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8 

GUAM v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

under the Clean Water Act decree to CERCLA’s “definition 
of a ‘remedial action’ ”).  Rather than requiring parties and 
courts  to  estimate  whether  a  prior  settlement  was  close 
enough  to  CERCLA,  the  far  simpler  approach  is  to  ask 
whether a settlement expressly discharged a CERCLA lia-
bility.4 

No more persuasive are the United States’ efforts to em-
phasize  the  differences  among  §113(f )’s  provisions.    The 
Government  observes  that  §113(f )(3)(B)—unlike  the 
§113(f )(1) anchor provision—does not expressly demand a 
predicate  CERCLA  action.    That  distinction,  so  the  argu-
ment goes, implies that a broader range of environmental 
liabilities can trigger §113(f )(3)(B).  See Russello v. United 
States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983) (“ ‘[W]here Congress includes 
particular language in one section of a statute but omits it 
in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed
that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the dis-
parate  inclusion  or  exclusion’ ”).    But  this  effort  to  tear 
§113(f )(3)(B) away from its companions based on a negative
implication falters in light of the other strong textual links 
among them.  See Marx v. General Revenue Corp., 568 U. S. 
371,  381  (2013);  Entergy  Corp.  v.  Riverkeeper,  Inc.,  556 
U. S. 208, 222 (2009).  Section 113(f )(3)(B)’s use of the fa-
miliar phrase “response action,” express cross-reference to 
another CERCLA provision, and placement in the statutory 
scheme prevent us from so easily severing it from the larger 
Act. 

Similarly  unavailing  is  the  Government’s  theory  that  a 

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4 This  straightforward 

inquiry  has  the  additional  “benefit”  of 
“provid[ing] clarity” for the 3-year statute of limitations.  United States 
v. Briggs, 592 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 4).  If a broad, textually
undefined  set  of  environmental  settlements  could  start  the  clock  on  a 
§113(f )(3)(B)  contribution  action,  a  party  who  did  not  realize  that  his 
non-CERCLA  settlement  overlaps  with  a  hypothetical  CERCLA  re-
sponse action might fail to sue in time.