7 U.S.C. § 1311
Section 1311 · 1311 to 13141. Repealed. Pub. L. 108357, title VI, 611(a), Oct. 22, 2004, 118 Stat. 1522
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 25 court decisions — leading case Food & Drug Administration v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. (2000)
Most recently applied in Sottera, Inc. v. Food & Drug Administration (December 2010)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) The marketing of tobacco constitutes one of the greatest basic industries of the United States with ramifying activities which directly affect interstate and foreign commerce at every point, and stable conditions therein are necessary to the general welfare. Tobacco produced for market is sold on a Nation-wide market and, with its products, moves almost wholly in interstate and foreign commerce from the producer to the ultimate consumer. The farmers producing such commodity are subject in their operations to uncontrollable natural causes, are widely scattered throughout the Nation, in many cases such farmers carry on their farming operations on borrowed money or leased lands, and are not so situated as to be able to organize effectively, as can labor and industry through unions and corporations enjoying Government protection and sanction. For these reasons among others, the farmers are unable without Federal assistance to control effectively the orderly marketing of such commodity with the result that abnormally excessive supplies thereof are produced and dumped indiscriminately on the Nation-wide market.
(b) The disorderly marketing of such abnormally excessive supplies affects, burdens, and obstructs interstate and foreign commerce by (1) materially affecting the volume of such commodity marketed therein, (2) disrupting the orderly marketing of such commodity therein, (3) reducing the price for such commodity with consequent injury and destruction of interstate and foreign commerce in such commodity, and (4) causing a disparity between the prices for such commodity in interstate and foreign commerce and industrial products therein, with a consequent diminution of the volume of interstate and foreign commerce in industrial products.
(c) Whenever an abnormally excessive supply of tobacco exists, the marketing of such commodity by the producers thereof directly and substantially affects interstate and foreign commerce in such commodity and its products, and the operation of the provisions of this subpart becomes necessary and appropriate in order to promote, foster, and maintain an orderly flow of such supply in interstate and foreign commerce.