Source: http://openjurist.org/503/us/607
Timestamp: 2015-10-08 18:38:37
Document Index: 296056168

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1323', '§ 1323', '§ 1323', '§ 1323', '§ 1331', '§ 1323', '§ 1251', '§ 6901', '§ 1342', '§ 1342', '§ 123', '§ 6926', '§ 271', '§ 1319', '§ 1365', '§ 6928', '§ 6972']

503 US 607 United States Department of Energy v. Ohio Ohio | OpenJurist
503 U.S. 607 - United States Department of Energy v. Ohio Ohio Homethe United States Reports503 U.S.
503 US 607 United States Department of Energy v. Ohio Ohio 503 U.S. 607
112 S.Ct. 1627
118 L.Ed.2d 255
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, Petitioner,v.OHIO, et al. OHIO, et al., Petitioners, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY.
Nos. 90-1341, 90-1517.
The Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) prohibit the discharge or disposal of pollutants without a permit, assign primary authority to issue permits to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and allow EPA to authorize a State to supplant the federal permit program with one of its own under specified circumstances. Respondent State sued petitioner Department of Energy (DOE) over its operation of a uranium-processing plant in Ohio, seeking, among other relief, both state and federal civil penalties for past violations of the CWA and RCRA and of state laws enacted to supplant those federal statutes. Although conceding, inter alia, that both statutes render federal agencies liable for "coercive" fines imposed to induce compliance with injunctions or other judicial orders designed to modify behavior prospectively, DOE asserted sovereign immunity from liability for "punitive" fines imposed to punish past violations. The District Court held that both statutes waived federal sovereign immunity from punitive fines, by both their federal-facilities and citizen-suit sections. The Court of Appeals affirmed in part, holding that Congress had waived immunity as to punitive fines in the CWA's federal-facilities section and RCRA's citizen-suit section, but not in RCRA's federal-facilities section.
(a) This Court presumes congressional familiarity with the common rule that any waiver of the Government's sovereign immunity must be unequivocal. See United States v. Mitchell, 445 U.S. 535, 538-539, 100 S.Ct. 1349, 1351-1352, 63 L.Ed.2d 607. Such waivers must be construed strictly in favor of the sovereign and not enlarged beyond what the language requires. See, e.g., Ruckelshaus v. Sierra Club, 463 U.S. 680, 685-686, 103 S.Ct. 3274, 3278, 77 L.Ed.2d 938. P. 615.
(b) Although both the CWA and RCRA citizen-suit sections authorize a State to commence a civil action "against any person (including . . . the United States . . .)," and authorize the district courts to impose punitive fines under the Acts' civil-penalties sections, the incorporation of the latter sections must be read to encompass their exclusion of the United States from among the "person[s]" who may be fined, see, e.g., Engel v. Davenport, 271 U.S. 33, 38, 46 S.Ct. 410, 412, 70 L.Ed. 813. The citizen-suit sections' initial inclusion of the United States as a "person" goes only to the clauses subjecting the Government to suit, and a broader waiver may not be inferred. Both the CWA and RCRA contain various provisions expressly defining "person" for purposes of the entire section in which the term occurs, thereby raising the inference that a special definition not described as being for purposes of its "section" or "subchapter" was intended to have the more limited application to its own clause or sentence. This textual analysis gives effect to all the language of the citizen-suit sections, since their incorporations of their statutes' civil-penalties sections will effectively authorize punitive fines where a polluter other than the United States is brought to court, while their explicit authorizations for suits against the United States concededly authorize coercive sanctions. Pp. 615-620.
(c) The relevant portion of the CWA's federal-facilities section, 33 U.S.C. § 1323(a)—which, inter alia, subjects the Government to "all . . . State . . . requirements . . . and process and sanctions"; explains that the Government's corresponding liability extends to "any requirement, whether substantive or procedural . . ., and . . . to any process and sanction . . . enforced in . . . cour[t]"; and provides that the Government "shall be liable only for those civil penalties arising under Federal law or imposed by a State . . . court . . . to enforce [its] order or . . . process"—does not waive the Government's immunity as to punitive fines. Ohio's first argument, that § 1323(a)'s use of the word "sanction" must be understood to encompass punitive fines, is mistaken, as the term's meaning is spacious enough to cover coercive as well as punitive fines. Moreover, good reason to infer that Congress was using "sanction" in its coercive sense, to the exclusion of punitive fines, lies in the fact that § 1323(a) twice speaks of "sanctions" in conjunction with judicial "process," which is characteristically "enforced" through forward-looking coercive measures, and distinguishes "process and sanctions" from substantive "requirements," which may be enforced either by coercive or punitive means. Pp. 620-623.
(d) Ohio's second § 1323(a) argument, that fines authorized under an EPA-approved state permit program are within the scope of the "civil penalties" covered by the section's final waiver proviso, also fails. The proviso's second modifier makes it plain that "civil penalties" must at least include a coercive penalty since they are exemplified by penalties "imposed by a state . . . court to enforce [its] order." Moreover, the contention that the proviso's "arising under federal law" modifier is broad enough to include penalties prescribed by EPA-approved state statutes supplanting the CWA is answered by this Court's interpretation of the phrase "arising under" federal law in 28 U.S.C. § 1331 to exclude cases in which the plaintiff relies on state law, even when the State's exercise of power in the particular circumstances is expressly permitted by federal law, see, e.g., Gully v. First National Bank in Meridian, 299 U.S. 109, 116, 57 S.Ct. 96, 99, 81 L.Ed. 70 and by the probability that Congress adopted the same interpretation of "arising under federal law" here, see, e.g., ICC v. Locomotive Engineers, 482 U.S. 270, 284-285, 107 S.Ct. 2360, 2368-2369, 96 L.Ed.2d 222. The plain language of the "civil penalties arising under federal law" phrase suggests an apparently expansive but uncertain waiver that is in tension with the clear waiver for coercive fines evinced in § 1323(a)'s antecedent text; that tension is resolved by the requirement that any statement of waiver be unequivocal and the rule that waivers be narrowly construed. Pp. 623-627.
(e) RCRA's federal-facilities section—which, in relevant part, subjects the Government to "all . . . State . . . requirements, both substantive and procedural (including any requirement for permits or reporting or any provisions for injunctive relief and such sanctions as may be imposed by a court to enforce such relief)," and provides that the United States "shall [not] be immune . . . from any process or sanction of any . . . Court with respect to the enforcement of any such injunctive relief"—is most reasonably interpreted as including substantive standards and the coercive means for implementing those standards, but excluding punitive measures. All of the textual indications of the kinds of requirements meant to bind the Government refer either to mechanisms requiring review for substantive compliance (permit and reporting requirements) or to mechanisms for enforcing substantive compliance in the future (injunctive relief and sanctions to enforce it), in stark contrast to the statute's failure to mention any mechanism for penalizing past violations. Moreover, the fact that the only specific reference to an enforcement mechanism in the provision's final sentence describes "sanction" as a coercive means of injunctive enforcement bars any inference that a waiver of immunity from "requirements" somehow extends to punitive fines that are never so much as mentioned. Pp. 627-628.
SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion for an unanimous Court with respect to Part II-C, and the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II-A, II-B, and III, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and O'CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. WHITE, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which BLACKMUN and STEVENS, JJ., joined.
The question in this case is whether Congress has waived the National Government's sovereign immunity from liability for civil fines imposed by a State for past violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA), 86 Stat. 816, as amended, 33 U.S.C. § 1251, et seq., or the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), 90 Stat. 2795, 2796, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 6901 et seq. We hold it has not done so in either instance.
* The CWA prohibits the discharge of pollutants into navigable waters without a permit. Section 402, codified at 33 U.S.C. § 1342, gives primary authority to issue such permits to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but allows EPA to authorize a State to supplant the federal permit program with one of its own, if the state scheme would include, among other features, sufficiently stringent regulatory standards and adequate provisions for penalties to enforce them. See generally 33 U.S.C. § 1342(b) (requirements and procedures for EPA approval of state water-pollution permit plans); see also 40 CFR §§ 123.1-123.64 (1991) (detailed requirements for state plans). RCRA regulates the disposal of hazardous waste in much the same way, with a permit program run by EPA but subject to displacement by an adequate state counterpart. See generally 42 U.S.C. § 6926 (requirements and procedures for EPA approval of state hazardous-waste disposal permit plans); see also 40 CFR §§ 271.1-271.138 (1991) (detailed requirements for state plans).
This case began in 1986 when respondent State of Ohio sued petitioner Department of Energy (DOE) in Federal District Court for violations of state and federal pollution laws, including the CWA and RCRA, in operating its uranium-processing plant in Fernald, Ohio. Ohio sought, among other forms of relief, both state and federal civil penalties for past violations of the CWA and RCRA and of state laws enacted to supplant those federal statutes. See, e.g., Complaint ¶ 64 (seeking penalties for violations of state law and of regulations issued pursuant to RCRA); id., ¶ 115 (seeking penalties for violations of state law and of CWA).1 Before the district court ruled on DOE's motion for dismissal, the parties proposed a consent decree to settle all but one substantive claim,2 and Ohio withdrew all outstanding claims for relief except its request for civil penalties for DOE's alleged past violations. See Consent Decree Between DOE and Ohio, App. 63. By a contemporaneous stipulation, DOE and Ohio agreed on the amount of civil penalties DOE will owe if it is found liable for them, see Stipulation Between DOE and Ohio, id., at 87. The parties thus left for determination under the motion to dismiss only the issue we consider today: whether Congress has waived the National Government's sovereign immunity from liability for civil fines imposed for past failure to comply with the CWA, RCRA, or state law supplanting the federal regulation.
DOE admits that the CWA and RCRA obligate a federal polluter, like any other, to obtain permits from EPA or the state permitting agency, see Brief for Petitioner 24 (discussing CWA); id., at 34-40 (discussing RCRA).3 DOE also concedes that the CWA and RCRA render federal agencies liable for fines imposed to induce them to comply with injunctions or other judicial orders designed to modify behavior prospectively, which we will speak of hereafter as "coercive fines." See id., at 19-20, and n. 10; see also n. 14, infra. The parties disagree only on whether the CWA and RCRA, in either their "federal-facilities"4 or "citizen-suit"5 sections, waive federal sovereign immunity from liability for fines, which we will refer to as "punitive," imposed to punish past violations of those statutes or state laws supplanting them.
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio held that both statutes waived federal sovereign immunity from punitive fines, by both their federal-facilities and citizen-suit sections. 689 F.Supp. 760 (1988). A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed in part, holding that Congress had waived immunity from punitive fines in the CWA's federal-facilities section and RCRA's citizen-suit section, but not in RCRA's federal-facilities section. 904 F.2d 1058 (1990).6 Judge Guy dissented, concluding that neither the CWA's federal-facilities section nor RCRA's citizen-suit section sufficed to provide the waiver at issue. Id., at 1065-1069.
In No. 90-1341, DOE petitioned for review insofar as the Sixth Circuit found any waiver of immunity from punitive fines, while in No. 90-1517 Ohio cross-petitioned on the holding that RCRA's federal-facilities section failed to effect such a waiver.7 We consolidated the two petitions and granted certiorari, 500 U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 2256, 114 L.Ed.2d 709 (1991).8
We start with a common rule, with which we presume congressional familiarity, see McNary v. Haitian Refugee Center, 498 U.S. ----, ----, 111 S.Ct. 888, ----, 112 L.Ed.2d 1005 (1991), that any waiver of the National Government's sovereign immunity must be unequivocal, see United States v. Mitchell, 445 U.S. 535, 538-539, 100 S.Ct. 1349, 1351-1352, 63 L.Ed.2d 607 (1980). "Waivers of immunity must be 'construed strictly in favor of the sovereign,' McMahon v. United States, 342 U.S. 25, 27, 72 S.Ct. 17, 19, 96 L.Ed. 26 (1951), and not 'enlarge[d] . . . beyond what the language requires.' Eastern Transportation Co. v. United States, 272 U.S. 675, 686, 47 S.Ct. 289, 291, 71 L.Ed. 472 (1927)." Ruckelshaus v. Sierra Club, 463 U.S. 680, 685-686, 103 S.Ct. 3274, 3278, 77 L.Ed.2d 938 (1983). By these lights we examine first the two statutes' citizen-suit sections, which can be treated together because their relevant provisions are similar, then the CWA's federal-facilities section, and, finally, the corresponding section of RCRA.
So far as it concerns us, the CWA's citizen-suit section reads that
"any citizen may commence a civil action on his own behalf—
"(1) against any person (including . . . the United States . . .) who is alleged to be in violation of (A) an effluent standard or limitation under this chapter or (B) an order issued by the Administrator or a State with respect to such a standard or limitation. . . .
"The district courts shall have jurisdiction . . . to enforce an effluent standard or limitation, or such an order . . . as the case may be, and to apply any appropriate civil penalties under [33 U.S.C. § 1319(d) ]." 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a).
"any person may commence a civil action on his own
"(1)(A) against any person (including . . . the United States) . . . who is alleged to be in violation of any permit, standard, regulation, condition, requirement, prohibition, or order which has become effective pursuant to this chapter . . .
"(B) against any person, including the United States . . . who has contributed or who is contributing to the past or present handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or disposal of any solid or hazardous waste which may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment. . . .
". . . The district court shall have jurisdiction . . . to enforce the permit, standard, regulation, condition, requirement, prohibition, or order, referred to in paragraph (1)(A), 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 referred to in paragraph (1)(B), to order such person to take such other action as may be necessary, or both, . . . and to apply any appropriate civil penalties under [42 U.S.C. §§ 6928(a) and (g) ]." 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a).
A State is a "citizen" under the CWA and a "person" under RCRA,9 and is thus entitled to sue under these provisions.
Ohio and its amici argue that by specifying the United States as an entity subject to suit and incorporating the civilpenalties sections of the CWA and RCRA into their respective citizen-suit sections, "Congress could not avoid noticing that its literal language subject[ed] federal entities to penalties." Brief for Respondent 36; see also, e.g., Brief for National Governors' Association, et al. as Amici Curiae 14-16. It is undisputed that each civil-penalties provision authorizes fines of the punitive sort.