Mississippi Poultry Ass'n, Inc. v. Madigan
| Citation | 31 F.3d 293 |
| Decision Date | 09 September 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 92-7420,92-7420 |
| Parties | MISSISSIPPI POULTRY ASSOCIATION, INC., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Edward R. MADIGAN, Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, et al., Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit) |
Bruce S. Kingsdorf, New Orleans, LA, N. David Palmeter, Michael Jay Singer, Asst. Dir., Mudge, Rose, Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon, Mark W. Pennak, Barbara C. Biddle, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Appellate Staff, Civ. Div., Washington, DC, for amicus curiae--Footwear Distributors and Retailers of Am. Cleveland, Barrios, Kingsdorf & Casteix.
Hubbard T. Saunders, IV, William J. Cole, III, Crosthwait, Terney, Noble & Allain, Jackson, MS, William A. Bradford, Jr., Gary Jay Kushner, Hogan & Hartson, Washington, DC, for appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
Before POLITZ, Chief Judge, REAVLEY, KING, GARWOOD, JOLLY, HIGGINBOTHAM, DAVIS, JONES, SMITH, DUHE, WIENER, BARKSDALE, EMILIO M. GARZA, DeMOSS and STEWART, Circuit Judges. *
Today we must decide whether a critical inspection standard contained in a regulation promulgated by the Secretary of Agriculture ("Secretary") is contrary to the plain language of Sec. 17(d) of the Poultry Products Inspection Act ("PPIA"). 1
Under the PPIA, Congress devised a two-track system for regulating domestic poultry production: Domestic producers who wish to sell products inter state must comply with the federal standards embodied in the federal regulatory program; 2 domestic producers who wish to sell products only intra state may do so by complying with any state regulatory program with standards "at least equal to" the federal program. 3 Reduced to the simplest terms, Congress thus subjected all domestic poultry production sold in interstate commerce to a single, federal program with uniform standards.
Congress also addressed the issue of foreign standards. Under Sec. 17(d) of the PPIA, Congress directed the Secretary to require imported poultry products to be "subject to the same ... standards applied to products produced in the United States." 4 Were that congressional mandate to be enforced strictly, all poultry sold in inter state commerce--whether produced in this country or anywhere else in the world--would be inspected pursuant to the uniform federal standards. Despite this congressional command, however, the Secretary promulgated the challenged regulation allowing foreign--but not domestic--poultry products to be imported and sold in interstate commerce, even though such poultry is inspected under different standards, as long as the foreign standards are determined by the Secretary to be "at least equal to" the federal standards. 5 Given the plain language and structure of the PPIA, we conclude that this regulation cannot withstand the instant challenge. Because the phrase "at least equal to," as used in the PPIA, inescapably infers the existence of a difference--and the phrase "the same as," as used in the PPIA, eschews any possibility of more than a technical or de minimis difference, neither phrase can ever be synonymous with the other in the PPIA.
Understanding the historical development of the PPIA is necessary to comprehend fully the significance of Sec. 17(d)'s "the same" requirement as an integral structural element of the PPIA. In 1957 Congress enacted the PPIA, 6 thereby establishing a comprehensive federal program for the regulation of poultry products. 7 The PPIA was enacted to serve a two-fold purpose: To protect consumers from misbranded, unwholesome, or adulterated products, and to protect the domestic poultry market from unfair competition. 8 Typically, the safety and unfair competition goals are closely related. Of significance here, however, was Congress' concern with more than differences in product when it addressed unfair competition. Specifically, Congress also recognized that differences in regulation could also cause unfair competition. Indeed, in its original form, Sec. 2 of the PPIA justified regulation of poultry sold in "large centers of population" on the belief that uninspected poultry products--regardless of whether such products were unsafe--adversely affected the national market for inspected poultry products. 9
The PPIA created one uniform regulatory scheme for the national market, although, as originally enacted, it did not extend to products sold in intra state commerce other than those products sold in "large centers of population." 10 As for poultry produced in foreign countries, initially Sec. 17 of the PPIA merely proscribed importation of products that were "unhealthful, unwholesome, or adulterated," and authorized the Secretary to promulgate regulations accordingly.
In 1968 Congress amended the PPIA to include within its ambit poultry produced and sold in intra state commerce. 11 Principles of federalism, however, led Congress to choose not to displace state inspection programs. 12 Instead, Congress in these amendments created a complex "marbled cake" scheme in which the Secretary offers state inspection programs technical and laboratory assistance, training, and partial funding. 13 These amendments to the PPIA also provided for a state-federal advisory board to achieve better coordination and uniformity between the federal and the state programs. 14 Finally, the amended PPIA provided that if a state inspection program is--as determined by the Secretary--"at least equal to" the federal one, then poultry inspected under that program may be offered for sale, but still only intra state. 15
Even after the 1968 amendments, then, the PPIA maintained uniformity regarding the inter state sale of domestic poultry products. Such sales still could occur only if the poultry had been inspected under THE federal program--not under some state program, whether identical or equivalent--and then only according to THE uniform federal standards. 16
The 1968 amendments did not alter the standards for imported poultry products. The House Report accompanying these amendments candidly states the then-extant trade considerations underlying this omission:
The committee concluded that more stringent regulation of imports, when not required In 1972 the Secretary revised the regulations regarding those standards. 18 By this time, the Secretary was overseeing two distinct poultry inspection programs: For intrastate sales, state programs employing standards "at least equal to" the federal program; for all interstate sales, exclusively the federal program. Even though imported poultry was destined to move in interstate commerce, the Secretary chose to regulate such poultry in accordance with the intra state "at least equal to" standard, not the "same" standard (i.e. the federal one) applied to inter state sales. 19
might result in the enactment of measures abroad which could hamper the exportation of U.S. slaughtered poultry and poultry products, the volume of which far exceeds the imports. 17
As can be imagined, the Secretary's decision had great and immediate significance to domestic poultry producers. In sum, the only way a domestic poultry producer may sell products interstate is if that producer submits to the federal program--the myriad regulations of which are now embodied in a daunting 170 pages of the Code of Federal Regulations. 20 In contrast, the Secretary's choice of the "at least equal to" standard allowed foreign poultry producers--but not domestic ones--to sell products in interstate commerce that had been inspected under any different set of standards if, in the Secretary's judgment, the relevant foreign country's poultry inspection program was "at least equal to" the federal one. Given this disparity, domestic poultry producers could have complained that the adoption of the "at least equal to" standard offered foreign poultry producers a potential competitive advantage based on nothing more than the fact that domestic and foreign poultry producers were subject to different regulatory programs. 21
Next, as part of the Food Security Act of 1985 ("1985 Farm Bill"), Congress amended Sec. 17 of the PPIA to provide that imported poultry:
shall ... be subject to the same inspection, sanitary, quality, species verification, and the residue standards applied to products produced in the United States; and ... [shall] have been processed in facilities and under conditions that are the same as those under which similar products are processed in the United States. 22
Despite Congress' command to hold foreign producers of poultry destined for interstate commerce in this country accountable to "the same" standards as domestic producers of poultry destined for that market, in 1989 the Secretary and the Food Safety and Inspection Service ("FSIS") (collectively, the "Secretary") promulgated the challenged regulation, thereby retaining the subjective "at least equal to" standard. 23 Congress reacted Recognizing the impasse between the Legislative and Executive branches of the federal government, the Mississippi Poultry Association, Inc. and the National Broiler Council (collectively, "the Poultry Associations")--both non-profit trade associations whose members are domestic poultry producers and processors--turned to the third branch of government, filing suit in the Southern District of Mississippi. There the Associations sought and obtained a judicial declaration that the 1989 regulation implementing Sec. 17(d) was arbitrary and capricious as contemplated by the Administrative Procedure Act. 27
to that effrontery the following year by enacting Sec. 2507 of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 ("1990 Farm Bill"). 24 In that section, Congress addressed the Secretary's interpretation, stating that "the regulation promulgated by the Secretary of Agriculture, through the [FSIS], with respect to poultry products offered for importation into the...
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