To amend the Harmonized Tariff Schedule for the United States to establish a new subheading in chapter 39 for silicone prosthetics for women who are breast cancer survivors and a new subheading in chapter 90 for mastectomy bras.

The measure before us is an act of classification within the tariff schedule, an exercise of powers expressly committed to the national legislature. Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 empowers Congress 'To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,' subject only to the proviso that such duties be uniform throughout the United States — a uniformity of geography, not of article, as any schedule must necessarily distinguish among goods. Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 further commits the regulation of commerce with foreign nations to Congress, and no instrument regulates foreign commerce more…

I have examined this measure against the plain text of our Constitution, and I find it within the enumerated powers granted to Congress. The power 'To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises' is expressly vested in the legislature by Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, and the regulation of 'Commerce with foreign Nations' by Clause 3 of that same section. The Harmonized Tariff Schedule is nothing more than the machinery by which these two grants are executed; to amend its subheadings is to exercise, not to exceed, the delegated authority. Nor does the measure offend the requirement that…

The power to lay and collect Duties and Imposts on foreign commerce is among the most express grants to the national legislature, found in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, and reinforced by the power to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations in Clause 3. The classification of particular articles within a schedule of duties is a proper exercise of that enumerated authority, requiring no strained construction of the general welfare phrase, which I have elsewhere shown (Federalist No. 41) was never intended to enlarge the powers beyond their enumerated bounds. The measure here does not create a ne…

This measure lies squarely within the enumerated powers of the national legislature. Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 vests in Congress the power 'to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,' and the imposition, modification, and classification of duties upon articles imported into these United States is among the most ancient and unambiguous exercises of that grant. A tariff schedule is nothing more than the legislative enumeration of articles subject to duty and the rates thereof; to classify silicone prosthetics and mastectomy bras as distinct subheadings is an act of classificatio…