Cite as: 505 U. S. 469 (1992)
Blackmun, J., dissenting
Court cannot explain why Congress would have chosen two different terms to apply to the different requirements. Indeed, on the Court's interpretation, the two terms are identical in their extension. On the Court's reading, the term "person entitled to compensation" denotes only a statutory employee who has a claim that, aside from the requirements of § 33(g), would be recognized as valid. And that is exactly the denotation of the term "employee" in connection with the notification requirement. The fact that Congress chose to use different terms in connection with the different § 33(g) requirements—using, with respect to the written-approval requirement, a term that it knew had been narrowly interpreted, and using, with respect to the notification requirement, a term broadly defined in the statute itself—surely indicates that Congress intended the two terms to have different meanings. Had Congress intended the meaning the Court attributes to it, it would have used the same term in both contexts.3
2
The inference that Congress intended to adopt the O'Leary rule in the amended language of § 33(g) is only strengthened
operations, and any harborworker including a ship repairman, shipbuilder, and ship-breaker."
3 Two of the Court's other arguments concerning the 1984 amendments may deserve brief mention. First, the Court suggests in passing that "the legislative history of predecessor bills to the eventual 1984 enactment do indicate an intent to overturn O'Leary," citing snippets of written testimony submitted during the lengthy 1981 hearings. See ante, at 478. Needless to say, statements buried in hearings conducted three years before the bill's passage fall far short of demonstrating any such congressional intent. The BRB was correct when it said in Dorsey that the legislative history of the 1984 amendments indicates no intention to overturn O'Leary.
Second, the Court places great significance upon the fact that "at least some elements within the Department of Labor" read the post-1984 statute differently from the Director of OWCP. Ante, at 482. The Court is quite clear, however, that it is the Director who administers the Act, see ante, at 480, not these other "elements," and that the Director does not ask for deference to his recently adopted interpretation.
497
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