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GUAM v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

I 
Guam and the United States are engaged in a long-run-
ning dispute over the Ordot Dump, a “ ‘280-foot mountain of 
trash’ ”  near  the  center  of  the  island.    950  F. 3d  104,  109 
(CADC  2020).  The  Navy  constructed  the  dump  in  the
1940s,  and  then  allegedly  deposited  toxic  military  waste 
there  for  several  decades.    The  United  States  later  ceded 
control of the site to Guam, which itself used the dump as a
public landfill.  But that did not end the Federal Govern-
ment’s involvement.  In the late 20th century, the Environ-
mental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that the dump
posed an ecological hazard.  After Guam allegedly failed to 
comply  with  agency  directives  to  remediate  the  site,  the 
EPA sued under the Clean Water Act, asserting that Guam
was “ ‘discharging pollutants . . . into waters of the United 
States without obtaining a permit.’ ”  Ibid. 

That litigation ended in 2004, when Guam and the EPA
entered into a consent decree.  The decree required Guam,
among other things, to pay a civil penalty and to close and 
cover the dump.  Guam’s compliance would, in turn, be “in
full settlement and satisfaction of the civil judicial claims of 
the United States . . . as alleged in the Complaint”—that is, 
claims under the Clean Water Act.  Id., at 116.  But Guam 
was not completely free.  As the agreement explained, “the
United States d[id] not waive any rights or remedies avail-
able to it for any violation by the Government of Guam of
federal  and  territorial  laws  and  regulations,”  “[e]xcept  as 
specifically provided [i]n [the decree].”  App. to Pet. for Cert. 
166a. 

Thirteen  years  later,  it  was  Guam’s  turn  to  sue—this 
time under CERCLA.  According to Guam’s complaint, the
United States’ earlier use of the dump exposed it to liability 
on two fronts.  The first was a cost-recovery  action under
§107(a), which allows a State (or here, a Territory), to re-
cover “all costs of [a] removal or remedial action” from “any