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AMG CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, LLC v. FTC 

Opinion of the Court 

that authorizes district courts “to restrain any person who 
has contributed or who is contributing to the past or present
handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or disposal of 
any solid or hazardous waste,” and “to order such person to 
take  such  other  action as  may  be necessary,  or  both.”    98 
Stat. 3268, 42 U. S. C. §6972(a).  The question was whether 
this  language  permits  courts  to  award  restitution  in  the 
form of past cleanup costs.  We concluded that, despite Por-
ter, the provision’s grant of equitable authority does not au-
thorize  past  cleanup  costs  because  the  relevant  statutory 
scheme  (as  here)  contained  other  “ ‘elaborate  enforcement 
provisions,’ ”  including  (as  here)  provisions  that  explicitly
provide for that form of relief.  Meghrig, 516 U. S., at 487. 
Here, the inference against §13(b)’s authorization of mone-
tary  relief  is  strong  and  follows  from  the  interpretive  ap-
proach we took in Meghrig.

Second,  the  Commission  argues  that  Congress  simply 
created two enforcement avenues, one administrative and 
the other judicial, leaving the Commission the power to de-
cide which of the two “separate, parallel enforcement paths”
to take.  Brief for Respondent 41.  To the extent that §19
authorizes “similar relief ” as §13(b), the Commission con-
tinues, that reflects only the fact that each pathway is an
alternative route to “similar endpoints.”  Id., at 41–42.  This 
statement, however, does not overcome the interpretive dif-
ficulties we have set forth, for example permitting the Com-
mission to avoid the conditions and limitations laid out in 
§19.  We cannot believe that Congress merely intended to 
enact a more onerous alternative to §13(b) when it enacted 
§19 two years later.

Third,  the  Commission  points  to  saving  clauses  in  §19, 
which, it says, save its ability to use §13(b) to obtain mone-
tary relief.  See id., at 42.  Those clauses preserve “any au-
thority of the Commission under any other provision of law” 
and preserve “any other remedy or right of action provided