home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Shareware Overload Trio 2
/
Shareware Overload Trio Volume 2 (Chestnut CD-ROM).ISO
/
dir33
/
cwru_ct.zip
/
90-1341.ZS
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-11-06
|
9KB
|
142 lines
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY v.
OHIO et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the sixth circuit
No. 90-1341. Argued December 3, 1991-Decided April 21, 1992
The Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) prohibit the discharge or disposal of
pollutants without a permit, assign primary authority to issue
permits to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and allow
EPA to authorize a State to supplant the federal permit program
with one of its own under specified circumstances. Respondent State
sued petitioner Department of Energy (DOE) over its operation of a
uranium-processing plant in Ohio, seeking, among other relief, both
state and federal civil penalties for past violations of the CWA and
RCRA and of state laws enacted to supplant those federal statutes.
Although conceding, inter alia, that both statutes render federal
agencies liable for ``coercive'' fines imposed to induce compliance with
injunctions or other judicial orders designed to modify behavior
prospectively, DOE asserted sovereign immunity from liability for
``punitive'' fines imposed to punish past violations. The District Court
held that both statutes waived federal sovereign immunity from
punitive fines, by both their federal-facilities and citizen-suit sections.
The Court of Appeals affirmed in part, holding that Congress had
waived immunity as to punitive fines in the CWA's federal-facilities
section and RCRA's citizen-suit section, but not in RCRA's federal-
facilities section.
Held:Congress has not waived the National Government's sovereign
immunity from liability for civil fines imposed by a State for past
violations of the CWA or RCRA. Pp.5-20.
(a)This Court presumes congressional familiarity with the common
rule that any waiver of the Government's sovereign immunity must
be unequivocal. See United States v. Mitchell, 445 U.S. 535,
538-539. Such waivers must be construed strictly in favor of the
sovereign and not enlarged beyond what the language requires. See,
e. g., Ruckelshaus v. Sierra Club, 463 U.S. 680, 685-686. P.5.
(b)Although both the CWA and RCRA citizen-suit sections autho-
rize a State to commence a civil action ``against any person (including
. . . the United States . . .),'' and authorize the district courts to
impose punitive fines under the Acts' civil-penalties sections, the
incorporation of the latter sections must be read to encompass their
exclusion of the United States from among the ``person[s]'' who may
be fined, see, e. g., Engel v. Davenport, 271 U.S. 33, 38. The
citizen-suit sections' initial inclusion of the United States as a
``person'' goes only to the clauses subjecting the Government to suit,
and a broader waiver may not be inferred. Both the CWA and RCRA
contain various provisions expressly defining ``person'' for purposes of
the entire section in which the term occurs, thereby raising the
inference that a special definition not described as being for purposes
of its ``section'' or ``subchapter'' was intended to have the more limited
application to its own clause or sentence. This textual analysis gives
effect to all the language of the citizen-suit sections, since their
incorporations of their statutes' civil-penalties sections will effectively
authorize punitive fines where a polluter other than the United
States is brought to court, while their explicit authorizations for suits
against the United States concededly authorize coercive sanctions.
Pp.5-10.
(c)The relevant portion of the CWA's federal-facilities section, 33
U.S.C. 1323(a)-which, inter alia, subjects the Government to ``all
. . . State . . . requirements . . . and process and sanctions''; explains
that the Government's corresponding liability extends to ``any require-
ment, whether substantive or procedural . . ., and . . . to any process
and sanction . . . enforced in . . . cour[t]''; and provides that the
Government ``shall be liable only for those civil penalties arising
under Federal law or imposed by a State . . . court . . . to enforce
[its] order or . . . process''-does not waive the Government's immuni-
ty as to punitive fines. Ohio's first argument, that 1323(a)'s use of
the word ``sanction'' must be understood to encompass punitive fines,
is mistaken, as the term's meaning is spacious enough to cover
coercive as well as punitive fines. Moreover, good reason to infer
that Congress was using ``sanction'' in its coercive sense, to the
exclusion of punitive fines, lies in the fact that 1323(a) twice speaks
of ``sanctions'' in conjunction with judicial ``process,'' which is charac-
teristically ``enforced'' through forward-looking coercive measures, and
distinguishes ``process and sanctions'' from substantive ``require-
ments,'' which may be enforced either by coercive or punitive means.
Pp.11-14.
(d)Ohio's second 1323(a) argument, that fines authorized under
an EPA-approved state permit program are within the scope of the
``civil penalties'' covered by the section's final waiver proviso, also
fails. The proviso's second modifier makes it plain that ``civil penal-
ties'' must at least include a coercive penalty since they are exempli-
fied by penalties ``imposed by a state . . . court to enforce [its] order.''
Moreover, the contention that the proviso's ``arising under federal
law'' modifier is broad enough to include penalties prescribed by EPA-
approved state statutes supplanting the CWA is answered by this
Court's interpretation of the phrase ``arising under'' federal law in 28
U.S.C. 1331 to exclude cases in which the plaintiff relies on state
law, even when the State's exercise of power in the particular
circumstances is expressly permitted by federal law, see, e. g., Gully
v. First National Bank in Meridian, 299 U.S. 109, 116, and by the
probability that Congress adopted the same interpretation of ``arising
under federal law'' here, see, e. g., ICC v. Locomotive Engineers, 482
U.S. 270, 284-285. The plain language of the ``civil penalties
arising under federal law'' phrase suggests an apparently expansive
but uncertain waiver that is in tension with the clear waiver for
coercive fines evinced in 1323(a)'s antecedent text; that tension is
resolved by the requirement that any statement of waiver be un-
equivocal and the rule that waivers be narrowly construed.
Pp.14-17.
(e)RCRA's federal-facilities section-which, in relevant part,
subjects the Government to ``all . . . State . . . requirements, both
substantive and procedural (including any requirement for permits or
reporting or any provisions for injunctive relief and such sanctions as
may be imposed by a court to enforce such relief),'' and provides that
the United States ``shall [not] be immune . . . from any process or
sanction of any . . . Court with respect to the enforcement of any
such injunctive relief''-is most reasonably interpreted as including
substantive standards and the coercive means for implementing those
standards, but excluding punitive measures. All of the textual
indications of the kinds of requirements meant to bind the Govern-
ment refer either to mechanisms requiring review for substantive
compliance (permit and reporting requirements) or to mechanisms for
enforcing substantive compliance in the future (injunctive relief and
sanctions to enforce it), in stark contrast to the statute's failure to
mention any mechanism for penalizing past violations. Moreover, the
fact that the only specific reference to an enforcement mechanism in
the provision's final sentence describes ``sanction'' as a coercive means
of injunctive enforcement bars any inference that a waiver of immu-
nity from ``requirements'' somehow extends to punitive fines that are
never so much as mentioned. Pp.17-19.
904 F.2d 1058, reversed and remanded.
Souter, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court with respect
to Part II-C, and the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II-A,
II-B, and III, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O'Connor, Scalia,
Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined. White, J., filed an opinion concur-
ring in part and dissenting in part, in which Blackmun and Stevens,
JJ., joined.