630
Opinion of White, J.
up or contain the contamination at its facilities.1 Federal facilities fail to comply with the Clean Water Act (CWA), 33 U. S. C. § 1251 et seq., twice as frequently as private industry.2 And the compliance rate of the Departments of Defense and Energy with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), 42 U. S. C. § 6901 et seq., is 10 to 15 percent lower than that of private industry.3
In an effort to compel Government agencies to adhere to the environmental laws under which private industry must operate, Congress waived sovereign immunity for civil penalties in the federal facilities and citizen suit provisions of the CWA, 33 U. S. C. §§ 1323, 1365(a), and in the citizen suit provision of the RCRA, 42 U. S. C. § 6972(a). Today, the majority thwarts this effort by adopting "an unduly restrictive interpretation" of both statutes and writing the waivers out of existence. Canadian Aviator, Ltd. v. United States, 324 U. S. 215, 222 (1945); Block v. North Dakota ex rel. Bd. of Univ. and School Lands, 461 U. S. 273, 287 (1983). In so doing, the majority ignores the "unequivocally expressed" intention of Congress, United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., ante, at 33; United States v. Mitchell, 445 U. S. 535, 538 (1980), and deprives the States of a powerful weapon in combating federal agencies that persist in despoiling the environment.
I
It is axiomatic that a statute should be read as a whole. 2A N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutory Construction § 46.05 (5th ed. 1992). When the federal facilities and citizen suit
1 Cleanup at Federal Facilities: Hearing on H. R. 765 before the Subcommittee on Transportation and Hazardous Materials of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, 101st Cong., 1st Sess., Ser. No. 101-4, p. 44 (1989).
2 U. S. General Accounting Office, Report to Congressional Requestors: Water Pollution, Stronger Enforcement Needed to Improve Compliance of Federal Facilities 3 (1988).
3 H. R. Rep. No. 102-111, p. 3 (1991).
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