TALLMAN, Circuit Judge:
Tia Latrice Harrell raises a question of first impression in our Circuit: whether the "relating to" parentheticals within 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(c) limit the statute's otherwise clear articulation of which offenses may serve as predicates for application of § 1028A(a).
Harrell knew that she would never be approved to visit the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, Washington. The center was trying to combat a growing problem with smuggled-in contraband, and Harrell had a lengthy criminal record and was under federal supervision at the time for bank fraud.
Harrell's subterfuge did not last long, however. Corrections officials discovered that one of the facility's regular visitors was on active supervision—a fact not reflected in their records. By comparing photographs, they identified Harrell as that visitor, and, during Harrell's next visit, they confronted her about her subterfuge. Before she was arrested, Harrell admitted both her true identity and the fact that she had previously smuggled drugs into the facility.
Harrell claims that § 1028A does not apply to her because the application of § 1028A(c)(11) is limited by the parenthetical that follows its enumeration of specific predicate offenses. She argues that the district court erred in not dismissing that count because her conviction for violating § 408(a)(7)(B) was not related to any attempt to "appl[y] for or obtain[ ] benefits" under the Social Security Act. We do not agree.
The parenthetical is clearly a descriptive term, not a limiting principle—a conclusion compelled by the fact that the interpretation urged by Harrell is not supported by the plain language of the statute and would render some of the statute's provisions meaningless.
"As in any case of statutory construction, our analysis begins with `the language of the statute.' And where the statutory language provides a clear answer, it ends there as well." Hughes Aircraft Co. v. Jacobson, 525 U.S. 432, 438, 119 S.Ct. 755, 142 L.Ed.2d 881 (1999) (citation omitted). To aid our inquiry, we rely on our established rules of statutory construction, which instruct us to consider not only the words used in a particular section but also the statute as a whole. United States v. Cabaccang, 332 F.3d 622, 627 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc) ("[W]e must interpret statutes as a whole, giving effect to each word and making every effort not to interpret a provision in a manner that renders other provisions of the same statute inconsistent, meaningless or superfluous." (alteration in original) (quoting Boise Cascade Corp. v. EPA, 942 F.2d 1427, 1432 (9th Cir.1991) (internal quotation marks omitted))).
Reviewing the language of subsection (c)(11) alone, we are hard-pressed to see how Congress might have intended the parenthetical to be accorded a limiting effect rather than a descriptive one. The phrase "relating to" does not itself imply
In addition, as the Government contends in its briefs, to accord the parenthetical a limiting effect would render Congress' inclusion of 42 U.S.C. § 1307(b) a superfluous nullity as that section does not "relat[e] to false statements relating to programs under the Act"—much less relate to "applying for or obtaining [Social Security] benefits." Cf. § 1028A(c)(11). Instead, § 1307(b) criminalizes the making of false statements "with the intent to elicit information as to the social security account number, date of birth, employment, wages, or benefits of any individual" absent any regard for whether those statements relate to a Social Security program.
We do not have to rely simply on that point, however, because there exists even more evidence refuting Harrell's claim. First, in § 1028A(c)(4), Congress provides a clear example of the language it uses when it intends a limiting clause. In contrast to the "relating to" parentheticals used in every one of the eleven enumerated subsections in this section, Congress provided:
§ 1028A(c)(4) (emphasis added). As explained in Galindo-Gallegos, Congress' use of clear and distinct language when it intends a limiting effect underscores the descriptive character of the "relating to" parenthetical. 244 F.3d at 733-34.
Id. at 734.
Second, as has been described, Congress' use of "relating to" parentheticals is widely understood to have a descriptive import. E.g., Persichilli, 608 F.3d at 40-41; Galindo-Gallegos, 244 F.3d at 733-34; United States v. Monjaras-Castaneda, 190 F.3d 326, 330 (5th Cir.1999) ("A parenthetical is, after all, a parenthetical, and it cannot be used to overcome the operative terms of the statute." (quoting Cabell Huntington Hosp., Inc. v. Shalala, 101 F.3d 984, 990 (4th Cir.1996)) (internal quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Kassouf, 144 F.3d 952, 959-60 (6th Cir. 1998) (finding "relating to" parenthetical in 26 U.S.C. § 6531(6) descriptive); United States v. Garner, 837 F.2d 1404, 1419 (7th Cir.1987) ("[W]hen read in context, the parenthetical `relating to bribery' does not limit the incorporation of [18 U.S.C. § ] 201 [into § 1961(1)(B)], but describes it. . . . As another court has said, the parentheticals are only `visual aids,' designed to guide the reader through what would otherwise be a litany of numbers." (internal quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Herring, 602 F.2d 1220, 1223 (5th Cir.1979) (holding that the "relating to" parenthetical in 18 U.S.C. § 1961 was "merely to aid identification of [18 U.S.C.] § 2314 rather than to limit" its application). But see Evangelista v. Ashcroft, 359 F.3d 145, 152-53 (2d Cir.2004). Harrell does not convince us that we should treat the parentheticals in § 1028A(c) any differently.
Because we conclude that the plain text of § 1028A(c) demonstrates that the "relating to" parentheticals serve as descriptive aids intended by Congress "to make reading the statute easier, so that one does not have to look up each citation to see what it is about, and to protect against scrivener's error in getting the statute from the drafting desk to the United States Code," Galindo-Gallegos, 244 F.3d at 734, that ends our inquiry. We have no cause to trudge through the deep mud of legislative history. See United States v. Gonzales, 520 U.S. 1, 6, 117 S.Ct. 1032, 137 L.Ed.2d 132 (1997) ("Given the straightforward statutory command, there is no reason to resort to legislative history. Indeed, far from clarifying the statute, the legislative history only muddies the waters." (citation omitted)). Neither do we find the rule of lenity to be of any aid to Harrell's claim. See United States v. Shabani, 513 U.S. 10, 17, 115 S.Ct. 382, 130 L.Ed.2d 225 (1994) ("The rule of lenity, however, applies only when, after consulting traditional canons of statutory construction, we are left with an ambiguous statute."); see also Callanan v. United States, 364 U.S. 587, 596, 81 S.Ct. 321, 5 L.Ed.2d 312 (1961).
§ 1028A(c)(11) (emphasis added).