796 VERMONT AGENCY OF NATURAL RESOURCES v.
UNITED STATES ex rel. STEVENS Stevens, J., dissenting
gaged in a violation of § 3729. Finally, a "person" is defined to include "any State or political subdivision of a State." § 3733(l)(4). Hence, the CID provisions clearly state that a "person" who may be "engaged in any violation of a false claims law," including § 3729, includes a "State or a political subdivision of a State." 7 These CID provisions thus unmistakably express Congress' understanding that a State may be a "person" who can violate § 3729.
Elsewhere in the False Claims Act the term "person" includes States as well. For example, § 3730 of the Act— both before and after the 1986 amendments—uses the word "person" twice. First, subsection (a) of § 3730 directs the Attorney General to investigate violations of § 3729, and provides that if she "finds that a person has violated or is violating" that section, she may bring a civil action "under this section against the person." (Emphases added.) Second, subsection (b) of § 3730 also uses the word "person," though for a different purpose; in that subsection the word is used to describe the plaintiffs who may bring qui tam actions on behalf of themselves and the United States.
Quite clearly, a State is a "person" against whom the Attorney General may proceed under § 3730(a).8 And as I noted earlier, see supra, at 794, before 1986 States were considered "persons" who could bring a qui tam action as a relator under § 3730(b)—and the Court offers nothing to question that understanding. See ante, at 787, n. 18. Moreover, when a qui tam relator brings an action on behalf of the United States, he or she is, in effect, authorized to act as an assignee of the Federal Government's claim. See ante, at 773. Given that understanding, combined with the fact
7 Because this concatenation of definitions expressly references and incorporates § 3729, it is no answer that the definitions listed in § 3733 apply, by their terms, "[f]or the purposes of" § 3733.
8 Justice Ginsburg, who joins in the Court's judgment, is careful to point out that the Court does not disagree with this reading of § 3730(a). Ante, at 789.
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