Department of Energy v. Ohio, 503 U.S. 607, 2 (1992)

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608

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY v. OHIO

Syllabus

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. 615-620. (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 requirement, 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 immunity 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 characteristically "enforced" through forward-looking coercive measures, and distinguishes "process and sanctions" from substantive "requirements," which may be enforced either by coercive or punitive means. Pp. 620-623. (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 penalties" must at least include a coercive penalty since they are exemplified by penalties "imposed by a State . . . court to enforce [its] order." Moreover, the

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