Court Opinion

ID: 9495916
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:13:16.009263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:45.477883
License: Public Domain

TROTT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
My colleagues have finessed an unavoidable issue in this case: whether 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B) is unconstitutional on its face. They have attempted to restrict their holding to McCoy and to others “similarly situated,” but it is not clear to me that the law permits such a limitation. I so conclude because McCoy’s conduct clearly falls within the language of the statute, and because the Supreme Court appears under such circumstances to have ruled out “as applied” challenges in Commerce Clause cases. In my view, if the conduct under review falls within the plain language of the statute, precedent requires us to take the statute head on, not carve pieces out of it. Because I disagree with my colleagues’ approach to the issues as well as to their holding, I respectfully dissent.
I
Among the first principles one learns when studying the Constitution in law school is that our federal government is one of “enumerated powers.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 17 U.S. 316, 405, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819). As the Supreme Court has explained, “Our national government is one of delegated powers alone. Under our federal system the administration of criminal justice rests with the states except as Congress, acting within the scope of those delegated powers, has created offenses against the United States.” Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. *113491, 109, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 89 L.Ed. 1495 (1945) (plurality opinion). This structural concept means that our federal government can exercise “only the powers granted to it.” McCulloch, 17 U.S. at 405. In other words, Congress does not possess “a plenary police power that would authorize enactment of every type of legislation.” United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 566, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995). Any law enacted by Congress that is not rooted in one of these powers is unconstitutional. See United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 120 S.Ct. 1740, 146 L.Ed.2d 658 (2000) (striking down the civil remedy provisions of the Violence Against Women Act as an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’ Commerce Clause authority). And, although such an unauthorized law would be “unconstitutional” if passed by the Congress of the United States, such a genealogical defect would not render a state government powerless to enact the same rule.
One of the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution is the authority “to regulate commerce ... among the several states.... ” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3. In this regard, the Supreme Court has identified “three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its commerce power.” Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558, 115 S.Ct. 1624. They are (1) the use of channels of interstate commerce, (2) the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, and (3) those activities that “substantially affect” interstate commerce. Id. at 558-59, 115 S.Ct. 1624. It is the third category that poses the challenging question that when answered will decide the outcome of this case, i.e., whether 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B) which prohibits the simple intrastate possession of child pornography, whether commercial or not, that has been made with materials that traveled in interstate commerce is a valid exercise of Congress’ Commerce Clause authority.
II
I come at this case from an analytical perspective different from my friends in the majority. They focus on the particulars of Rhonda McCoy’s responsibility for the pathetic single photograph that supports her conviction, and they conclude from the details of her case — which they distill into a single category — that the statute at issue “as applied” to her circumstances is an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’ power. My compassionate friends are not incorrect in describing the underlying microcosmic facts of this case as (1) wholly personal, (2) not commercial, (3) strictly intrastate, and (4) the product of an isolated alcohol — -fueled episode — all suggesting that Rhonda McCoy and her family need help, not federal prison. However, I conclude, based on Supreme Court precedent, that the majority’s legal approach is not correctly grounded. The real determinative question is whether the activity generically described in the statute has a substantial effect on interstate commerce such that it is subject to criminalization by Congress.
The reason why I believe the majority’s approach is not viable is simple: the Supreme Court said in Lopez that “where a general regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual instances arising under that statute is of no consequence.” Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (emphasis in original) (quoting Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183, 197 n. 27, 88 S.Ct. 2017, 20 L.Ed.2d 1020 (1968), overruled on other grounds by Nat’l League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 96 S.Ct. 2465, 49 L.Ed.2d 245 (1976), overruled on other grounds by Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth., 469 *1135U.S. 528, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016 (1985)). I take this passage in Lopez to mean here precisely what it says: the de minimis nexus of Rhonda McCoy’s personal activity to interstate commerce is of “no consequence,” so long as (1) her conduct falls within the purview of the statute, as she has stipulated, and (2) the statute itself which covers that activity is valid. The Court in Lopez articulated this clarification to make it clear that although Congress may not use a “relatively trivial impact on commerce as an excuse for broad general regulation of state or private activities,” id., if the general regulatory statute at issue does bear a substantial relation to commerce, an “as applied” challenge is inappropriate.
The facts underlying the Court’s decision in Wirtz are not only interesting, but instructive. Under attack in Wirtz as an alleged violation of the scope of Commerce Clause authority was a decision by Congress to include within the reach of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 a new class of employees argued by Wirtz to have no connection whatsoever to traditional interstate commerce, such as employees of (1) hospitals, (2) institutions devoted to the care of the aged, disabled, or handicapped, and (3) schools. The Supreme Court rejected this attack because it concluded that the employees in question were within the well-established “enterprise concept,” which means that although the work that they themselves were doing was not typically connected to interstate commerce, the enterprise for which they worked was so connected, as were some of their fellow employees. What the Court said about the enterprise concept and Congress’ decision to rely on it in expanding the Fair Labor Standards Act sheds dis-positive light on whether “as applied” challenges are appropriate in this context:
Whether the “enterprise concept” is defended on the “competition” theory or on the “labor dispute” theory, it is true that labor conditions in businesses having only a few employees engaged in commerce or production may not affect commerce very much or often. Appellants therefore contend that defining covered enterprises in terms of their employees is sometimes to permit “the tail to wag the dog.” However, while Congress has in some instances left to the courts or to administrative agencies the task of determining whether commerce is affected in a particular instance, Darby [312 U.S. 100, 61 S.Ct. 451 (1941) ], itself recognized the power of Congress instead to declare that an entire class of activities affects commerce. The only question for the courts is then whether the class is “within the reach of the federal power. ” The contention that in Commerce Clause cases the courts have power to excise, as trivial, individual instances falling within a rationally defined class of activities has been put entirely to rest. Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 127-128, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942).
Wirtz, 392 U.S. at 192-93, 88 S.Ct. 2017 (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted).
The Supreme Court in Usery, 426 U.S. at 855, 96 S.Ct. 2465, overruled Wirtz, but only insofar as Wirtz stood for the proposition that Congress could use the authority of the Commerce Clause to invade the domain of the States’ performance of essential government functions. In other regards, Wirtz’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence remains intact, as demonstrated by the Court’s approving reference to it in Lopez. As the Court explained in Usery,
Appellants in no way challenge these decisions[, i.e., Fry v. United States, 421 U.S. 542, 95 S.Ct. 1792, 44 L.Ed.2d 363 (1975), and Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 85 S.Ct. 348, 13 L.Ed.2d 258 (1964),] establishing the breadth of authority granted Con*1136gress under the commerce power. Their contention, on the contrary, is that when Congress seeks to regulate directly the activities of States as public employers, it transgresses an affirmative limitation on the exercise of its power akin to other commerce power affirmative limitations contained in the constitution.
Usery, 426 U.S. at 841, 96 S.Ct. 2465.
One of the leading cases that illustrates the application of these principles is Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942). Roscoe Filburn was a private farmer. In 1941, he produced 462 bushels of wheat on his own land, mostly for his own consumption. Although he sold a small portion of his wheat locally, he did not sell or ship it in interstate commerce. Unfortunately, Roscoe grew more wheat that year than the marketing quota allowed by the federal Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. Wickard, the Secretary of Agriculture, determined based on the total amount of wheat produced that Roscoe should pay a penalty of $117.11 for this transgression, but the district court enjoined Wickard’s proposed penalty and enforcement of the Act against Roscoe with respect to his 1941 crop. Filburn v. Helke, 43 F.Supp. 1017(S.D.Ohio 1942).
The Supreme Court reversed the district court, noting first of all that the wheat industry as a macrocosm “has been a problem industry for some years.” Wickard, 317 U.S. at 125, 63 S.Ct. 82. The Court then described in commercial terms the national as well as the international dimensions of the problem, dimensions involving supply, demand, price to the grower, and cost to the consumer. From this discussion, the Court concluded that Congress was well within its Commerce Clause authority to regulate the production of wheat, even particular wheat that had no connection to interstate commerce. In the subsequent words of Wirtz, Congress had rationally identified wheat as a “defined class of activities” with national economic overtones. 392 U.S. at 194, 88 S.Ct. 2017. The Court simply turned a deaf constitutional ear to Roscoe’s request that his tiny crop and purely local circumstances could not be reached by the Act. In turning away Roscoe’s “as applied” challenge, the Court said,
The maintenance by government regulation of a price for wheat undoubtedly can be accomplished as effectively by sustaining or increasing the demand as by limiting the supply. The effect of the statute before us is to restrict the amount which may be produced for market and the extent as well to which one may forestall resort to the market by producing to meet his own needs. That appellee’s own contribution to the demand for wheat may be trivial by itself is not enough to remove him from the scope of federal regulation where, as here, his contribution, taken together with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial.
Wickard, 317 U.S. at 127-28, 63 S.Ct. 82.
These principles were recently restated by the Eleventh Circuit in United States v. Ballinger, 312 F.3d 1264, 1270 (11th Cir.2002):
When the regulated intrastate activity is a commercial or economic one, the Constitution permits the required substantial effect on interstate commerce to be located in the aggregate impact of the regulated activity upon interstate commerce. Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942). The Court has held that “where a general regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual instances arising under that statute is of no consequence.” Wirtz, 392 U.S. at 197, n. 27, 88 S.Ct. *11372017. The Constitution permits such aggregation of effects to justify congressional regulation of purely intrastate economic activity when the absence of such regulation would undercut a larger regulatory scheme affecting interstate commerce. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561, 115 S.Ct. 1624.
(Emphasis in original).
Ballinger then illustrates the distinction between economic and non-economic activity, and points out that Congress’ attempted regulation of activity failed in Morrison because the activity, violence against women, was generically non-economic. As the Supreme Court said in Morrison, “a fair reading of Lopez shows that the non-economic, criminal nature of the conduct at issue was central to our [rejection of such regulation] in that case.” Morrison, 529 U.S. at 610, 120 S.Ct. 1740. In Lopez, the Court was influenced by the fact that the Gun Free School Zone Act had “nothing to do with ‘commerce’ or any sort of economic enterprise.” Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561, 115 S.Ct. 1624.
Eight days after the decision in Morrison, the Supreme Court tackled another case allegedly involving the Commerce Clause: Jones v. United States, 529 U.S. 848, 120 S.Ct. 1904, 146 L.Ed.2d 902 (2000). In Jones, the Court was asked by Jones to hold that the use of the federal arson statute, 18 U.S.C. § 844(1), to prosecute him for firebombing an owner-occupied private residence which was not used for any commercial purpose exceeded the authority of Congress under the Commerce Clause. Jones had “unsuccessfully urged, both before the district court and on appeal to the Seventh Circuit, that § 844(1), when applied to the arson of a private residence ...” was unconstitutional. Jones, 529 U.S. at 851, 120 S.Ct. 1904 (emphasis added). The Court ultimately avoided the constitutional question — and here is the rub — by interpreting the plain language of the arson statute so as not to reach the type of structure Jones had destroyed by fire. The court said, “We conclude that § 844(1) is not soundly read to make virtually every arson in the country a federal offense. We hold that the provision [‘property used in interstate commerce’] covers only property currently used in commerce or in an activity affecting commerce.” Id. at 859, 120 S.Ct. 1904. See also United States v. Pappadopoulos, 64 F.3d 522, 528 (9th Cir.1995) (the jurisdictional element found in 18 U.S.C. § 844(1) does not cover the simple arson of a non-commercial private residence). Had the plain language of the arson statute encompassed the structure destroyed by Jones, as the statute here clearly covers McCoy’s behavior, then the Court would have had no choice but to deal with the statute’s constitutionality in Commerce Clause terms. I will discuss the ramifications of Jones in part IV of this opinion.
III
Thus, the resolution of this case boils down to whether the statute under review, 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B) which encompasses a certain kind of intrastate possession, passes Commerce Clause muster, not whether McCoy’s categorically peculiar circumstances have a pellucid nexus to interstate commerce. The answer to this question, of course, emerges from an application of the four-factor Morrison test:
(1) whether the statute regulates commerce, or any activity that might be deemed an economic activity, broadly defined; (2) whether the statute has an express jurisdictional element that restricts its application to activities that have an explicit connection with or effect on interstate commerce; (3) whether congressional findings support the judgment that the activity in question has a substantial effect on inter-state com*1138merce; and (4) whether the [activity] made an offense has an attenuated relationship to that substantial effect on interstate commerce. [Morrison, 529 U.S. at 610-12, 120 S.Ct. 1740.]
United States v. Kallestad, 236 F.3d 225, 228 (5th Cir.2000) (quotation marks omitted).
A.
It seems to me that the answer to the first question is clear. Congress has determined on many occasions that child pornography of all kinds and whether it is personal or explicitly commercial has turned into a massive national industry, one wherein photographs, film, and prurient images of children are bought and sold as a commodity at market for monetary consideration. In 1984, Congress said:
The Congress finds that—
(1) child pornography has developed into a highly organized, multi-million dollar industry which operates on a nationwide scale;
(2) thousands of children including large numbers of runaway and homeless youth are exploited in the production and distribution of pornographic materials;
(3) the use of children as subjects of pornographic materials is harmful to the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the individual and society.
Child Protection Act of 1984, Pub.L. No. 98-292, § 2, 98 Stat. 204 (1984). The 1986 legislation on the same subject said:
The Congress finds that—
(1) child exploitation has become a mul-ti-million dollar industry, infiltrated and operated by elements of organized crime, and by a nationwide network of individuals openly advertising their desire to exploit children.
Child Abuse Victims Rights Act of 1986, Pub.L. no. 99-591, § 702, 100 Stat. 3341 (1986).
Therefore, federal child pornography laws — unlike the Gun Free School Zone Act struck down in Lopez and the Violence Against Women Act invalidated in Morrison — were intended by Congress first and foremost to attack an item that although illicit in nature had spawned a vast interstate economic market. The underground and perverted product is certainly disgusting, but it has become — like drugs or stolen cars — a commercial product nonetheless. See United States v. Cortes, 299 F.3d 1030, 1037 (9th Cir.2002) (carjacking is both a crime of violence and an economic crime). Thus, these laws easily pass the first step of the Morrison test.
Other circuits agree with and support this conclusion. See United States v. Robinson, 137 F.3d 652 (1st Cir.1998); United States v. Rodia, 194 F.3d 465 (3rd Cir.1999), cert. denied, 529 U.S. 1131, 120 S.Ct. 2008, 146 L.Ed.2d 958 (2000); United States v. Kallestad, 236 F.3d 225 (5th Cir.2000); United States v. Angle, 234 F.3d 326 (7th Cir.2000), cert. denied, 533 U.S. 932, 121 S.Ct. 2556, 150 L.Ed.2d 722 (2001); United States v. Bausch, 140 F.3d 739 (8th Cir.1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1072, 119 S.Ct. 806, 142 L.Ed.2d 667 (1999).
B.
Next, we must address whether the statute contains an express jurisdictional element that restricts its application to activities that have an explicit connection with or effect on interstate commerce. Unlike the statutes at issue in Morrison and Lopez, § 2252(a)(4)(B) is restricted to possession of child pornography
that has been mailed, or has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, or which was pro*1139duced using materials which have been mailed or so shipped or transported, by any means including by computer, if
(I) the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and
(ii) such visual depiction is of such conduct.
18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B).
The presence in this statute of a jurisdictional element restricting the reach of the statute indicates that Congress regarded this statute as an exercise of its Commerce Clause power, not simply as a broad net cast over purely intrastate crime of which it disapproved. As the Fifth Circuit said in Kallestad, 236 F.3d at 229, “What the jurisdictional hook does accomplish in this case ... is to limit prosecutions under section 2252(a)(4)(B) to a smaller universe of provable offenses. It further reflects Congress’s sensitivity to the limits upon its commerce power, and Congress’s express interest in regulating national markets.”
Not all circuits agree with this analysis. The Third Circuit in Rodia and the Seventh Circuit in Angle have determined that the connection between the jurisdictional hook and the activity being regulated is so attenuated that it “fail[s][by itself] to guarantee that the activity regulated has a substantial effect on interstate commerce.” Rodia, 194 F.3d at 472; see also Angle, 234 F.3d at 336-37. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the failure of the jurisdictional hook, Angle and Rodia affirmed the statute because of the satisfactory nexus between interstate commerce and the activity regulated. I agree with this result. Rodia, 194 F.3d at 482; Angle, 234 F.3d at 338.
C.
When reading the various iterations of Congress’ child pornography legislation and the numerous findings that support each enhancement of this initiative, it is clear to me that Congress sees child pornography as a “growing, predatory business that exploits and injures the most vulnerable among us” and “that the child pornography trade operates across the United States, out of major cities and small towns alike, to reach consumers nationwide.” Kallestad, 236 F.3d at 229. These findings, as far as my reading of them is concerned, collectively establish that purely local possession impacts interstate commerce.
D.
We come finally to the heart of the matter: whether the activity described in the statute has a substantial effect on interstate commerce, or whether it is too attenuated therefrom. Starting from the proposition that we have on our analytical plate a product that is bought, sold, and traded nationally, I agree with the Seventh Circuit in Angle, which agrees in turn with Rodia:
Angle’s contention that intrastate possession of child pornography has little or no bearing on inter-state commerce ignores the interstate demand for child pornography which Congress took into consideration in enacting the statutory scheme under § 2252. For instance, Congress found that “ ‘child pornography and child prostitution have become highly organized, multimillion dollar industries that operate on a nationwide scale,’ and ‘that such prostitution and the sale and distribution of such pornographic materials are carried on to a substantial extent through the mails and other instrumentalities of interstate and foreign commerce.’ ” United States v. Winningham, 953 F.Supp. 1068, 1074 n. 13 (D.Minn.1996) (quoting S.Rep. No. 95438, at 3-5 (1978), reprinted in 1978 U.S.C.C.A.N. 40, 42-43). There can be no debate that “interstate trafficking in child pornography has an effect on inter*1140state commerce.” Rodia, 194 F.3d at 474. However, Congress amended § 2252 in late 1988 to include the clause at issue here, in large part, to close a loophole in the original regulatory-scheme which was being “undercut by the child pornographers who continued to manufacture their own pornography intrastate.” Id. at 479
We agree with the Third Circuit that, by adding § 2252(a)(4)(B) to the regulatory scheme, Congress could have rationally reasoned as follows:
Some pornographers manufacture, possess, and use child pornography exclusively within the boundaries of a state, and often only within the boundaries of their own property. It is unrealistic to think that those pornographers will be content with their own supply, hence they will likely wish to explore new or additional pornographic photographs of children. Many of those pornographers will look to the interstate market as a source of new material, whether through mail order catalogs or through the Internet. Therefore, the possession of “home grown” pornography may well stimulate a further interest in pornography that immediately or eventually animates demand for interstate pornography. It is also reasonable to believe the related proposition that discouraging the intrastate possession of pornography will cause some of these child pornographers to leave the realm of child pornography completely, which in turn will reduce the interstate demand for pornography.
Id. at 477.
With this understanding of individual behavior in a market system, Congress could have rationally believed that intrastate possession of child pornography bears a substantial relationship to interstate commerce. Moreover, as the First Circuit observed:
By outlawing the purely intrastate possession of child pornography in § 2252(a)(4)(B), Congress can curb the nationwide demand for these materials. We believe that such possession, “through repetition elsewhere,” helps to create and sustain a market for sexually explicit materials depicting minors.
Robinson, 137 F.3d at 656(quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 567, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626). We join the First and Third Circuits in finding that there is a nexus, via a market theory, between interstate commerce and the intrastate possession of child pornography.
Angle, 234 F.3d at 337-38.
IV
My colleagues may have exceeded what the law permits. They have rendered an opinion on the validity of the statute “as applied,” but I do not believe they have that option. McCoy’s particular conduct, as wan as it may appear to each of us, clearly falls within the purview of the plain language of the statute under any statutory construction of it, including the jurisdictional element. Unlike what the Supreme Court did in Jones, it is impossible to read McCoy out of the statute. Simply put, she possessed child pornography (a stipulated fact) produced using materials transported in interstate and foreign commerce. The upshot of condemning the statute “as applied” therefore is either (1) tantamount to condemning the statute, hie sepultus, on its face as overbroad, or (2) construing the statute as the Supreme Court did in Jones as not covering intrastate non-commercial possession. Holding this statute unconstitutional as applied to McCoy’s conduct, or, as described by the majority, to “simple intrastate possession of a visual depiction that has not been mailed, shipped, or transported interstate and is not intended for interstate distribution, or for economic or commercial use,” may render unconsti*1141tutional all intrastate child pornography possession prosecutions, even those where the production materials moved in interstate commerce and the child pornography was not “personal” in nature.
Congress has declared that an entire class of activities substantially affects interstate commerce. That activity is child pornography. To the statute, it is immaterial that the particular child pornography under scrutiny was not produced for sale or trade. As reiterated in Usery, “[e]ven activity that is purely intrastate in character may be regulated by Congress, where that activity, combined with the like conduct of others similarly situated affects commerce among the states.... ” Id. at 840, 96 S.Ct. 2465 (quoting Fry, 421 U.S. at 547, 95 S.Ct. 1792).
Congressional power over areas of private endeavor, even when its exercise may pre-empt express state law determinations contrary to the result which has commended itself to the collective wisdom of Congress, has been held to be limited only by the requirement that “the means chosen by [Congress] must be reasonably adapted to the end permitted by the Constitution.”
Id. (quoting Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc., 379 U.S. at 262, 85 S.Ct. 348).
This ease is not free from doubt, as Judge Reinhardt’s well-articulated opinion concludes; and I am not oblivious to the difference between wheat and child pornography. They are as different as chalk and cheese. But, as generic commodities determined by Congress to be part of a national market, they both are subject to Commerce Clause regulation. Therefore, the factual non-commercial nature of a single item of the commodity is immaterial.
Justice Jackson made additional comments in Wickard about the Commerce Clause that must inform our analysis in this case. Referring to Chief Justice Marshall’s words in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 22 U.S. 1, 197, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824), Jackson said, [Marshall] made emphatic the embracing and penetrating nature of [the Commerce Clause] power by warning that effective restraints on its exercise must proceed from political rather than judicial processes. Wickard, 317 U.S. at 120, 63 S.Ct. 82. What I take this passage to mean in the light of Lopez and Morrison is not that there are no constitutional limits on Congress’ use of Commerce Clause authority, but that courts must be hesitant to substitute judicial for legislative judgment. Whatever a valid statute covers or reaches is fair game. As a paraphrase of the current saying goes, “It’s the statute, amigo.”
With Justice Jackson’s words in mind that these discrete decisions and distinctions belong to the political rather than the judicial process, I cannot conclude that Congress acted beyond its authority to include all intrastate child pornography produced with “interstate materials” within this statutory framework. Thus, I respectfully dissent.