Cite as: 503 U. S. 607 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
penalties sections of the CWA and RCRA into their respective citizen-suit sections, "Congress could not avoid noticing that its literal language subject[ed] federal entities to penalties." Brief for Respondent Ohio 36; see also, e. g., Brief for National Governors' Association et al. as Amici Curiae 14- 16. It is undisputed that each civil-penalties provision authorizes fines of the punitive sort.
The effect of incorporating each statute's civil-penalties section into its respective citizen-suit section is not, however, as clear as Ohio claims. The incorporations must be read as encompassing all the terms of the penalty provisions, including their limitations, see, e. g., Engel v. Davenport, 271 U. S. 33, 38 (1926) (adoption of earlier statute by reference "makes it as much a part of the later act as though it had been incorporated at full length"); see also 2B N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutory Construction § 51.08 (5th rev. ed. 1992), and significant limitations for present purposes result from restricting the applicability of the civil-penalties sections to "person[s]." 10 While both the CWA and RCRA define "person" to cover States, subdivisions of States, municipalities, and interstate bodies (and RCRA even extends the term to cover governmental corporations),11 neither statute defines "person" to include the United States.12 Its omission has to be
10 See 33 U. S. C. § 1319(d) (CWA civil-penalties section); 42 U. S. C. §§ 6928(a), (g) (RCRA civil-penalties sections).
11 See 33 U. S. C. § 1362(5) (defining "person" for purposes of CWA as "an individual, corporation, partnership, association, State, municipality, commission, or political subdivision of a State, or any interstate body"); 42 U. S. C. § 6903(15) (defining "person" for purposes of RCRA as "an individual, trust, firm, joint stock company, corporation (including a government corporation), partnership, association, State, municipality, commission, political subdivision of a State, or any interstate body").
12 A subsection of RCRA dealing with a federal demonstration program tracking the disposal of medical waste does in fact require that "each department, agency, and instrumentality of the United States" "be treated as" a "person." See Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988, § 2(a), Pub. L. 100-582, 102 Stat. 2955, 42 U. S. C. § 6992e(b). This broader provision,
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