiffs' interpretation and the government's interpretation of section 431(c)(1 ) leave different portions of the statute without effec t. We must
the refore turn to other tools of statutory interpretation in our analysis

. b. Implied Repeal The plaintiffs argue also that their interpretation of section 431(c)(1) , which, to reiterate, requires public disclosure of manifests maintained by both vessel and aircraft manifests, is superior to the government's interpretation, which requires public disclosure of vessel manifests only, because the government's interpreta tion runs counter to the rule against implied repeals

. The Supreme Court has instructed that "repeals [of statutes] by implication are strongly disfavored" and that "it can be strongly presumed that Congress will specifically address language on the statute books that it wishes to change." United States v. Fausto , 484 U.S. 439, 45 2

- 5 3 (1988)

. According to the plaintiffs, the government's inte rpretation of section 431(c)(1) runs counter to this presumption19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

22 inasmuch as its understanding of the statute treats the Corrections Act as having deleted the phrase "aircraft man ifests" from section 431 (c)(1), and thus having repealed the portion of the ACPA that introduced that phrase into section 431(c)(1) several months previously , by silent implication. To be sure, t he government's interpretation of section 431(c)(1) does treat the Corrections Act as having removed the word "aircraft" from section 431(c)(1)'s operative clause. It is also true that the government asserts that the
Corrections Act did so without specifically addressing the term "aircraft." But it
does not follow that the government 's interpretation relies on understanding the Corrections Act to have repealed the relevant portion of the ACPA by implication. Instead , the government's view of section 431(c)(1) treats the
Corrections Act not as having overlook ed the phrase "aircraft manifests," or as having silently repealed the relevant portion of the ACPA, but instead as having attempted to remove the word "aircraft" from section 431(c)(1) 's operative clause explicitly, if sloppily

. In other words, under the government's reading , the
Corrections Act is "an af firmative showing of [Congress' ] intention to repeal ," Auburn Hous. Auth. v. Martinez , 277 F.3d 138, 145 (2d Cir. 2002) , a specific provision (the ACPA) through an e qually specific amendment (the Corrections19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

23 Act) that continues to suffer from a drafting error. Therefore, because the government does not contend that that Corrections Act repealed the ACPA by implication, t he presumption against implied repeals does not apply and thus favors neither the plaintiffs' nor the government's interpretation of section 431(c)(1).

c. Legislative History Having been pointed to nothing better to aid our interpretation, and with
the meaning of section 431(c)(1)'s text still uncertain , we turn to the provision's legislative history. See Puello v. Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration Servs. , 511 F.3d 324, 327 (2d Cir. 2007) (" If the meaning of a sta tute is ambiguous, the court may resort to legislative history to determine the statute's meaning.") "[I]n so doing, we must ' construct an interpretation that comports with [the statute's] primary purpose and does not lead to anom alous or unreasonable results.'" Id. (quoting Conn. ex rel. Blumenthal v. U.S. Dep't of the Interior , 228 F.3d 82, 89 (2d Cir. 2000)).19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

24 The plaintiffs, as noted above , urge us to ignore the statute's legislative history based on their view that the text of section 431(c)(1) is clear and resort to legislative history therefore improper

. 6
T he government disagrees, identif ying legislative history that it contends helps make sense of section 431(c)(1)'s ambiguous text. It cites a report on the
Corrections Act by the Senate Finance Committee that states that the act "amends section 431(c)(1) of the Tariff Act of 1930 to clarify that the references i n the section is to vessel manifests and not to other types of manifest s ." S. Rep. No.
104

- 393, at 3 (1996). The report also includes a graphical representation of the changes the c ommittee intended the Corrections Act to make to section 431, with
the wo rds to be removed indicated in brackets:

6 Before the dis trict court, but not on appeal, the plaintiffs argued that their reading of section 431(c)(1) was bolstered by a report by the Senate Judiciary Committee that expressly states the ACPA "amends section 431(c)(1) of the Tariff Act to permit public disclosure of aircraft manifests under the same terms currently allowed for sea shipments" because the "distinction between information required about goods shipped by sea as compared to goods shipped by air" is "unwarranted and out

- of

- date." S. Rep. No. 104

- 177, a t 11 (1995). Be that as it may, the report provides little more than what is offered by the text of the ACPA, which, by inserting "vessel or aircraft before manifest" in section 431(c)(1), makes it clear that Congress intended (at least for a short perio d of time) that section 431(c)(1) require the disclosure of aircraft manifests in addition to vessel manifests. This point does not appear to be disputed by the government. But crucially, the report leaves unanswered what the text of section 431(c)(1) sh ould be read to mean post enactment of the Corrections Act.19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

25 Id

. at 43. We agree with the district court that this report is "clear evidence that
the Corrections Act amendment was enacted to restrict the scope of § 431(c)(1)" by limiting it to vessels, which means waterborne transport only, and that the committee "understood that the version of § 431(c)(1) that would exist after [the Corrections Act] would cover [such] vessel manifests only, and that [the Corrections Act] would omit any reference to aircraft manifests from the operative clause of § 4 31(c)(1)." Panjiva , 342 F. Supp. 3d at 492. One might wonder why Congress changed its mind so dramatically and so quickly between July and October of 1996 . If the distinction betwe en vessel and
aircraft manifests was "unwarranted and out

- of

- date," S. Rep. No. 104

- 177, at 11 (1995) , when the ACPA was passed in July 1996, one might guess that it would
also be "unwarranted and out

- of

- date " three months later when the Corrections Act was passed

. But Congress is permitted a U

- turn. T his legislative history suggests that it took one

. And, critically, this reading allows for both 1996 amendments ( i.e. , the ACPA and the Corrections Act) to carry meaning:19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

26 Congress intend ed the ACPA to add aircraft manifests to section 431(c)(1)'s public disclosure requirement, and (soon thereafter) intended the Corrections Act to remove aircraft manifests from the public disclosure requirement. Moreover, i f, as all appear to agree, the ACPA was meant to expand section 431(c)(1) to require the public disclosure of both vessel and aircraft manifests, and, as the plaintiffs contend, section 431(c)(1) should be understood
to continue that requirement , then the Corrections Act was essentially a nullity. Congress should not be understood to have intended an amendment to be
ineffective

. Faced with two less than perfect readings of the statute, we conclude
that the government's interpretation of section 431(c)(1) more persuasively reflects Congress ional intent. 7

7 The government also relies on "subsequent legislative history," i.e. , legislative history from the time since the Corrections Act was passed, to support its interpretation of section 431(c)(1). The argument is discussed at some length in the district court's opinion. See Panjiva , 342 F. Supp. 3d at 493

- 94. But the Suprem e Court has warned (as the district court noted, see id. ) that subsequent legislative history is "a particularly dangerous ground on which to rest an interpretation of a prior statute," inasmuch as "[a] bill can be proposed for any number of reasons, and i t can be rejected for just as many others." Solid Waste Agency of N

. Cook Cty. v. Army Corps of Eng ' rs , 531 U.S. 159, 169

- 70 (2001) ( internal quotation marks omitted). The district court concluded that subsequent legislative history "further supports the [g]overnment's reading of the statute." Panjiva , 342 F. Supp. 3d at 492. Under the circumstances, though, we need not and therefore do not rely on subsequent legislative history to reach our conclusion

.19 - 118 Panjiva, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection

27 For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that section 431(c)(1) of the Smoot

Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, presently codified at 19 U.S.C. § 1431(c)(1), continues to require the government to make available for public disclosur e manifests only of vessels, meaning " water craft or other contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation in water, but . . . not

. . . aircraft ." See 19 U.S.C. § 1401.
CONCLUSION We have considered the plaintiffs' remaining argu ments on appeal and conclude that they are without merit. We therefore AFFIRM the judgment of the
district court

.