Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 260

529US1

Unit: $U36

[09-26-01 08:36:39] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 120 (2000)

185

Breyer, J., dissenting

provision does more. Does it forbid the FDA to regulate
at all?

This Court has already answered that question expressly
and in the negative. See Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc.,
505 U. S. 504 (1992). Cipollone held that the FCLAA’s pre-
emption provision does not bar state or federal regulation
outside the provision’s literal scope.
Id., at 518. And it de-
scribed the pre-emption provision as “merely prohibit[ing]
state and federal rulemaking bodies from mandating particu-
lar cautionary statements on cigarette labels . . . .”

Ibid.

This negative answer is fully consistent with Congress’ in-
tentions in regard to the pre-emption language. When Con-
gress enacted the FCLAA, it focused upon the regulatory
efforts of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), not the
FDA. See 1965 Hearings 1–2. And the Public Health Cig-
arette Smoking Act of 1969, Pub. L. 91–222, § 7(c), 84 Stat. 89,
expressly amended the FCLAA to provide that “[n]othing in
this Act shall be construed to afﬁrm or deny the [FTC’s]
holding that it has the authority to issue trade regulation
rules” for tobacco. See also H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 91–897,
p. 7 (1970) (statement of House Managers) (we have “no in-
tention to resolve the question as to whether” the FTC could
regulate tobacco in a different way); see also 116 Cong. Rec.
7921 (1970) (statement of Rep. Satterﬁeld) (same). Why
would one read the FCLAA’s pre-emption clause—a provi-
sion that Congress intended to limit even in respect to the
agency directly at issue—so broadly that it would bar a dif-
ferent agency from engaging in any other cigarette regula-
tion at all? The answer is that the Court need not, and
should not, do so. And, inasmuch as the Court already has
declined to view the FCLAA as pre-empting the entire ﬁeld
of tobacco regulation, I cannot accept that that same law
bars the FDA’s regulatory efforts here.

When the FCLAA’s narrow pre-emption provision is set
aside, the majority’s conclusion that Congress clearly in-
tended for its tobacco-related statutes to be the exclusive