790 VERMONT AGENCY OF NATURAL RESOURCES v.
UNITED STATES ex rel. STEVENS Stevens, J., dissenting
liability for violating federal laws. It is through the lens of those post-1986 cases that the Court has chosen to construe the statute at issue in this case. To explain my disagreement with the Court, I shall comment on pre-1986 cases, the legislative history of the 1986 amendments, and the statutory text of the FCA—all of which support the view that Congress understood States to be included within the meaning of the word "person" in § 3729. I shall then briefly explain why the State's constitutional defenses fail, even under the Court's post-1986 construction of the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
I
Cases decided before 1986 uniformly support the proposition that the broad language used in the FCA means what it says. Although general statutory references to "persons" are not normally construed to apply to the enacting sovereign, United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 275 (1947), when Congress uses that word in federal statutes enforceable by the Federal Government or by a federal agency, it applies to States and state agencies as well as to private individuals and corporations. Thus, for example, the word "person" in the Sherman Act does not include the sovereign that enacted the statute (the Federal Government), United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U. S. 600 (1941), but it does include the States, Georgia v. Evans, 316 U. S. 159 (1942). Similarly, States are subject to regulation as a "person" within the meaning of the Shipping Act of 1916, California v. United States, 320 U. S. 577 (1944), and as a "common carrier" within the meaning of the Safety Appliance Act, United States v. California, 297 U. S. 175 (1936). In the latter case, the State of California "invoke[d] the canon of construction that a sovereign is presumptively not intended to be bound" by a statute unless the Act expressly declares that to be the case. Id., at 186. We rejected the applicability of that canon, stating:
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