324
Opinion of the Court
CoBank's interpretation would mean that Congress made a radical—but entirely implicit—change in the taxation of banks for cooperatives with the 1985 amendment to § 2134. The amendment to § 2134 was merely one of numerous "technical and conforming amendments" to the Farm Credit Act. Farm Credit Amendments Act of 1985, § 205, 99 Stat. 1703- 1707 (section entitled "Technical and Conforming Amendments"). In fact, the deletion of the sentence within § 2134 referring to the Governor was one of more than 30 deletions of references to the Governor, a position eliminated by the 1985 amendments to the Act. Ibid. The more logical interpretation of this amendment to § 2134 is that Congress merely deleted language that had become superfluous once the United States no longer owned, and no longer could own, stock in banks for cooperatives. This explanation accords with the more than 50-year history of the Farm Credit Act, permitting the States to tax banks for cooperatives except when there was governmental investment in the banks. Had Congress simply deleted the final sentence of § 2134 that limited the exemption while retaining the sentence granting the exemption, we would have no trouble concluding that Congress had eliminated the States' ability to tax banks for cooperatives. Short of this act, however, we find Congress' silence insufficient to disrupt the 50-year history of state taxation of banks for cooperatives.
B
In addition, the structure of the Farm Credit Act confirms that banks for cooperatives are subject to state taxation. With respect to each lending institution in the Farm Credit System, the Act contains a taxation provision that specifically delineates the immunity from taxation enjoyed by that entity. For example, farm credit banks and federal land bank associations receive the type of immunity from state taxation that the Missouri Supreme Court held to be implied here for banks for cooperatives. See 12 U. S. C. § 2023 ("The
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