Cite as: 527 U. S. 343 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
A
1
Congress has not expressly mandated the temporal reach of § 803(d)(3). Section 803(d)(1) provides that "[i]n any action brought by a prisoner who is confined [to a correctional facility] . . . attorney's fees . . . shall not be awarded, except" as authorized by the statute. Section 803(d)(3) further provides that "[n]o award of attorney's fees . . . shall be based on an hourly rate greater than 150 percent of the hourly rate established under [18 U. S. C. § 3006A], for payment of court-appointed counsel." Petitioners contend that this language—particularly the phrase "[i]n any action brought by a prisoner who is confined," § 803(d)(1) (emphasis added)— clearly expresses a congressional intent that § 803(d) apply to pending cases. They argue that "any" is a broad, encompassing word, and that its use with "brought," a past-tense verb, demonstrates congressional intent to apply the fees limitations to all fee awards entered after the PLRA became effective, even when those awards were for services performed before the PLRA was enacted. They also contend that § 803(d)(3), by its own terms, applies to all "award[s]"—understood as the actual court order directing the payment of fees—entered after the effective date of the PLRA, regardless of when the work was performed.
The fundamental problem with all of petitioners' statutory arguments is that they stretch the language of § 803(d) to find congressional intent on the temporal scope of that section when we believe that § 803(d) is better read as setting substantive limits on the award of attorney's fees. Section 803(d)(1), for example, prohibits fee awards unless those fees were "directly and reasonably incurred" in the suit, and unless those fees are "proportionately related" to, or "directly and reasonably incurred in enforcing," the relief ordered. 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(d)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. III). Similarly, § 803(d)(3) sets substantive limits by prohibiting the award
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