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Text: Their first exception challenges the Special Master’s conclusion that the Commission lacked authority to im­ pose monetary sanctions upon North Carolina. The terms of the Compact determine that question.

Article 4(E) of the Compact sets forth the Commission’s “duties and powers.” Among its powers are the authority “[t]o revoke the membership of a party [S]tate that will­ fully creates barriers to the siting of a needed regional facility,” Art. 4(E)(7), 99 Stat. 1875, and the authority “[t]o revoke the membership of a party [S]tate in accordance with Article 7(f),” Art. 4(E)(11), ibid. Conspicuously ab­ sent from Article 4, however, is any mention of the author­ ity to impose monetary sanctions. Plaintiffs contend that authority may be found elsewhere—in the first paragraph of Article 7(F), which provides in relevant part:

“Any party [S]tate which fails to comply with the provisions of this compact or to fulfill the obligations incurred by becoming a party [S]tate to this compact may be subject to sanctions by the Commission, in­ cluding suspension of its rights under this compact and revocation of its status as a party [S]tate.” Id., at 1879. The sanctions expressly identified in Article 7(F)— “suspension” of rights and “revocation” of party-state status—flow directly from the Commission’s power in Articles 4(E)(7) and (11) to revoke a party State’s member­ ship. That can fairly be understood to include the lesser power to suspend a party State’s rights. There is no simi­ lar grounding in Article 4(E) of authority to impose mone­ tary sanctions, and the absence is significant.

According to Plaintiffs, however, the word “sanctions” in Article 7(F) naturally “includ[es]” monetary sanctions. Since the Compact contains no definition of “sanctions,” we give the word its ordinary meaning. A “sanction” (in the sense the word is used here) is “[t]he detriment loss of reward, or other coercive intervention, annexed to a viola­ tion of a law as a means of enforcing the law.” Webster’s New International Dictionary 2211 (2d ed. 1957) (herein­ after Webster’s Second); see Black’s Law Dictionary 1458 (9th ed. 2009) (“A penalty or coercive measure that results from failure to comply with a law, rule, or order”). A monetary penalty is assuredly one kind of “sanction.” See generally Department of Energy v. Ohio, 503 U. S. 607, 621 (1992). But there are many others, ranging from the withholding of benefits, or the imposition of a nonmone­ tary obligation, to capital punishment. The Compact surely does not authorize the Commission to impose all of them.

Ultimately, context dictates precisely which “sanctions” are authorized under Article 7(F), and nothing in the Compact suggests that these include monetary measures. The only two “sanctions” specifically identified as being included within Article 7(F) are “suspension” of a State’s rights under the Compact and “revocation” of its status as a party State. These are arguably merely examples, and may not exhaust the universe of sanctions the Commission can impose. But they do establish “illustrative applica­ tion[s] of the general principle,” Federal Land Bank of St. Paul v. Bismarck Lumber Co., 314 U. S. 95, 100 (1941), which underlies the kinds of sanctions the Commission can impose. It is significant that both these specifically authorized sanctions are prospective and nonmonetary in nature.

Moreover, Article 3 of the Compact provides: “The rights granted to the party [S]tates by this compact are addi­ tional to the rights enjoyed by sovereign states, and noth­ ing in this compact shall be construed to infringe upon, limit, or abridge those rights.” 99 Stat. 1873. Construing Article 7(F) to authorize monetary sanctions would violate this provision, since the primeval sovereign right is im­ munity from levies against the government fisc. See, e.g., Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706, 750–751 (1999).

Finally, a comparison of the Compact’s terms with those of “[o]ther interstate compacts, approved by Congress contemporaneously,” Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U. S. 554, 565 (1983), confirms that Article 7(F) does not authorize monetary sanctions. At the same time Congress consented to this Compact, it consented to three other interstate compacts that expressly authorize their commissions to impose monetary sanctions against the parties to the compacts. See Northeast Interstate Low-Level Radioac­ tive Waste Management Compact, Art. IV(i)(14), 99 Stat. 1915 (hereinafter Northeast Compact); Central Midwest Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, Art. VIII(f), 99 Stat. 1891 (hereinafter Central Midwest Com­ pact); Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, Art. VII(e), 99 Stat. 1870 (hereinafter Central Compact). The Compact “clearly lacks the features of these other compacts, and we are not free to rewrite it” to empower the Commission to impose monetary sanctions. Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U. S., at 565.