Cite as: 540 U. S. 526 (2004)
Opinion of the Court
to debtors' attorneys in Chapter 12 and 13 bankruptcies. 140 Cong. Rec., at 8383 (setting out new 11 U. S. C. § 330(a) (4)(B)). Since the amendment's deletion of "or the debtors [sic] attorney" from the original proposed draft affected Chapter 12 and 13 debtors' attorneys as much as Chapter 7 debtors' attorneys, § 330(a)(4)(B) shows a special intent to authorize the formers' fee awards in the face of the new, broad exclusion.
If Congress' action does not prove the point, the House of Representatives' inaction may. The House passed the Act after having the deletion, as well as its impact, called to its attention. See Bankruptcy Reform: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic and Commercial Law of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 103d Cong., 2d Sess., 551 (1994). The National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA), which represents those lawyers most likely to be affected by § 330(a)(1)'s change, declined to object to the deletion. Ibid. (noting the deletion but stating that the NACBA did "not oppose" amendment 1645's passage). This alert, followed by the Legislature's nonresponse, should support a presumption of legislative awareness and intention. The Act may now contain surplusage, along with grammatical error; but that may have been the result of trying to make the substantive change with the fewest possible textual alterations or of an error by the scrivener in carrying out the change.
These competing interpretations of the legislative history make it difficult to say with assurance whether petitioner or the Government lays better historical claim to the congressional intent. The alert to the change in policy was given, to be sure, before the House passed the final version, but that particular circumstance cannot bear too much weight. The alert was not the subject of testimony from any witness at the congressional hearing. It consisted of but two sentences contained within 472 pages of written statements delivered to the legislative subcommittee for its August 17,
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