Cite as: 503 U. S. 607 (1992)
Opinion of White, J.
III
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice White, with whom Justice Blackmun and Justice Stevens join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
These cases concern a uranium-processing plant which, the Government concedes, has "contaminated the soil, air and surface waters" of Fernald, Ohio, with radioactive materials, "exceeded certain of the effluent limitations set forth" in its water pollution permit, and "failed to construct portions of the water pollution control facilities in accordance" with the permit. Answer ¶¶ 28, 33.
The situation at the Fernald plant is not an aberration. The Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that taxpayers may pay $40 to $70 billion during the next 20 years to clean
requirements," or with "all requirements of the applicable state implementation plan." See 426 U. S., at 182 (emphasis in original). They read our opinion as drawing a distinction between substantive and procedural requirements, and as interpreting § 1857 as not waiving federal immunity from procedural requirements, the group in which we classified the state permit programs. Ohio and its amici conclude that the drafters of RCRA took our observations in Hancock to heart, and, seeking to waive federal sovereign immunity for all purposes, including liability for civil punitive fines, waived immunity for "all . . . requirements, both substantive and procedural." 42 U. S. C. § 6961; see Brief for Respondent Ohio 41; see also, e. g., Brief for State of California et al. as Amici Curiae 21.
The answer to this is twofold. Indications of the breadth of the Government's obligation to comply with substantive or procedural requirements dealt with in Hancock do not necessarily translate into indications that the Government's subjection to mechanisms for enforcing those obligations extends to punitive as well as to coercive sanctions. In any event, if Congress had in fact entertained the intention Ohio suggests, it would hardly have avoided any example of punitive fines at the same time as it expressly mentioned the coercive injunctive remedy.
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