Cite as: 532 U. S. 105 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
A variable standard for interpreting common, jurisdictional phrases would contradict our earlier cases and bring instability to statutory interpretation. The Court has declined in past cases to afford significance, in construing the meaning of the statutory jurisdictional provisions "in commerce" and "engaged in commerce," to the circumstance that the statute predated shifts in the Court's Commerce Clause cases. In FTC v. Bunte Brothers, Inc., 312 U. S. 349 (1941), the Court rejected the contention that the phrase "in commerce" in § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 38 Stat. 719, 15 U. S. C. § 45, a provision enacted by Congress in 1914, should be read in as expansive a manner as "affecting commerce." See Bunte Bros., supra, at 350-351. We entertained a similar argument in a pair of cases decided in the 1974 Term concerning the meaning of the phrase "engaged in commerce" in § 7 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. § 18, another 1914 congressional enactment. See American Building Maintenance, supra, at 277-283; Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co., 419 U. S. 186, 199-202 (1974). We held that the phrase "engaged in commerce" in § 7 "means engaged in the flow of interstate commerce, and was not intended to reach all corporations engaged in activities subject to the federal commerce power." American Building Maintenance, supra, at 283; cf. Gulf Oil, supra, at 202 (expressing doubt as to whether an "argument from the history and practical purposes of the Clayton Act" could justify "radical expansion of the Clayton Act's scope beyond that which the statutory language defines").
The Court's reluctance to accept contentions that Congress used the words "in commerce" or "engaged in commerce" to regulate to the full extent of its commerce power rests on sound foundation, as it affords objective and consistent significance to the meaning of the words Congress uses when it defines the reach of a statute. To say that the statutory words "engaged in commerce" are subject to variable interpretations depending upon the date of adoption, even a date
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