Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1498_8mjp.pdf
Page Number: 43

8 

ATLANTIC RICHFIELD CO. v. CHRISTIAN 

Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

§107 (see, e.g., 42 U. S. C. §§9619(d), 9624(b)), while others
extend their mandates only to potentially responsible par-
ties (see, e.g., §§9604, 9605, 9611).  Logically, too, the con-
cepts are distinct.  Yes, a potentially responsible party must
be  a  covered  person  the  government  is  authorized  to  sue.
But the inverse does not follow.  It is possible to be a person
the  government  is  authorized  to  sue  without  also  being  a 
person the government has chosen to single out for poten-
tial responsibility.  Atlantic Richfield’s argument, thus, es-
sentially  proceeds  like  this:    Disregard  the  differences  in
language; then assume Congress chose its terms randomly 
throughout the law; and, finally, conflate logically distinct 
concepts.

Our  case  illustrates  the  significance  of  the  distinction 
Congress drew and Atlantic Richfield would have us ignore.
Maybe the federal government was once authorized by §107
to include the innocent landowners here in a CERCLA suit. 
But  few  statutes  pursue  their  purpose  single-mindedly  or
require their full enforcement.  And as we’ve seen, at least 
two things happened that preclude these landowners from 
being held responsible for anything:  The government chose
not  to  notify  them  of  potential  liability  under  §122(e)(3), 
and it declined to bring suit within the period prescribed by
§113(g)(2)(B).  Under the plain and ordinary meaning of the
statutory terms before us, these landowners are not poten-
tially  responsible  parties  and  CERCLA  doesn’t  require
them to seek permission from federal officials before clean-
ing their own lands.  If Congress had wished to extend its
ask-before-cleaning  rule  to  every  covered  person—includ-
ing those the government chooses not to pursue for poten-
tial  liability—all  it  had  to  do  was  say  so.    Congress  dis-
played  no  trouble  using  the  term  “[c]overed  persons”
elsewhere  in  the  statute.  See,  e.g.,  §§9619(d),  9624(b)(2).
Conspicuously, it made a different choice here. 

Without any plausible foundation in the statute to sup-