346
Stevens, J., dissenting
II
The relevant statutory text is not as unambiguous as the Court asserts. There is substantial tension between the broad definition of the term "hazardous waste generation" in § 1004(6) of RCRA and the household waste exclusion codified by the 1984 amendment: Both provisions can be read to describe the same activity. The former "means the act or process of producing hazardous waste." 90 Stat. 2799; 42 U. S. C. § 6903(6). Read literally, that definition is broad enough to encompass the burning of pure household waste that produces some hazardous residue. The only statutory escape from that conclusion is the 1984 amendment that provides an exemption for the activity of burning household waste. Yet that exemption does not distinguish between pure household waste, on the one hand, and a mixture of household and other nonhazardous wastes, on the other. It either exempts both the pure stream and the mixture, or it exempts neither.
Indeed, commercial and industrial waste is by definition nonhazardous: In order for it to fall within the exclusion created by the 1984 amendment, it must not contain hazardous components. As a consequence, the only aspect of this waste stream that would ordinarily be regulated by Subtitle C of RCRA is the ash residue. EPA could reasonably conclude, therefore, that to give any content to the statute with respect to this component of the waste stream, the incinerator ash must be exempted from Subtitle C regulation.
The exemption states that a facility burning solid waste "shall not be deemed to be treating, storing, disposing of, or otherwise managing hazardous wastes for the purposes of regulation under this subchapter" if two conditions are satisfied. See ante, at 334. As long as the two conditions are met—even though the material being treated and disposed of contains hazardous components before, during, and after its treatment—that material "shall not be deemed to be . . . hazardous." By characterizing both the input and the out-
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