Cite as: 503 U. S. 607 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
someone was careless. The question has no satisfactory answer.
We do, however, have a response satisfactory for sovereign immunity purposes to the tension between a proviso suggesting an apparently expansive but uncertain waiver and its antecedent text that evinces a narrower waiver with greater clarity. For under our rules that tension is resolved by the requirement that any statement of waiver be unequivocal: as against the clear waiver for coercive fines the indication of a waiver as to those that are punitive is less certain. The rule of narrow construction therefore takes the waiver no further than the coercive variety.
C
We consider, finally, the federal-facilities section of RCRA, which provides, in relevant part, that the National Government
"shall be subject to, and comply with, all Federal, State, interstate, and local 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) . . . in the same manner, and to the same extent, as any person is subject to such requirements . . . . Neither the United States, nor any agent, employee, or officer thereof, shall be immune or exempt from any process or sanction of any State or Federal Court with respect to the enforcement of any such injunctive relief." 42 U. S. C. § 6961.
Ohio and its amici stress the statutory subjection of federal facilities to "all . . . requirements," which they would have us read as an explicit and unambiguous waiver of federal sovereign immunity from punitive fines. We, however, agree with the Tenth Circuit that "all . . . requirements" "can reasonably be interpreted as including substantive standards and the means for implementing those standards, but exclud-
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