Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-382_869d.pdf
Page Number: 10

Cite as:  593 U. S. ____ (2021) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

or all of the costs of such action.”  (Emphasis added.)  Not 
only does the anchor provision also discuss allocation of “re-
sponse costs,” §113(f )(1), but the phrase “response action” 
is a familiar CERCLA phrase that appears dozens of times 
throughout the Act.  E.g., §101 (12 appearances); §107 (17 
appearances).

To  be  sure,  as  the  Government  points  out,  remedial
measures that a party takes under another environmental 
statute  might  resemble  steps  taken  in  a  formal  CERCLA
“response action.”  But relying on that functional overlap to 
reinterpret the phrase “resolved its liability . . . for some or 
all of a response action” to mean “settled an environmental 
liability that might have been actionable under CERCLA”
would  stretch  the  statute  beyond  Congress’  actual  lan-
guage.

Perhaps  more  important,  the  Government’s  interpreta-
tion would place undue stress on the word “resolve.”  This 
term  conveys  certainty  and  finality.    See  Webster’s  Third 
New International Dictionary 1933 (1986) (“make clear or 
certain”);  American  Heritage  Dictionary  1107  (1981)  (“re-
move  or  dispel  (doubts);  . . .  bring  to  a  conclusion”).3    It  
would  be  rather  odd  to  say  that  a  party  has  “resolved  its
liability”  if  that  party  remains  vulnerable  to  a  CERCLA 
suit.  All the more so given that it will not always be clear 
whether the substance of a prior environmental settlement
was sufficiently similar to a quasi-CERCLA  “response ac-
tion.”  As even the Government admits, “ ‘response action’
is, indeed, a broad term, [but] it is not an unlimited term 
[that  covers]  everything  under  the  sun.”    Tr.  of  Oral  Arg.
39–40; cf. 950 F. 3d, at 116 (comparing Guam’s obligations 

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3 See also §113(f )(2) (“A person who has resolved its liability [in a] set-
tlement shall not be liable for claims for contribution regarding matters 
addressed in the settlement” (emphasis added)); United States v. Atlantic 
Research  Corp.,  551  U. S.  128,  141  (2007)  (“[S]ettlement  [under 
§113(f )(2)] carries the inherent benefit of finally resolving liability as to 
the United States or a State” (emphasis added)).