All 11 judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will consider next month a constitutional question that could affect a wide range of information disclosures (e.g., on product labels) required by federal regulations. This issue is raised in a lawsuit against Department of Agriculture regulations that (a) require muscle cut covered commodities (steaks, pork chops, ribs, etc.) to be clearly labeled with the country or countries in which the animal from which the products are derived was born, raised and slaughtered and (b) prohibit the commingling of such commodities of different origins.

...North American meat industry groups are challenging the COOL regulations in court, arguing among other things that they violate First Amendment protections by compelling speech that does not directly advance a government interest. Supporters of the regulations have responded that reducing consumer confusion is a sufficient government interest to justify the information disclosure requirement.

On March 28, a three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected a request for a preliminary injunction staying the rules’ effectiveness while the underlying litigation is ongoing, stating that the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims in that case...

On April 4, however, the appeals court vacated the March 28 ruling and agreed to the judicial panel’s suggestion to rehear the case en banc (i.e., by all the court’s 11 judges) in May. The purpose of this relatively rare step is to clarify whether a federal requirement to disclose “purely factual and uncontroversial” commercial information for reasons other than preventing deception is entitled to the same limitation on First Amendment protections as a requirement to disclose information to correct a deception (e.g., false advertising).

It thus remains possible that the courts could halt and even overturn the COOL regulations...

This has been excerpted from 14 April 2014 article by Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg and is available in its entirety at http://www.strtrade.com/news-publications-information-disclosure-compelled-speech-origin-labeling-041414.html.