430
Syllabus
there is nothing in the subsection that purported to direct any particular findings of fact or applications of law to fact. Section 318 reserved judgment on the lawfulness of the timber sales under old law. It did not instruct the courts whether any particular timber sales would violate subsections (b)(3) or (b)(5); and it could not instruct that any particular BLM timber sales were lawful, because subsection (b)(5) incorporated by reference the harvesting prohibitions imposed by a BLM agreement not yet in existence when the Compromise was enacted. Pp. 437-439. (b) The three textual features of subsection (b)(6)(A) cited by respondents do not support their argument that the provision directed findings under old law, rather than supplying new law. The inclusion of the preface "Congress . . . directs that" does not undermine the conclusion that what Congress directed—to both courts and agencies—was a change in law. Nor is it significant that the subsection deemed compliance with the new requirements to "mee[t]" the old requirements. Although Congress could have modified the old laws directly, its enactment of an entirely separate statute modified the old laws through operation of the canon that specific provisions qualify general ones. Finally, the subsection's explicit reference to the two pending cases served only to identify the five statutory requirements that were the basis for those cases. Pp. 439-440. (c) The Court of Appeals' alternative holding that the provision could not effect an implied modification of substantive law because it was embedded in an appropriations measure is also without merit. Congress may amend a substantive law in an appropriations statute if it does so clearly, see, e. g., United States v. Will, 449 U. S. 200, 222, and it did so explicitly here. In addition, having determined that the provision would be unconstitutional unless it modified previously existing law, the court was obligated to impose that saving interpretation as long as it was a possible one. See NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 30. Pp. 440-441. (d) Since subsection (b)(6)(A) did amend applicable law, there is no reason to address the Court of Appeals' interpretation of Klein. The argument of one of respondents' amici—that the provision is unconstitutional even if it amended law because it swept no more, or little more, broadly than the range of applications at issue in the pending cases— was not raised below, squarely considered by the Court of Appeals, or advanced by respondents here. P. 441.
914 F. 2d 1311, reversed and remanded.
Thomas, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
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