Opinion ID: 744751
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Manufacturers' Arguments

Text: 97 As detailed above, both the FCLAA and Smokeless Tobacco Act direct tobacco-product manufacturers to provide to the Secretary of Health and Human Services an annual ingredients list which does not identify the manufacturer or the brand represented by the list, information which may be submitted aggregately by more than one manufacturer through an agent. See 15 U.S.C. §§ 1335a(a), 4403(a). Under both statutes, the information provided is treated as a trade secret or confidential information, and its unauthorized disclosure is forbidden. See §§ 1335a(b)(2)(A), 4403(b)(2)(A). 30 The laws further require the Secretary to establish written procedures by which the information will be safeguarded and specifically mandates that those procedures include certain custodial, storing, and access arrangements. See §§ 1335a(b)(2)(C), 4403(b)(2)(C). The manufacturers contend that the Disclosure Act is impliedly preempted in light of these provisions combined with the structure and purpose of the statutes. 98 The manufacturers do not rely, nor could they rely, on the theory that compliance with both the Disclosure Act and federal law presents a physical impossibility. See Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 143, 83 S.Ct. 1210, 1218, 10 L.Ed.2d 248 (1963). Rather, they contend that the Disclosure Act impermissibly conflicts with the purpose and objectives that underlie the federal statutes. They further contend, albeit less elaborately, that the state law invades a field of commerce for which Congress intended exclusive federal regulation. 99 Specifically, the manufacturers argue that through the FCLAA and the Smokeless Tobacco Act, Congress intended to establish a careful balance between two national interests: (1) educating the public about the use of tobacco products and health and (2) limiting commercial burdens on the tobacco industry. The ingredient reporting and safeguarding provisions, they contend, further these purposes in a unique and exclusive manner. They reason that, while the required ingredient lists allow Congress, with the assistance of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its research efforts, to determine the continued adequacy of the mandated warning labels, nonetheless the information provided is kept in strict confidence through elaborate statutory protections. These comprehensive provisions, the manufacturers claim, limit the impact upon commerce associated with reporting and evaluating ingredient information. 100 The manufacturers assert that, by prescribing both an anonymous form of ingredient disclosure and strict safekeeping of the information provided, Congress intended to avoid unnecessary invasion of company-specific and brand-specific trade secret information. They contend that Congress could have required full ingredient disclosure on all product labels, or, at the other extreme, no disclosure whatever. Instead, it chose a specific intermediate position which represents a precisely calibrated balance that, in Congress' judgment, best served the public. 101 The manufacturers further contend that the anonymity provided them when submitting the ingredient lists indicates that the additional provisions protecting the confidentiality of the collected information are not merely matters of custody or internal housekeeping. While conceding that the federal statutes do not grant the information trade secret status per se, the manufacturers nonetheless argue that, for preemption purposes, the exacting confidentiality provisions reflect Congress' concern for the potential loss of commercial advantage, which itself is part and parcel of Congress' broader intent to protect commerce and the national economy. 102 According to the manufacturers, enforcement of the Disclosure Act's obligations to disclose brand-specific and company-specific ingredient information, without guarantees of confidentiality, would frustrate the purposes of the FCLAA and Smokeless Tobacco Act. They contend that the federal statutes' intricate information-safekeeping provisions would be utterly pointless if a state were permitted to make publicly available information that the federal government may not even collect, much less reveal. Moreover, they claim, it would be absurd for the HHS Secretary to continue to collect the federally prescribed ingredient information when even more precise, brand specific information collected pursuant to the Disclosure Act would be readily available. Because Congress carefully limited the collection and disclosure of cigarette ingredients in furtherance of the balance between health education and trade protection, they argue, collection and disclosure of the type contemplated by the Disclosure Act would stand[ ] as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress. Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 67, 61 S.Ct. 399, 404, 85 L.Ed. 581 (1941). They further assert that the comprehensive manner in which Congress dealt with the health concern posed by tobacco-product additives shows its intent to obtain uniformity in ingredient disclosure requirements, supplanting any supplemental state efforts, such as the Disclosure Act, in the area. 103 The manufacturers also offer a closely related argument: the Disclosure Act intrudes into a field, albeit a narrow one, that Congress intended federal law to occupy exclusively. To this end, they assert that the HHS Secretary's role to review cigarette ingredients from a health standpoint, the stringent confidentiality procedures, and the balance of national interests evince Congress' intent to occupy the field of cigarette ingredient reporting, monitoring and review. In sum, they argue that the very comprehensiveness, complexity, and specificity of the federal reporting provisions evince a federal dominance and pervasiveness in ingredient reporting and disclosure that allows no room for supplemental state laws such as the Disclosure Act. Ultimately, we find the manufacturers' arguments unpersuasive.