566
Souter, J., dissenting
read as departing from previous practice, see, e. g., Dewsnup v. Timm, 502 U. S. 410 (1992); Butner v. United States, 440 U. S. 48, 54 (1979). But we have never required Congress to supply "clearer textual guidance" when the apparent meaning of the Bankruptcy Code's text is itself clear, as it is here. See Ron Pair, 489 U. S., at 240 ("[I]t is not appropriate or realistic to expect Congress to have explained with particularity each step it took. Rather, as long as the statutory scheme is coherent and consistent, there generally is no need for a court to inquire beyond the plain language of the statute"); cf. Dewsnup, supra, at 434 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (Court should not "venerat[e] 'pre-Code law' " at the expense of plain statutory meaning).18
We have, on many prior occasions, refused to depart from plain Code meaning in spite of arguments that doing that would vindicate similar, and presumably equally "important," state interests. In Owen v. Owen, 500 U. S. 305 (1991), for example, the Court refused to hold that the state "opt-out" policy embodied in § 522(b)(1) required immunity from avoidance under § 522(f) for a lien binding under Florida's exemption rules. We emphasized that "[n]othing in the text of § 522(f) remotely justifies treating the [state and federal] exemptions differently." 500 U. S., at 313. And in Johnson v. Home State Bank, 501 U. S. 78 (1991), we relied on plain Code language to allow a debtor who had "stripped" himself of personal mortgage liability under Chapter 7 to reschedule the remaining indebtedness under Chapter 13, notwithstanding a plausible contrary argument based on Code structure and a complete dearth of precedent for the manoeuver under state law and prior bankruptcy practice.
18 Even if plain language is insufficiently "clear guidance" for the Court, further guidance is at hand here. The provision at hand was amended in the face of judicial decisions driven by the same policy concerns that animate the Court, to make plain that foreclosure sales and other "involuntary" transfers are within the sweep of the avoidance power.
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