Cite as: 523 U. S. 83 (1998)
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
"The bar on citizen suits when governmental enforcement action is under way suggests that the citizen suit is meant to supplement rather than supplant governmental action. . . . Permitting citizen suits for wholly past violations of the Act could undermine the supplementary role envisioned for the citizen suit. This danger is best illustrated by an example. Suppose that the Administrator identified a violator of the Act and issued a compliance order . . . . Suppose further that the Administrator agreed not to assess or otherwise seek civil penalties on the condition that the violator take some extreme corrective action, such as to install particularly effective but expensive machinery, that it otherwise would not be obliged to take. If citizens could file suit, months or years later, in order to seek the civil penalties that the Administrator chose to forgo, then the Administrator's discretion to enforce the Act in the public interest would be curtailed considerably. The same might be said of the discretion of state enforcement authorities. Respondents' interpretation of the scope of the citizen suit would change the nature of the citizens' role from interstitial to potentially intrusive." 484 U. S., at 60-61.
Finally, even if these two provisions did not resolve the issue, our settled policy of adopting acceptable constructions of statutory provisions in order to avoid the unnecessary adjudication of constitutional questions—here, the unresolved standing question—strongly supports a construction of the statute that does not authorize suits for wholly past violations. As we stated in Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575 (1988): "This cardinal principle has its roots in Chief Justice Marshall's opinion for the Court in Murray v. Schooner Charming Betsy, 2 Cranch 64, 118 (1804), and has for so long been applied by this Court that it is beyond debate." See also NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U. S. 490,
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