Opinion ID: 606336
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: other appearances of equal

Text: 62 The majority also claims structural support for reading same to mean identical in the fact that Congress requires states to adopt poultry inspection requirements that are at least equal to federal standards. 21 U.S.C. §§ 454(c), 460(e). The majority relies on Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 104 S.Ct. 296, 78 L.Ed.2d 17 (1983), in which the Court states: Where Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion. Id. at 23, 104 S.Ct. at 300 (quoting United States v. Wong Kim Bo, 472 F.2d 720, 722 (5th Cir.1972)). According to the majority, sections 454(c) and 460(e) show that Congress knew how to adopt an equivalence standard for extra-federal inspection schemes, and the fact that Congress used same instead of at least equal to in section 466(d) shows that Congress intended something other than an equivalence standard. Maj. Op. at 1363-1364. 63 But differences exist between the international and state poultry regulation schemes. A state's noncompliance with the at least equal to standard of sections 454(c) and 460(e) only subjects the state's poultry producers to federal regulations, while a foreign government that fails to meet the same standard of section 466(d) completely forfeits the possibility of exporting poultry to the United States. Thus, the extra-federal standards that the majority would construe together affect governments with different degrees of sovereignty in very different ways. 64 Even assuming arguendo that the majority's reasoning supports its conclusion, the majority's analogous-statute rule cannot be determinative in this case because it supports the opposite conclusion as well. The federal inspection standard for the importation of foreign meat represents a much closer analogy to section 466(d) than state poultry inspection standards. See 21 U.S.C.A. § 620(f) (West Supp.1993). Like section 466(d), section 620(f) affects foreign governments by banning the importation of meat that is not inspected according to the statutory standard. Id. The standard that Congress adopted in section 620(f) disposes of the majority's Russello argument: 65 meat food products of cattle, sheep, swine, goats horses, mules, or other equines, capable of use as human food, offered for importation into the United States shall be subject to the inspection, sanitary, quality, species verification, and residue standards applied to products produced in the United States. 66 Id. (emphasis added). Congress requires imported meat to be inspected according to the domestic standards, not according to standards that are the same or ones that are at least equal to domestic standards. 8 Thus, by the majority's own reasoning, section 620(f) shows that Congress knew how to adopt an identicality standard, and Congress failed to do so in section 466(d). If section 620(f) is not dispositive of this case, it at least renders the majority's analogy to state import standards inconclusive. 67 The majority has overlooked many other important points in its analysis of sections 454(c) and 460(e). Under the majority's view, section 466(d) holds foreign governments to an identicality standard, and sections 454(c) and 460(e) hold state governments to an equivalence standard. Maj. Op. at 1364-1365 & n. 28. But, if this is true, it raises a whole new problem of interpretation in section 466(d), which requires foreign poultry to be subject to the same inspection ... standards applied to products produced in the United States. Id. (emphasis added). If the majority is correct that sections 454(c) and 460(e) compel us to define same in section 466(d) as identical, then I ask: identical to what? Section 466(d) answers: identical to the standards applied to products produced in the United States, which, by the majority's own reasoning, include both federal standards and equivalent state standards. Thus, whether same means identical or equivalent under the majority's reasoning, a foreign government complies with section 466(d) by establishing standards that are at least equal to federal standards. 68 The Secretary argues that sections 454(c) and 460(e) are not dispositive of congressional intent in enacting section 466(d) because the former two statutes address different concerns than section 466(d), and a different Congress enacted section 466(d) 17 years after sections 454(c) and 460(e). The majority dismisses this argument without citing any authority by stating: We presume ... that Congress knows the content of the statute it is amending. Maj. Op. at 1364 n. 28. The majority's disregard of the differences raised by the Secretary contradicts the writing of the Supreme Court and this circuit. See Erlenbaugh, 409 U.S. at 243, 93 S.Ct. at 480 (The rule that a legislative body generally uses a particular word with a consistent meaning in a given context ... certainly makes the most sense when the statutes were enacted by the same legislative body at the same time.); Mattox v. FTC, 752 F.2d 116, 122 (5th Cir.1985) (following Erlenbaugh in refusing to consider an earlier statute in construing a later one because of the time difference in enactment dates and the lack of necessary identity of purpose). 9 69 The Secretary's arguments concerning differences between section 466(d) and sections 454(c) and 460(e) have merit independent of section 620(f) and the practical consequence of the majority's use of sections 454(c) and 460(e). [R]elated statutes will vary in probative value according to the range of awareness of the statutes among legislators. NORMAN J. SINGER, 2B SUTHERLAND STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION § 51.01, at 117 (5th ed. 1992); see also id. at 118 (The critical question concerns how reasonable it is to assume that legislators ... know the provisions of other acts on the same subject when they consider the meaning of the act to be construed.); id. ([I]t is unrealistic to assume that whenever the legislature passes a statute it has in mind all prior acts relating to the same subject matter.). In the seventeen years that passed between enactment of sections 454(c) and 460(e) in 1968 and enactment of section 466(d) in 1985, Congress changed membership eight times and congressional districts were twice redrawn. Congress, of course, considered many disparate issues in the interim. For these reasons, the seventeen-year difference in this case is not different in kind from the 62-year difference that this court considered significant in Mattox. 752 F.2d at 122. The import of sections 454(c) and 460(e) in interpreting section 466(d) is further minimized by the fact that, as discussed above, these statutes affect different governments in different ways than does section 466(d). See Erlenbaugh, 409 U.S. at 245, 93 S.Ct. at 481 (rejecting in pari materia argument because [t]he two statutes ... play different roles in achieving [a] broad, common goal). Finally, sections 454(c) and 460(e) are entitled to little weight because they are relatively few (two), and they are not consistent with section 620(f). Cf. Keifer & Keifer v. Reconstruction Finance Corp., 306 U.S. 381, 390, 59 S.Ct. 516, 518-19, 83 L.Ed. 784 (1939) (In recognizing that the Regional Agricultural Credit Corporation was amenable to suit despite the lack of statutory language to support this rule, the Court accorded substantial weight to the fact that Congress had created not less than forty ... corporations by statute, and without exception had included the authority to sue-and-be-sued.) (emphasis added). 70 For these manifold reasons, sections 454(c) and 460(e) do not indicate that Congress chose identicality over equivalence. 10