Cite as: 529 U. S. 120 (2000)
Breyer, J., dissenting
tobacco-related jurisdiction and considered together with Congress' failure explicitly to grant the agency tobacco-specific authority, demonstrate that Congress did not intend for the FDA to exercise jurisdiction over tobacco, ante, at 155-156.
In my view, neither of these propositions is valid. Rather, the FDCA does not significantly limit the FDA's remedial alternatives. See infra, at 174-181. And the later statutes do not tell the FDA it cannot exercise jurisdiction, but simply leave FDA jurisdictional law where Congress found it. See infra, at 181-186; cf. Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997, 111 Stat. 2380 (codified at note following 21 U. S. C. § 321 (1994 ed., Supp. III)) (statute "shall" not "be construed to affect the question of whether" the FDA "has any authority to regulate any tobacco product").
The bulk of the opinion that follows will explain the basis for these latter conclusions. In short, I believe that the most important indicia of statutory meaning—language and purpose—along with the FDCA's legislative history (described briefly in Part I) are sufficient to establish that the FDA has authority to regulate tobacco. The statute-specific arguments against jurisdiction that the tobacco companies and the majority rely upon (discussed in Part II) are based on erroneous assumptions and, thus, do not defeat the jurisdiction-supporting thrust of the FDCA's language and purpose. The inferences that the majority draws from later legislative history are not persuasive, since (as I point out in Part III) one can just as easily infer from the later laws that Congress did not intend to affect the FDA's tobacco-related authority at all. And the fact that the FDA changed its mind about the scope of its own jurisdiction is legally insignificant because (as Part IV establishes) the agency's reasons for changing course are fully justified. Finally, as I explain in Part V, the degree of accountability that likely will attach to the FDA's action in this case should alleviate any concern
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