Cite as: 507 U. S. 529 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
United States Government claim owed by a person . . . ." 31 U. S. C. § 3717(a)(1) (emphasis added). Section 3701, in turn, provides that the term " 'person' does not include an agency of the United States Government, of a State government, or of a unit of general local government." § 3701(c). Texas argues that this exemption clearly establishes Congress' intent to relieve the States of their common-law obligation to pay prejudgment interest. We disagree.
The only obligation from which § 3701 exempts the States is the obligation to pay prejudgment interest in accordance with the mandatory provisions of the Act. These impose a stringent minimum interest requirement upon private persons owing money to the Federal Government. The statute is silent as to the obligation of the States to pay prejudgment interest on such debts. We agree with the Solicitor General that "Congress's mere refusal to legislate with respect to the prejudgment-interest obligations of state and local governments falls far short of an expression of legislative intent to supplant the existing common law in that area." Brief for Petitioners 16.4
4 Both Texas and the Court of Appeals rely on Congress' authority to impose interest obligations on the States through specific statutes, such as the Medicaid Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1396b(d)(5), and the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 418(j) (1982 ed.), to support the proposition that the Debt Collection Act extinguished the Federal Government's common-law right to collect prejudgment interest. Both statutes, however, codified and made mandatory the common-law right to collect prejudgment interest at a specified interest rate. Like the Debt Collection Act, these statutes changed the common law. Congress' obvious desire to enhance the common law in specific, well-defined situations does not signal its desire to extinguish the common law in other situations.
Texas also relies on the recent amendment to 7 U. S. C. § 2022 adding a provision requiring prejudgment interest on specific obligations arising under the Food Stamp Act of 1977. Pub. L. 100-435, § 602, 102 Stat. 1674 (1988). But "subsequent legislative history is a 'hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier' Congress." Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation v. LTV Corp., 496 U. S. 633, 650 (1990) (quoting United States v. Price, 361 U. S. 304, 313 (1960)). Texas' argument also fails because, like
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