source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice Stevens Justice Blackmun,

license: Public Domain

text:
    RIVERS et al. v. ROADWAY EXPRESS, INC.
    No. 92-938.
    Argued October 13, 1993
    Decided April 26, 1994

      Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O’Connor, Souter, and Gensburg, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Kennedy and Thomas, JJ., joined, ante, p. 286. Blackmun, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 314.

      Eric Schnapper argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Elaine R. Jones, Chirles Stephen Ralston, Cornelia T L. Pillará, Kerry Scanlon, and Ellis Boal.

      Solicitor General Days argued the cause for the United States et al. as amici curiae urging reversal. On the brief were Acting Solicitor General Bryson, Acting Assistant Attorney General Turner, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Robert A. Long, Jr., David K. Flynn, Dennis J. Dimsey, Rebecca K. Troth, and Donald R. Livingston.

      Glen D. Nager argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were John T. Landwehr and Thomas J. Gibney

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund et al. by Denny Chin, Doreena Wong, and Angelo N. Ancheta; and for the National Women’s Law Center et al. by Judith E. Schaeffer and Ellen J. Vargyas.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Trucking Associations et al. by James D. Holzhauer, Andrew L. Frey, Kenneth S. Getter, Javier H. Rubinstein, Daniel R. Barney, and Kenneth P. Kolson; and for Motor Express, Inc., by Alan J. Thiemann.

      Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the Equal Employment Advisory Council et al. by Robert E. Williams, Douglas S. McDowell, and Mona C. Zeiberg; for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People et al. by Marc L. Fleischaker, David L. Kelleher, Steven S. Zaleznick, Cathy Ventrell-Monsees, Steven M. Freeman, Michael Lieberman, Dennis Courtland Hayes, Willie Abrams, Samuel Rabinove, and Richard Foltin; and for Wards Cove Packing Co. by Douglas M. Fryer, Douglas M. Duncan, and Richard L. Phillips.

   Justice Stevens

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Section 101 of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. 102-166, 105 Stat. 1071, defines the term “make and enforce contracts” as used in § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Rev. Stat. § 1977, 42 U. S. C. § 1981, to include “the making, performance, modification, and termination of contracts, and the enjoyment of all benefits, privileges, terms, and conditions of the contractual relationship.” We granted certiorari to decide whether § 101 applies to a case that arose before it was enacted. We hold that it does not.

I

Petitioners Rivers and Davison were employed by respondent Roadway Express, Inc., as garage mechanics. Oh the morning of August 22, 1986, a supervisor directed them to attend disciplinary hearings later that day. Because they had not received the proper notice guaranteed by their collective-bargaining agreement, petitioners refused to attend. They were suspended for two days, but filed grievances and were awarded two days’ backpay. Respondent then held another disciplinary hearing, which petitioners also refused to attend, again on the ground that they had not received proper notice. Respondent thereupon discharged them.

On December 22, 1986, petitioners filed a complaint alleging that respondent had discharged them because of their race in violation of 42 U. S. C. § 1981. They claimed, inter alia, that they had been fired on baseless charges because of their race and because they had insisted on the same procedural protections afforded white employees.

On June 15, 1989, before the trial commenced, this Court announced its decision in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164. Patterson held that § 1981 “does not apply to conduct which occurs after the formation of a contract and which does not interfere with the right to enforce established contract obligations.” Id., at 171. Relying on Patterson, the District Court held that none of petitioners’ discriminatory discharge claims were covered by §1981, and dismissed their claims under that section. After a bench trial on petitioners’ Title VII claims, the District Court found that petitioners had been discharged for reasons other than their race, and entered judgment for respondent.

On appeal, petitioners contended that the District Court had misconstrued their complaint: They had not merely claimed discriminatory discharge, but more specifically had alleged that respondent had retaliated against them, because of their race, for attempting to enforce their procedural rights under the collective-bargaining agreement. Because that allegation related to “enforcement” of the labor contract, petitioners maintained, it stated a § 1981 claim even under Patterson’s construction of the statute. While petitioners’ appeal was pending, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (1991 Act or Act) became law. Section 101 of that Act provides that § 1981’s prohibition against racial discrimination in the making and enforcement of contracts applies to all phases and incidents of the contractual relationship, including discriminatory contract terminations. Petitioners accordingly filed a supplemental brief advancing the argument that the new statute applied in their case. The Court of Appeals agreed with petitioners’ first contention but not the second. Accordingly, it ruled that §1981 as interpreted in Patterson, not as amended by § 101, governed the case and remanded for a jury trial limited to petitioners’ discrimination-in-contract-enforcement claim. See Harris v. Roadway Express, Inc., 973 F. 2d 490 (CA6 1992).

We granted certiorari, 507 U. S. 908 (1993), on the sole question whether § 101 of the 1991 Act applies to cases pending when it was enacted and set the case for argument with Landgraf v. USI Film Products, ante, p. 244.

II

In Landgraf, we concluded that § 102 of the 1991 Act does not apply to cases that arose before its enactment. The reasons supporting that conclusion also apply to § 101, and require rejection of two of petitioners’ submissions in this case. First, these petitioners, like the petitioner in Landgraf, rely heavily on a negative implication argument based on §§ 402(a), 109(c), and 402(b) of the Act. That argument, however, is no more persuasive as to the application of § 101 to preenactment conduct than as to that of § 102. See ante, at 257-263.

Second, petitioners argue that the case is governed by Bradley v. School Bd. of Richmond, 416 U. S. 696 (1974), rather than the presumption against statutory retroactivity. We are persuaded, however, that the presumption is even more clearly applicable to § 101 than to § 102. Section 102 altered the liabilities of employers under Title VII by subjecting them to expanded monetary liability, but it did not alter the normative scope of Title VII’s prohibition on workplace discrimination. In contrast, because §101 amended § 1981 to embrace all aspects of the contractual relationship, including contract terminations, it enlarged the category of conduct that is subject to § 1981 liability.

Moreover, § 1981 (and hence § 101) is not limited to employment; because it covers all contracts, see, e. g., Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 160 (1976), Tillman v. Wheaton-Haven Recreation Assn., Inc., 410 U. S. 431 (1973), a substantial part of § 101’s sweep does not overlap Title VIL In short, § 101 has the effect not only of increasing liability but also of establishing a new standard of conduct. Accordingly, for reasons we stated in Landgraf, the important new legal obligations § 101 imposes bring it within the class of laws that are presumptively prospective.

Ill

Petitioners rely heavily on an argument that was not applicable to § 102 of the 1991 Act, the section at issue in Landgraf. They contend that § 101 should apply to their case because it was “restorative” of the understanding of § 1981 that prevailed before our decision in Patterson. Petitioners advance two variations on this theme: Congress’ evident purpose to “restore” pre-Patterson law indicates that it affirmatively intended §101 to apply to cases arising before its enactment; moreover, there is a “presumption in favor of application of restorative statutes” to cases arising before their enactment. Brief for Petitioners 37.

A

Congress’ decision to alter the rule of law established in one of our cases — as petitioners put it, to “legislatively overrule],” see id., at 38 — does not, by itself, reveal whether Congress intends the “overruling” statute to apply retroactively to events that would otherwise be governed by the judicial decision. A legislative response does not necessarily indicate that Congress viewed the judicial decision as “wrongly decided” as an interpretive matter. Congress may view the judicial decision as an entirely correct reading of prior law — or it may be altogether indifferent to the decision’s technical merits — but may nevertheless decide that the old law should be amended, but only for the future. Of course, Congress may also decide to announce a new rule that operates retroactively to govern the rights of parties whose rights would otherwise be subject to the rule announced in the judicial decision. Because retroactivity raises special policy concerns, the choice to enact a statute that responds to a judicial decision is quite distinct from the choice to make the responding statute retroactive.

Petitioners argue that the structure and legislative history of § 101 indicate that Congress specifically intended to “restore” prior law even as to parties whose rights would otherwise have been determined according to Patterson’s interpretation of § 1981. Thus, § 101 operates as a gloss on the terms “make and enforce contracts,” the original language of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that was before this Court in Patterson. Petitioners also point to evidence in the 1991 Act’s legislative history indicating legislators’ distress with Patterson’s construction of §1981 and their view that our decision had narrowed a previously established understanding of that provision. Taken together, petitioners argue, this evidence shows that it was Congress’ sense that Patterson had cut back the proper scope of § 1981, and that the new legislation would restore its proper scope. Regardless of whether that sense was right or wrong as a technical legal matter, petitioners maintain, we should give it effect by applying § 101’s broader definition of what it means to “make and enforce” a contract, rather than Patterson’s congressionally disapproved reading, to cases pending upon § 101’s enactment.

We may assume, as petitioners argue, that § 101 reflects congressional disapproval of Patterson’s interpretation of § 1981. We may even assume that many or even most legislators believed that Patterson was not only incorrectly decided but also represented a departure from the previously prevailing understanding of the reach of § 1981. Those assumptions would readily explain why Congress might have wanted to legislate retroactively, thereby providing relief for the persons it believed had been wrongfully denied a § 1981 remedy. Even on those assumptions, however, we cannot find in the 1991 Act any clear expression of congressional intent to reach cases that arose before its enactment.

The 1990 civil rights bill that was vetoed by the President contained an amendment to § 1981, identical to § 101 of the 1991 Act, that assuredly would have applied to pending cases. See Civil Rights Act of 1990, S. 2104, 101st Cong., 2d Sess., § 12 (1990). See also Landgraf, ante, at 255-256, n. 8. In its statement of purposes, the bill unambiguously declared that it was intended to “respond to the Supreme Court’s recent decisions by restoring the civil rights protections that were dramatically limited by those decisions,” S. 2104, § 2(b)(1) (emphasis added), and the section responding to Patterson was entitled “Restoring Prohibition Against All Racial Discrimination in the Making and Enforcement of Contracts.” Id., § 12 (emphasis added). More directly, § 15(a)(6) of the 1990 bill expressly provided that the amendment to § 1981 “shall apply to all proceedings pending on or commenced after” the date of the Patterson decision.

The statute that was actually enacted in 1991 contains no comparable language. Instead of a reference to “restoring” pre-existing rights, its statement of purposes describes the Act’s function as “expanding the scope of relevant civil rights statutes in order to provide adequate protection to victims of discrimination.” 1991 Act, § 3(4), 105 Stat. 1071 (emphasis added). Consistently with that revised statement • of purposes, the Act lacks any direct reference to cases arising before its enactment, or to the date of the Patterson decision. Taken by itself, the fact that § 101 is framed as a gloss on §1981’s original “make and enforce contracts” does not demonstrate an intent to apply the new definition to past acts. Altering statutory definitions, or adding new definitions of terms previously undefined, is a common way of amending statutes, and simply does not answer the retroactivity question. Thus, the text of the Act does not support the argument that §101 of the 1991 Act was intended to “restore” prior understandings of § 1981 as to cases arising before the 1991 Act’s passage.

The legislative history of the 1991 Act does not bridge the gap in the text. The statements that most strongly support such coverage are found in the debates on the 1990 bill. See n. 6, supra. Such statements are of questionable relevance to the 1991 Act, however, because the 1990 provision contained express retroactivity provisions that were omitted from the 1991 legislation. The statements relating specifically to § 101 of the 1991 Act do not provide reliable evidence on whether Congress intended to “restore” a broader meaning of § 1981 with respect to pending cases otherwise governed by Patterson’s construction of the scope of the phrase “make and enforce contracts.” Thus, the fact that §101 was enacted in response to Patterson does not supply sufficient evidence of a clear congressional intent to overcome the presumption against statutory retroactivity.

B

A lack of clear congressional intent would not be dispositive if, as petitioners argue, § 101 is the kind of restorative statute that should presumptively be applied to pending cases. Petitioners maintain that restorative statutes do not implicate fairness concerns relating to retroactivity at least when, as is the case in this litigation, the new statute simply enacts a rule that the parties believed to be the law when they acted. Indeed, amici in support of petitioners contend, fairness concerns positively favor application of § 101 to pending cases because the effect of the Patterson decision was to cut off, after the fact, rights of action under § 1981 that had been widely recognized in the lower courts, and under which many victims of discrimination had won damages judgments prior to Patterson. See Brief for NAACP et al. as Amici Curiae 7-14.

Notwithstanding the equitable appeal of petitioners’ argument, we are convinced that it cannot carry the day. Our decisions simply do not support the proposition that we have espoused a “presumption” in favor of retroactive application of restorative statutes. Petitioners invoke Frisbie v. Whitney, 9 Wall. 187 (1870), which involved a federal statute that enabled Frisbie and others to acquire property they had occupied and thought they owned prior to 1862, when, in another case, this Court held that the original grant of title by the Mexican Government was void. The new law in effect “restored” rights that Frisbie reasonably and in good faith thought he possessed before the surprising announcement of our decision. In the Frisbie case, however, the question was whether Congress had the power to enact legislation that had the practical effect of restoring the status quo retroactively. As the following passage from Frisbie demonstrates, there was no question about Congress’ actual intent:

“We say the benefits it designed to confer, because we entertain no doubt of the intention of Congress to secure to persons situated as Frisbie was, the title to their lands, on compliance with the terms of the act, and if this has not been done it is solely because Congress had no power to enact the law in question.” Id., at 192 (emphasis in original).

Petitioners also point to Freeborn v. Smith, 2 Wall. 160 (1865). There, a statute admitting Nevada to the Union had failed to provide for jurisdiction over cases arising from Nevada Territory that were pending before this Court when Nevada achieved statehood. We upheld against constitutional attack a subsequent statute explicitly curing the “accidental impediment” to our jurisdiction over such cases. See id., at 173-175.

In the case before us today, however, we do not, question the power of Congress to apply its definition of the- term' “make and enforce contracts” to cases arising before the' 1991 Act became effective, or, indeed, to those that were pending on June 15, 1989, when Patterson was decided. The question is whether Congress has manifested such an intent. Unlike the narrow error-correcting statutes at issue in Frisbie and Freeborn, § 101 is plainly not the sort of provision that must be read to apply to pending cases “because a contrary reading would render it ineffective.” Landgraf, ante, at 286. Section 101 is readily comprehensible, and entirely effective, even if it applies only to conduct occurring after its effective date. A restorative purpose may be relevant to whether Congress specifically intended a new statute to govern past conduct, but we do not “presume” an intent to act retroactively in such cases. We still require clear evidence of intent to impose the restorative statute “retroactively.” Section 101, and the statute of which it is a part, does not contain such evidence.

“The principle that statutes operate only prospectively, while judicial decisions operate retrospectively, is familiar to every law student,” United States v. Security Industrial Bank, 459 U. S. 70, 79 (1982), and this case illustrates the second half of that principle as well as the first. Even though applicable Sixth Circuit precedents were otherwise when this dispute arose, the District Court properly applied Patterson to this case. See Harper v. Virginia Dept, of Taxation, 509 U. S. 86, 97 (1993) (“When this Court applies a rule of federal law to the parties before it, that rule is the controlling interpretation of federal law and must be given full retroactive effect in all cases still open on direct review and as to all events, regardless of whether such events predate or postdate our announcement of the rule”). See also Kuhn v. Fairmont Coal Co., 215 U. S. 349, 372 (1910) (“Judicial decisions have had retrospective operation for near a thousand years”) (Holmes, J., dissenting). The essence of judicial decisionmaking — applying general rules to particular situations — necessarily involves some peril to individual expectations because it is often difficult to predict the precise application of a general rule until it has been distilled in the crucible of litigation. See L. Fuller, Morality of Law 56 (1964) (“No system of law — whether it be judge-made or legislatively enacted — can be so perfectly drafted as to leave no room for dispute”).

Patterson did not overrule any prior decision of this Court; rather, it held and therefore established that the prior decisions of the Courts of Appeals which read § 1981 to cover discriminatory contract termination were incorrect. They were not wrong according to some abstract standard of interpretive validity, but by the rules that necessarily govern our hierarchical federal court system. Cf. Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 540 (1953) (Jackson, J., concurring in result). It is this Court’s responsibility to say what a statute means, and once the Court has spoken, it is the duty of other courts to respect that understanding of the governing rule of law. A judicial construction of a statute is an authoritative statement of what the statute meant before as well as after the decision of the case giving rise to that construction. Thus, Patterson provides the authoritative interpretation of the phrase “make and enforce contracts” in the Civil Rights Act of 1866 before the 1991 amendment went into effect on November 21,1991. That interpretation provides the baseline for our conclusion that the 1991 amendment would be “retroactive” if applied to cases arising before that date.

Congress, of course, has the power to amend a statute that it believes we have misconstrued. It may even, within broad constitutional bounds, make such a change retroactive and thereby undo what it perceives to be the undesirable past consequences of a misinterpretation of its work product. No such change, however, has the force of law unless it is implemented through legislation. Even when Congress intends to supersede a rule of law embodied in one of our decisions with what it views as a better rule established in earlier decisions, its intent to reach conduct preceding the “corrective” amendment must clearly appear. We cannot say that such an intent clearly appears with respect to § 101. For this reason, and because it creates liabilities that had no legal existence before the Act was passed, §101 does not apply to preenactment conduct.

Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

[For opinion of Justice Scalia concurring in the judgment, see ante, p. 286.]

Justice Blackmun,

dissenting.

For the reasons stated in my dissent in Landgraf v. USI Film Products, ante, p. 294, I also dissent in this case. Here, just as in Landgraf, the most natural reading of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, 105 Stat. 1071, and this Court’s precedents is that § 101 applies to cases pending on appeal on the statute’s enactment date, at least where application of the new provision would not disturb the parties’ vested rights or settled expectations. This is such a case.

In 1986, when respondent Roadway Express, Inc., discharged petitioners Maurice Rivers and Robert C. Davison from their jobs as garage mechanics, 42 U. S. C. § 1981, which gives all persons the same right to “make and enforce contracts,” was widely understood to apply to the discriminatory enforcement and termination of employment contracts. See Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U. S. 454, 459-460 (1975) (“Although this Court has not specifically so held, it is well settled among the Federal Courts of Appeals — and we now join them — that § 1981 affords a federal remedy against discrimination in private employment on the basis of race”). This understanding comports with § 101 of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, 105 Stat. 1072, providing that “the term ‘make and enforce contracts’ includes the making, performance, modification, and termination of contracts, and the enjoyment of all benefits, privileges, terms, and conditions of the contractual relationship.” The majority seemingly accepts petitioners’ argument that if this Court were to apply § 101 to their case, “respondent has no persuasive claim to unfair surprise, because, at the time the allegedly discriminatory discharge occurred, the Sixth Circuit precedent held that § 1981 could support a claim for discriminatory contract termination.” Ante, at 309, n. 9.

Nonetheless, applying a new, supercharged version of our traditional presumption against retroactive legislation, the Court concludes that petitioners, whose claim was pending when this Court announced Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164 (1989), are bound by that decision, which limited §1981 to contract formation. Patterson’s tenure was — or surely should have been — brief, as § 101 was intended to overrule Patterson and to deny it further effect. The Court’s holding today, however, prolongs the life of that congressionally repudiated decision. See Estate of Reynolds v. Martin, 985 F. 2d 470, 475-476 (CA9 1993) (denying application of § 101 to cases pending at its enactment would allow repudiated decisions,, including Patterson, to “live on in the federal courts for „.. years”).

Although the Court’s opinions in this case and in Landgraf do bring needed clarity to our retroactivity jurisprudence, they do so only at the expense of stalling the intended application of remedial and restorative legislation. In its effort to reconcile the “apparent tension,” Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. v. Bonjorno, 494 U. S. 827, 837 (1990), between Bradley v. School Bd. of Richmond, 416 U. S. 696 (1974), and Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U. S. 204 (1988), the Court loses sight of the core purpose of its retroactivity doctrine, namely, to respect and effectuate new laws to the extent consistent with congressional intent and with the vested rights and settled expectations of the parties. In Bradley, a unanimous Court applied an intervening statute allowing reasonable attorney’s fees for school-desegregation plaintiffs to a case pending on appeal on the statute’s effective date. The Court observed that the statute merely created an “additional basis or source for the Board’s potential obligation to pay attorneys’ fees.” 416 U. S., at 721. Just as the school board in Bradley was on notice that it could be liable for attorney’s fees, the employer in this case was on notice — from the prevailing interpretation of § 1981 — that it could be liable for damages for a racially discriminatory contract termination. Indeed, in this case, the employer’s original liability stemmed from the very provision that petitioners now seek to enforce.

In Bowen, by contrast, the Court unanimously interpreted authorizing statutes not to permit the Secretary of Health and Human Services retroactively to change the rules for calculating hospitals’ reimbursements for past services provided under Medicare. Although Bowen properly turned on the textual analysis of the applicable statutes, neither citing Bradley nor resorting to presumptions on retroactivity, its broad dicta disfavored the retroactive application of congressional enactments and administrative rules. See 488 U. S., at 208. Bowen is consistent, however, with the Court’s analysis in Bennett v. New Jersey, 470 U. S. 632 (1985), appraising the “[practical considerations,” id., at 640, that counsel against retroactive changes in federal grant programs and noting that such changes would deprive recipients of “fixed, predictable standards.” Ibid. Bowen also accords with Bradley's concern for preventing the injustice that would result from the disturbance of the parties’ reasonable reliance. Thus, properly understood, Bradley establishes a presumption that new laws apply to pending cases in the absence of manifest injustice, and Bowen and Bennett stand for the corresponding presumption against applying new laws when doing so would cause the very injustice Bradley is designed to avoid.

Applying these principles here, “[wjhen a law purports to restore the status quo in existence prior to an intervening Supreme Court decision, the application of that law to conduct occurring prior to the decision would obviously not frustrate the expectations of the parties concerning the legal consequences of their actions at that time.” Gersman v. Group Health Assn., Inc., 975 F. 2d 886, 907 (CADC 1992) (dissenting opinion). While § 101 undoubtedly expands the scope of § 1981 to prohibit conduct that was not illegal under Patterson, in the present context §101 provides a remedy for conduct that was recognized as illegal when it occurred, both under § 1981 and under Title VII. Thus, as far as respondent is concerned, the law in effect when it dismissed petitioners’ claim differs little from the law as amended by the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and application of § 101 in this case would neither alter the expectations of the parties nor disturb previously vested rights. Because I believe that the most faithful reading of our precedents makes this the appropriate inquiry, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings.

       Petitioners’ amended complaint also alleged claims against respondent under the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 157, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 185(a), and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq., as well as claims against their union. Those claims are not before us.

       The full text of § 101, which is entitled “Prohibition Against All Racial Discrimination in the Making And Enforcement of Contracts,” reads as follows:
      “Section 1977 of the Revised Statutes (42 U. S. C. 1981) is amended—
      “(1) by inserting ‘(a)’ before ‘All persons within’; and
      “(2) by adding at the end the following new subsections:
      “(b) For purposes of this section, the term ‘make and enforce contracts’ includes the making, performance, modification, and termination of contracts, and the enjoyment of all benefits, privileges, terms, and conditions of the contractual relationship.
      “(c) The rights protected by this section are protected against impairment by nongovernmental discrimination and impairment under color of State law.”
      Prior to the 1991 amendment, § 1981 provided:
      “All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.”
      The history of § 1981, which is sometimes cited as § 1977 of the Revised Statutes, is set forth in Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 160, 168-170, and n. 8 (1976).

       Even in the employment context, §lS81’s coverage is broader than Title VIPs, for Title VII applies only to employers with 15 or more employees, see 42 U. S. C. § 2000e(b), whereas § 1981 has no such limitation.

         See Brief for Petitioners 35 (“Congress sought to restore what it and virtually all the lower courts thought had been the reach of § 1981 prior to Patterson”).

       Congress frequently “responds” to judicial decisions construing statutes, and does so for a variety of reasons. According to one commentator, between 1967 and 1990, the Legislature “overrode” our decisions at an average of “ten per Congress.” Eskridge, Overriding Supreme Court Statutory Interpretation Decisions, 101 Yale L. J. 331,338 (1991). Seldom if ever has Congress responded to so many decisions in a single piece of legislation as it did in the Civil Rights Act of 1991. See Landgraf v. USI Film Products, ante, at 250-251.

       Thus, for example, the Senate Report on the 1990 civil rights bill that was passed by Congress but vetoed by the President stated:
      “The Patterson decision sharply cut back on the scope and effectiveness of section 1981, with profoundly negative consequences both in the employment context and elsewhere. As a result of the decision, the more than 11 million employees in firms that are not covered by Title VII lack any protection against racial harassment and other forms of race discrimination on the job.
      “Since Patterson was announced, more than 200 claims of race discrimination have been dismissed by federal courts as a result of the decision. Statement of Julius LeVonne Chambers, Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (March 9, 1990). Many persons subjected to blatant bigotry lack any means to obtain relief
      “The Committee finds that there is a compelling need for legislation to overrule the Patterson decision and ensure that federal law prohibits all race discrimination in contracts.” S. Rep. No. 101-315, pp. 12-14 (1990). Congress’ concern with the effects of the Patterson decision in specific cases, including cases in which plaintiffs had won judgments only to have them reversed after Patterson came down, see S. Rep. No. 315, at 13-14, doubtless explains why the 1990 legislation contained a special provision for the reopening of judgments. See Civil Rights Act of 1990, S. 2104, 101st Cong., 2d Sess., § 15(b)(3) (1990); see also Landgraf ante, at 255-256, n. 8. Petitioners do not argue that the 1991 Act should be read to reach cases finally decided.

       We do not suggest that Congress’ use of the word “restore” necessarily bespeaks an intent to restore retroactively. For example, Congress might, in response to a judicial decision that construed a criminal statute narrowly, amend the legislation to broaden its scope; the preamble or legislative history of the amendment might state that it was intended to “restore” the statute to its originally intended scope. In such a situation, there would be no need to read Congress’ use of the word “restore” as an attempt to circumvent the Ex Post Facto Clause. Instead, “to restore” might sensibly be read as meaning “to correct, from now on.” The 1990 bill did not suffer from such ambiguity, however, for it contained other provisions that made pellucidly clear that Congress contemplated the broader, retroactive kind of “restoration.”

       The legislative history of the 1991 Act reveals conflicting views about whether §101 would “restore” or instead “enlarge” the original scope of § 1981. Compare, e. g., 137 Cong. Rec. H9526 (Nov. 7, 1991) (remarks of Rep. Edwards), with id., at H9543 (Nov. 7, 1991) (remarks of Rep. Hyde). The history also includes some debate over the proper test for courts to apply — specifically, the “Bradley” presumption or the “Bowen” presumption, see Landgraf, ante, at 263-265 — to determine the applicability of the various provisions of the Act to pending cases. Compare, e. g., 137 Cong. Rec. 30340 (1991) (remarks of Sen. Kennedy) (citing Bradley test), with id., at 29043-29044 (remarks of Sen. Danforth) (favoring Bowen test). As we noted in Landgraf, ante, at 262-263, the legislative history reveals that retroactivity was recognized as an important and controversial issue, but that history falls far short of providing evidence of an agreement among legislators on the subject.

       They point out that respondent has no persuasive claim to unfair surprise, because, at the time the allegedly discriminatory discharge occurred, the Sixth Circuit precedent held that § 1981 could support a claim for discriminatory contract termination. See, e. g., Cooper v. North Olmstead, 795 F. 2d 1265,1270, n. 3 (1986); Leonard v. City of Frankfort Elec, and Water Plant Bd., 752 F. 2d 189,195 (1985). See also Mozee v. American Commercial Marine Service Co., 963 F. 2d 929, 941 (CA7 1992) (Cudahy, J., dissenting); Gersman v. Group Health Assn., Inc., 975 F. 2d 886, 907-908 (CADC 1992) (Wald, J., dissenting), cert, pending, No. 92-1190. We note, however, that this argument would not apply to any cases arising after Patterson was decided but before the 1991 Act’s enactment.

       See United States v. Vallejo, 1 Black 541 (1862). In his dissent in that case, Justice Grier stated that he could not “agree to confiscate the property of some thousand of our fellow-citizens, who have purchased under this title and made improvements to the value of many millions, on suspicions first raised here as to the integrity of a grant universally acknowledged to be genuine in the country where it originated.” Id., at 555-556 (emphasis in original).

       See N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutory Construction §27.04, p. 472 (5th ed. 1993) (“The usual purpose of a special interpretive statute is to correct a judicial interpretation of a prior law which the legislature considers inaccurate. Where such statutes are given any effect, the effect is prospective only”).

       When Congress enacts a new statute, it has the power to decide when the statute will become effective. The new statute may govern from the date of enactment, from a specified future date, or even from an expressly announced earlier date. But when this Court construes a statute, it is explaining its understanding of what the statute has meant continuously since the date when it became law. In statutory cases the Court has no authority to depart from the congressional command setting the effective date of a law that it has enacted. Thus, it is not accurate to say that the Court’s decision in Patterson “changed” the law that previously prevailed in the Sixth Circuit when this case was filed. Rather, given the structure of our judicial system, the Patterson opinion finally decided what § 1981 had always meant and explained why the Courts of Appeals had misinterpreted the will of the enacting Congress.

       Until the 1991 amendment, § 1981 stated: “All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens ....”

       Here, of course, § 101 creates a basis or source — in addition to Title VII — for the prohibition on racial discrimination in the enforcement of employment contracts. Title VII makes it illegal for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e — 2(a)(1).

       An inquiry into the vested rights and settled expectations of the parties is fairer and more sensitive than a mechanical reliance on a substance/ procedure dichotomy. See Gersman v. Group Health Assn., Inc., 975 F. 2d 886, 906 (CADC 1992) (Wald, J., dissenting); Mozee v. American Commercial Marine Service Co., 963 F. 2d 929, 940-941 (CA7 1992) (Cudahy, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing).

       Not all conduct proscribed by § 101 was also unlawful under Title VII or other civil rights laws. For example, § 101, unlike Title VII, see 42 U. S. C. §2000e(b), applies to small employers, and even outside the employment context, see, e. g., Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 160 (1976).


author: Per Curiam. Justice Blackmun,

text:
    STANSBURY v. CALIFORNIA
    No. 93-5770.
    Argued March 30, 1994
    Decided April 26, 1994

      Robert M. Westberg, by appointment of the Court, 510 U. S. 1009, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were David S. Winton and Joseph A. Hearst.

      Aileen Bunney, Deputy Attorney General of California, argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief were Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General, George Williamson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Ronald A. Bass, Senior Assistant Attorney General, and Ronald E. Niver, Deputy Attorney General.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Orange County District Attorney, State of California, by Michael R. Capizzi and Devallis Rutledge; for Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., by Bernard J. Farber, Fred E. Inbau, Wayne W. Schmidt, and James P. Manak; and for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger.

   Per Curiam.

This case concerns the rules for determining whether a person being questioned by law enforcement officers is held in custody, and thus entitled to the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). We hold, not for the first time, that an officer’s subjective and undisclosed view concerning whether the person being interrogated is a suspect is irrelevant to the assessment whether the person is in custody.

I

Ten-year-old Robyn Jackson disappeared from a playground in Baldwin Park, California, at around 6:30 p.m. on September 28, 1982. Early the next morning, about 10 miles away in Pasadena, Andrew Zimmerman observed a large man emerge from a turquoise American, sedan and throw something into a nearby flood control channel. Zimmerman called the police, who arrived at the seene and discovered the girl’s body in the channel. There was evidence that she had been raped, and the cause of death was determined to be asphyxia complicated by blunt force trauma to the head.

Lieutenant Thomas Johnston, a detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, investigated the homicide. From witnesses interviewed on the day the body was discovered, he learned that Robyn had talked to two ice cream truck drivers, one being petitioner Robert Edward Stansbury, in the hours before her disappearance. Given these contacts, Johnston thought Stansbury and the other driver might have some connection with the homicide or knowledge thereof, but for reasons unimportant here Johnston considered only the other driver to be a leading suspect. After the suspect driver was brought in for interrogation, Johnston asked Officer Lee of the Baldwin Park Police Department to contact Stansbury to see if he would come in for questioning as a potential witness.

Lee and three other plainclothes officers arrived at Stansbury’s trailer home at about 11:00 that evening. The officers surrounded the door and Lee knocked. When Stansbury answered, Lee told him the officers were investigating a homicide to which Stansbury was a possible witness and asked if he would accompany them to the police station to answer some questions. Stansbury agreed to the interview and accepted a ride to the station in the front seat of Lee’s police car.

At the station, Lieutenant Johnston, in the presence of another officer, questioned Stansbury about his whereabouts and activities during the afternoon and evening of September 28. Neither Johnston nor the other officer issued Miranda warnings. Stansbury told the officers (among other things) that on the evening of the 28th he spoke with the victim at about 6:00, returned to his trailer home after work at 9:00, and left the trailer at about midnight in his housemate’s turquoise, American-made car. This last detail aroused Johnston’s suspicions, as the turquoise car matched the description of the one Andrew Zimmerman had observed in Pasadena. When Stansbury, in response to a further question, admitted to prior convictions for rape, kidnaping, and child molestation, Johnston terminated the interview and another officer advised Stansbury of his Miranda rights. Stansbury declined to make further statements, requested an attorney, and was arrested. Respondent State of California charged Stansbury with first-degree murder and other crimes.

Stansbury filed a pretrial motion to suppress all statements made at the station, and the evidence discovered as a result of those statements. The trial court denied the motion in relevant part, ruling that Stansbury was not “in custody” — and thus not entitled to Miranda warnings — until he mentioned that he had taken his housemate’s turquoise car for a midnight drive. Before that stage of the interview, the trial court reasoned, “the focus in [Lieutenant Johnston’s] mind certainly was on the other ice cream [truck] driver,” Tr. 2368; only “after Mr. Stansbury made the comment . . . describing the . . . turquoise-colored automobile” did Johnston’s suspicions “shif[t] to Mr. Stansbury,” ibid. Based upon its conclusion that Stansbury was not in custody until Johnston’s suspicions had focused on him, the trial court permitted the prosecution to introduce in its case in chief the statements Stansbury made before that time. At trial, the jury convicted Stansbury of first-degree murder, rape, kidnaping, and lewd act on a child under the age of 14, and fixed the penalty for the first-degree murder at death.

The California Supreme Court affirmed. Before determining whether Stansbury was in custody during the interview at the station, the court set out what it viewed as the applicable legal standard:

“In deciding the custody issue, the totality of the circumstances is relevant, and no one factor is dispositive. However, the most important considerations include (1) the. site of the interrogation, (2) whether the investigation has focused on the subject, (3) whether the objective indicia of arrest are present, and (4) the length and form of questioning.” 4 Cal. 4th 1017, 1050, 846 R 2d 756, 775 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The court proceeded to analyze the second factor in detail, in the end accepting the trial court’s factual determination “that suspicion focused on [Stansbury] only when he mentioned that he had driven a turquoise car on the night of the crime.” Id., at 1052, 846 P. 2d, at 776. The court “conclude[d] that [Stansbury] was not subject to custodial interrogation before he mentioned the turquoise car,” and thus approved the trial court’s ruling that Miranda v. Arizona did not bar the admission of statements Stansbury made before that point. 4 Cal. 4th, at 1054, 846 P. 2d, at 777-778.

We granted certiorari. 510 U. S. 943 (1993).

II

We held in Miranda that a person questioned by law enforcement officers after being “taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way” must first “be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed.” 384 U. S., at 444. Statements elicited in noncompliance with this rule may not be admitted for certain purposes in a criminal trial. Compare id., at 492, 494, with Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222 (1971). An officer’s obligation to administer Miranda warnings attaches, however, “only where there has been such a restriction on a person’s freedom as to render him ‘in custody.’” Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U. S. 492, 495 (1977) (per curiam); see also Illinois v. Perkins, 496 U. S. 292, 296 (1990). In determining whether an individual was in custody, a court must examine all of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation, but “the ultimate inquiry is simply whether there [was] a ‘formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement’ of the degree associated with a formal arrest.” California v. Beheler, 463 U. S. 1121, 1125 (1983) (per curiam) (quoting Mathiason, supra, at 495).

Our decisions make clear that the initial determination of custody depends on the objective circumstances of the interrogation, not on the subjective views harbored by either the interrogating officers or the person being questioned. In Beckwith v. United States, 425 U. S. 341 (1976), for example, the defendant, without being advised of his Miranda rights, made incriminating statements to Government agents during an interview in a private home. He later asked that Miranda “be extended to cover interrogation in noncustodial circumstances after a police investigation has focused on the suspect.” 425 U. S., at 345 (internal quotation marks omitted). We found his argument unpersuasive, explaining that it “was the compulsive aspect of custodial interrogation, and not the strength or content of the government’s suspicions at the time the questioning was conducted, which led the Court to impose the Miranda requirements with regard to custodial questioning.” Id., at 346-347 (internal quotation marks omitted). As a result, we concluded that the defendant was not entitled to Miranda warnings: “Although the ‘focus’ of an investigation may indeed have been on Beckwith at the time of the interview ... , he hardly found himself in the custodial situation described by the Miranda Court as the basis for its holding.” 425 U. S., at 347.

Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420 (1984), reaffirmed the conclusions reached in Beckwith. Berkemer concerned the roadside questioning of a motorist detained in a traffic stop. We decided that the motorist was not in custody for purposes of Miranda even though the traffic officer “apparently decided as soon as [the motorist] stepped out of his car that [the motorist] would be taken into custody and charged with a traffic offense.” 468 U. S., at 442. The reason, we explained, was that the officer “never communicated his intention to” the motorist during the relevant questioning. Ibid. The lack of communication was crucial, for under Miranda “[a] policeman’s unarticulated plan has no bearing on the question whether a suspect was ‘in custody’ at a particular time”; rather, “the only relevant inquiry is how a reasonable man in the suspect’s position would have understood his situation.” 468 U. S., at 442. Other cases of ours have been consistent in adhering to this understanding of the custody element of Miranda. See, e. g., Mathias on, supra, at 495 (“Nor is the requirement of warnings to be imposed simply because . . . the questioned person is one whom the police suspect. Miranda warnings are required only where there has been such a restriction on a person’s freedom as to render him ‘in custody’”); Beheler, supra, at 1124, n. 2 (“Our holding in Mathiason reflected our earlier decision in [Beck-with], in which we rejected the notion that the ‘in custody’ requirement was satisfied merely because the police interviewed a person who was the ‘focus’ of a criminal investigation”); Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U. S. 420, 431 (1984) (“The mere fact that an investigation has focused on a suspect does not trigger the need for Miranda warnings in noncustodial settings, and the probation officer’s knowledge and intent have no bearing on the outcome of this case”) (citation omitted); cf. Pennsylvania v. Bruder, 488 U. S. 9, 11, n. 2 (1988).

It is well settled, then, that a police officer’s subjective view that the individual under questioning is a suspect, if undisclosed, does not bear upon the question whether the individual is in custody for purposes of Miranda. See F. Inbau, J. Reid, & J. Buckley, Criminal Interrogation and Confessions 232, 236, 297-298 (3d ed. 1986). The same principle obtains if an officer’s undisclosed assessment is that the person being questioned is not a suspect. In either instance, one cannot expect the person under interrogation to probe the officer’s innermost thoughts. Save as they are communicated or otherwise manifested to the person being ques-. tioned, an officer’s evolving but unarticulated suspicions do not affect the objective circumstances of an interrogation or interview, and thus cannot affect the Miranda custody inquiry. “The threat to a citizen’s Fifth Amendment rights that Miranda was designed to neutralize has little to do with the strength of an interrogating officer’s suspicions.” Berkemer, supra, at 435, n. 22.

An officer’s knowledge or beliefs may bear upon the custody issue if they are conveyed, by word or deed, to the individual being questioned. Cf. Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U. S. 567,575, n. 7 (1988) (citing United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544,554, n. 6 (1980) (opinion of Stewart, J.)). Those beliefs are relevant only to the extent they would affect how a reasonable person in the position of the individual being questioned would gauge the breadth of his or her “ ‘freedom of action.’” Berkemer, supra, at 440. Even a clear statement from an officer that the person under interrogation is a prime suspect is not, in itself, dispositive of the custody issue, for some suspects are free to come and go until the police decide to make an arrest. The weight and pertinence of any communications regarding the officer’s degree of suspicion will depend upon the facts and circumstances of the particular case. In sum, an officer’s views concerning the nature of an interrogation, or beliefs concerning the potential culpability of the individual being questioned, may be one among many factors that bear upon the assessment whether that individual was in custody, but only if the officer’s views or beliefs were somehow manifested to the individual under interrogation and would have affected how a reasonable person in that position would perceive his or her freedom to leave. (Of course, instances may arise in which the officer’s undisclosed views are relevant in testing the credibility of his or her account of what happened during an interrogation; but it is the objective surroundings, and not any undisclosed views, that control the Miranda custody inquiry.)

We decide on this state of the record that the California Supreme Court’s analysis of whether Stansbury was in custody is not consistent in all respects with the foregoing principles. Numerous statements in the court’s opinion are open to the interpretation that the court regarded the officers’ subjective beliefs regarding Stansbury’s status as a suspect (or nonsuspect) as significant in and of themselves, rather than as relevant only to the extent they influenced the objective conditions surrounding his interrogation. See 4 Cal. 4th, at 1050, 846 P. 2d, at 775 (“whether the investigation ha[d] focused on the” person being questioned is among the “most important considerations” in assessing whether the person was in custody). So understood, the court’s analysis conflicts with our precedents. The court’s apparent conclusion that Stansbury’s Miranda rights were triggered by virtue of the fact that he had become the focus of the officers’ suspicions, see 4 Cal. 4th, at 1052, 1054, 846 P. 2d, at 776, 777-778; cf., e.g., State v. Blanding, 69 Haw. 583, 586-587, 752 P. 2d 99, 101 (1988); State v. Hartman, 703 S. W. 2d 106, 120 (Tenn. 1985), cert, denied, 478 U. S. 1010 (1986); People v. Herdon, 42 Cal. App. 3d 300, 307, n. 10, 116 Cal. Rptr. 641, 645, n. 10 (1974), is incorrect as well. Our cases make clear, in no uncertain terms, that any inquiry into whether the interrogating officers have focused their suspicions upon the individual being questioned (assuming those suspicions remain undisclosed) is not relevant for purposes of Miranda. See generally 1 W. LaFave & J. Israel, Criminal Procedure §6.6(a), pp. 489-490 (1984).

The State acknowledges that Lieutenant Johnston’s and the other officers’ subjective and undisclosed suspicions (or lack thereof) do not bear upon the question whether Stansbury was in custody, for purposes of Miranda, during the station house interview. It maintains, however, that the objective facts in the record support a finding that Stansbury was not in custody until his arrest. Stansbury, by contrast, asserts that the objective circumstances show that he was in custody during the entire interrogation. We think it appropriate for the California Supreme Court to consider this question in the first instance. We therefore reverse its judgment and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Blackmun,

concurring.

I join the Court’s per curiam opinion and merely add that, even if I were not persuaded that the judgment must be reversed for the reasons stated in that opinion, I would adhere to my view that the death penalty cannot be imposed fairly within the constraints of our Constitution. See my dissent in Callins v. Collins, 510 U. S. 1141, 1143 (1994). I therefore would vacate the death sentence on that ground, too.


author:
      Justice Scalia
      Justice Stevens,

text:
    CITY OF CHICAGO et al. v. ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND et al.
    No. 92-1639.
    Argued January 19, 1994
    Decided May 2, 1994

      Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in. which Rehnquist, C. J., and Blackmun, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which O’Connor, J., joined, post, p. 340.

      Lawrence Rosenthal argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Susan S. Sher, Benna, Ruth Solomon, and Mardell Nereim.

      Jeffrey R Minear argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Days, Acting Assistant Attorney General Flint, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, David C. Shilton, M. Alice Thurston, Gerald H. Yamada, and Lisa K. Friedman.

      Richard J. Lazarus argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of New York by Robert Abrams, Attorney General, Jerry Boone, Solicitor General, Peter H. Schiff, Deputy Solicitor General, and James A Sevinsky and Kathleen Liston Morrison, Assistant Attorneys General; for Barron County, Wisconsin, et al. by Philip G. Sunderland, Max Rothal, Pamela K. Akin, Stephen O. Nunn, Cynthea L. Perry, Howard J. Wein, Charles H. Younger, John D. Pirich, David P. Bobzien, Felshaw King, Mary Anne Wood, Michael F. X. Gillin, Ruth C. Balkin, Patrick T. Boulden, and Barry S. Shanoff; for the City of Spokane, Washington, et al. by Craig S. Trueblood; for the County of Westchester, New York, by Carol L. Van Scoyoc; for the National League of Cities et al. by Richard Ruda, David R. Berz, and David B. Hird; for the Washington Legal Foundation et al. by Daniel J. Popeo, Paul D. Kamenar, and Kurt J. Olson; and for Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., et al. by Harold Himmelman, David M. Friedland, and Mark P. Paul.

   Justice Scalia

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We are called upon to decide whether, pursuant to § 3001(i) of the Solid Waste Disposal Act (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA)), as added, 98 Stat. 3252, 42 U. S. C. §6921(i), the ash generated by a resource recovery facility’s incineration of municipal solid waste is exempt from regulation as a hazardous waste under Subtitle C of RCRA.

I

Since 1971, petitioner city of Chicago has owned and operated a municipal incinerator, the Northwest Waste-to-Energy Facility, that burns solid waste and recovers energy, leaving a residue of municipal waste combustion (MWC) ash. The facility burns approximately 350,000 tons of solid waste each year and produces energy that is both used within the facility and sold to other entities. The city has disposed of the combustion residue — 110,000 to 140,000 tons of MWC ash per year — at landfills that are not licensed to accept hazardous wastes.

In 1988, respondent Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) filed a complaint against petitioners, the city of Chicago and its mayor, under the citizen suit provisions of RCRA, 42 U. S. C. § 6972, alleging that they were violating provisions of RCRA and of implementing regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Respondent alleged that the MWC ash generated by the facility was toxic enough to qualify as a “hazardous waste” under EPA’s regulations, 40 CFR pt. 261 (1993). It was uncontested that, with respect to the ash, petitioners had not adhered to any of the requirements of Subtitle C, the portion of RCRA addressing hazardous wastes. Petitioners contended that RCRA §3001(i), 42 U. S. C. §6921(i), excluded the MWC ash from those requirements. The District Court agreed with that contention, see Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Chicago, 727 F. Supp. 419, 424 (1989), and subsequently granted petitioners’ motion for summary judgment.

The Court of Appeals reversed, concluding that the “ash generated from the incinerators of municipal resource recovery facilities is subject to regulation as a hazardous waste under Subtitle C of RCRA.” Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Chicago, 948 F. 2d 345, 352 (CA7 1991). The city petitioned for a writ of certiorari, and we invited the Solicitor General to present the views of the United States. Chicago v. Environmental Defense Fund, Inc., 504 U. S. 906 (1992). On September 18, 1992, while that invitation was outstanding, the Administrator of EPA issued a memorandum to EPA Regional Administrators, directing them, in accordance with the agency’s view of §3001(i), to treat MWC ash as exempt from hazardous waste regulation under Subtitle C of RCRA. Thereafter, we granted the city’s petition, vacated the decision, and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for further consideration in light of the memorandum. Chicago v. Environmental Defense Fund, 506 U. S. 982 (1992).

On remand, the Court of Appeals reinstated its previous opinion, holding that, because the statute’s plain language is dispositive, the EPA memorandum did not affect its analysis. 985 F. 2d 303, 304 (CA7 1993). Petitioners filed a petition for writ of certiorari, which we granted. 509 U. S. 903 (1993).

II

RCRA is a comprehensive environmental statute that empowers EPA to regulate hazardous wastes from cradle to grave, in accordance with the rigorous safeguards and waste management procedures of Subtitle C, 42 U. S. C. §§6921-6934. (Nonhazardous wastes are regulated much more loosely under Subtitle D, 42 U. S. C. §§ 6941-6949.) Under the relevant provisions of Subtitle C, EPA has promulgated standards governing hazardous waste generators and transporters, see 42 U. S. C. §§ 6922 and 6923, and owners and operators of hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDF’s), see § 6924. Pursuant to § 6922, EPA has directed hazardous waste generators to comply with handling, recordkeeping, storage, and monitoring requirements, see 40 CFR pt. 262 (1993). TSDF’s, however, are subject to much more stringent regulation than either generators or transporters, including a 4- to 5-year permitting process, see 42 U. S. C. §6925; 40 CFR pt. 270 (1993); U. S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, The Nation’s Hazardous Waste Management Program at a Crossroads, The RCRA Implementation Study 49-50 (July 1990), burdensome financial assurance requirements, stringent design and location standards, and, perhaps most onerous of all, responsibility to take corrective action for releases of hazardous substances and to ensure safe closure of each facility, see 42 U. S. C. § 6924; 40 CFR pt. 264 (1993). “[The] corrective action requirement is one of the major reasons that generators and transporters work diligently to manage their wastes so as to avoid the need to obtain interim status or a TSD permit.” 3 Environmental Law Practice Guide § 29.06[3][d] (M. Gerrard ed. 1993) (hereinafter Practice Guide).

RCRA does not identify which wastes are hazardous and therefore subject to Subtitle C regulation; it leaves that designation to EPA. 42 U. S. C. § 6921(a). When EPA’s hazardous waste designations for solid wastes appeared in 1980, see 45 Fed. Reg. 33084, they contained certain exceptions from normal coverage, including an exclusion for “household waste,” defined as “any waste material . . . derived from households (including single and multiple residences, hotels and motels),” id., at 33120, codified as amended at 40 CFR § 261.4(b)(1) (1993). Although most household waste is harmless, a small portion — such as cleaning fluids and batteries — would have qualified as hazardous waste. The regulation declared, however, that “[h]ousehold waste, including household waste that has been collected, transported, stored, treated, disposed, recovered (e. g., refuse-derived fuel) or reused” is not hazardous waste. Ibid. Moreover, the preamble to the 1980 regulations stated that “residues remaining after treatment (e. g. incineration, thermal treatment) [of household waste] are not subject to regulation as a hazardous waste.” 45 Fed. Reg. 33099. By reason of these provisions, an incinerator that burned only household waste would not be considered a Subtitle C TSDF, since it processed only nonhazardous (i. e., household) waste, and it would not be considered a Subtitle C generator of hazardous waste and would be free to dispose of its ash in a Subtitle D landfill.

The 1980 regulations thus provided what is known as a “waste stream” exemption for household waste, ibid., i. e., an exemption covering that category of waste from generation through treatment to final disposal of residues. The regulation did not, however, exempt MWC ash from Subtitle C coverage if the incinerator that produced the ash burned anything in addition to household waste, such as what petitioners’ facility burns: nonhazardous industrial waste. Thus, a facility like petitioners’ would qualify as a Subtitle C hazardous waste generator if the MWC ash it produced was sufficiently toxic, see 40 CFR §§ 261.3, 261.24 (1993) — though it would still not qualify as a Subtitle C TSDF, since all the waste it took in would be characterized as nonhazardous. (An ash can be hazardous, even though the product from which it is generated is not, because in the new medium the contaminants are more concentrated and more readily leachable, see 40 CFR §§261.3, 261.24, and pt. 261, App. II (1993).)

Four years after these regulations were issued, Congress enacted the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984, Pub. L. 98-616, 98 Stat. 3221, which added to RCRA the “Clarification of Household Waste Exclusion” as § 3001(i), § 223, 98 Stat. 3252. The essence of our task in this case is to determine whether, under that provision, the MWC ash generated by petitioners’ facility — a facility that would have been considered a Subtitle C generator under the 1980 regulations — is subject to regulation as hazardous waste under Subtitle C. We conclude that it is.

Section 3001(i), 42 U. S. C. § 6921(i), entitled “Clarification of household waste exclusion,” provides:

“A resource recovery facility recovering energy from the mass burning of municipal solid waste shall not be deemed to be treating, storing, disposing of, or otherwise managing hazardous wastes for the purposes of regulation under this subchapter, if—
“(1) such facility—
“(A) receives and burns only—
“(i) household waste (from single and multiple dwellings, hotels, motels, and other residential sources), and
“(ii) solid waste from commercial or industrial sources that does not contain hazardous waste identified or listed under this section, and
“(B) does not accept hazardous wastes identified or listed under this section, and
“(2) the owner or operator of such facility has established contractual requirements or other appropriate notification or inspection procedures to assure that hazardous wastes are not received at or burned in such facility.”

The plain meaning of this language is that so long as a facility recovers energy by incineration of the appropriate wastes, it (the facility) is not subject to Subtitle C regulation as a facility that treats, stores, disposes of, or manages hazardous waste. The provision quite clearly does not contain any exclusion for the ash itself Indeed, the waste the facility produces (as opposed to that which it receives) is not even mentioned. There is thus no express support for petitioners’ claim óf a waste-stream exemption.

Petitioners contend, however, that the practical effect of the statutory language is to exempt the ash by virtue of exempting the facility. If, they argue, the facility is not deemed to be treating, storing, or disposing of hazardous waste, then the ash that it treats, stores, or disposes of must itself be considered nonhazardous. There are several problems with this argument. First, as we have explained, the only exemption provided by the terms of the statute is for the facility. It is the facility, not the ash, that “shall not be deemed” to be subject to regulation under Subtitle C. Unlike the preamble to the 1980 regulations, which had.been in existence for four years by the time §3001(i) was enacted, §3001(i) does not explicitly exempt MWC ash generated by a resource recovery facility from regulation as a hazardous waste. In light of that difference, and given the statute’s express declaration of national policy that “[w]aste that is ... generated should be treated, stored, or disposed of so as to minimize the present and future threat to human health and the environment,” 42 U. S. C. § 6902(b), we cannot interpret the statute to permit MWC ash sufficiently toxic to qualify as hazardous to be disposed of in ordinary landfills.

Moreover, as the Court of Appeals observed, the statutory language does not even exempt the facility in its capacity as a generator of hazardous waste. RCRA defines “generation” as “the act or process of producing hazardous waste.” 42 U. S. C. § 6903(6). There can be no question that the creation of ash by incinerating municipal waste constitutes “generation” of hazardous waste (assuming, of course, that the ash qualifies as hazardous under 42 U. S. G. § 6921 and its implementing regulations, 40 CFR pt. 261 (1993)). Yet although §3001(i) states that the exempted facility “shall not be deemed to be treating, storing, disposing of, or otherwise managing hazardous wastes,” it significantly omits from the catalog the word “generating.” Petitioners say that because the activities listed as exempt encompass the full scope of the facility’s operation, the failure to mention the activity of generating is insignificant. But the statute itself refutes this. Each of the three specific terms used in §3001(i)— “treating,” “storing,” and “disposing of” — is separately defined by RCRA, and none covers the production of hazardous waste. The fourth and less specific term (“otherwise managing”) is also defined, to mean “collection, source separation, storage, transportation, processing, treatment, recovery, and disposal,” 42 U. S. C. §6903(7) — -just about every hazardous waste-related activity except generation. We think it follows from the carefully constructed text of §3001(i) that while a resource recovery facility’s management activities are excluded from Subtitle C regulation, its generation of toxic ash is not.

Petitioners appeal to the legislative history of §3001(i), which includes, in the Senate Committee Report, the statement that “[a]ll waste management activities of such a facility, including the generation, transportation, treatment, storage and disposal of waste shall be covered by the exclusion.” S. Rep. No. 98-284, p. 61 (1983) (emphasis added). But it is the statute, and not the Committee Report, which is the authoritative expression of the law, and the statute prominently omits reference to generation. As the Court of Appeals cogently put it: “Why should we, then, rely upon a single word in a committee report that did not result in legislation? Simply put, we shouldn’t.” 948 F. 2d, at 351. Petitioners point out that the activity by which they “treat” municipal waste is the very same activity by which they “generate” MWC ash, to wit, incineration. But there is nothing extraordinary about an activity’s being exempt for some purposes and nonexempt for others. The incineration here is exempt from TSDF regulation, but subject to regulation as hazardous waste generation. (As we have noted, see supra, at 331-332, the latter is much less onerous.)

Our interpretation is confirmed by comparing §3001(i) with another statutory exemption in RCRA. In the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986, Pub. L. 99-499, § 124(b), 100 Stat. 1689, Congress amended 42 U. S. C. § 6921 to provide that an “owner and operator of equipment used to recover methane from a landfill shall not be deemed to be managing, generating, transporting, treating, storing, or disposing of hazardous or liquid wastes within the meaning of” Subtitle C. This provision, in contrast to §3001(i), provides a complete exemption by including the term “generating” in its list of covered activities. “[I]t is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely” when it “includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another,” Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U. S. 200, 208 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted). We agree with respondents that this provision “shows that Congress knew how to draft a waste stream exemption in RCRA when it wanted to.” Brief for Respondents 18.

Petitioners contend that our interpretation of §3001(i) turns the provision into an “empty gesture,” Brief for Petitioners 23, since even under the pre-existing regime an incinerator burning household waste and nonhazardous industrial waste was exempt from the Subtitle C TSDF provisions. If §3001(i) did not extend the waste-stream exemption to the product of such a combined household/ nonhazardous-industrial treatment facility, petitioners argue, it did nothing at all. But it is not nothing to codify a household waste exemption that had previously been subject to agency revision; nor is it nothing (though petitioners may value it as less than nothing) to restrict the exemption that the agency previously provided — which is what the provision here achieved, by withholding all waste-stream exemption for waste processed by resource recovery facilities, even for the waste stream passing through an exclusively household waste facility.

We also do not agree with petitioners’ contention that our construction renders §3001(i) ineffective for its intended purpose of promoting household/nonhazardous-industrial resource recovery facilities, see 42 U. S. C. §§ 6902(a)(1), (10), (11), by subjecting them “to the potentially enormous expense of managing ash residue as a hazardous waste.” Brief for Petitioners 20. It is simply not true that a facility which is (as our interpretation says these facilities are) a hazardous waste “generator” is also deemed to be “managing” hazardous waste under RCRA. Section 3001(i) clearly exempts these facilities from Subtitle C TSDF regulations, thus enabling them to avoid the “full brunt of EPA’s enforcement efforts under RCRA.” Practice Guide §29.05[1].

* * *

RCRA’s twin goals of encouraging resource recovery and protecting against contamination sometimes conflict. It is not unusual for legislation to contain diverse purposes that must be reconciled, and the most reliable guide for that task is the enacted text. Here that requires us to reject the Solicitor General’s plea for deference to the EPA’s interpretation, cf. Chevron U S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843-844 (1984), which goes beyond the scope of whatever ambiguity §3001(i) contains. See John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Harris Trust & Sav. Bank, 510 U. S. 86,109 (1993). Section 3001(i) simply cannot be read to contain the cost-saving waste-stream exemption petitioners seek.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is

Affirmed.

Justice Stevens,

with whom Justice O’Connor joins,

dissenting.

The statutory provision in question is a 1984 amendment entitled “Clarification of Household Waste Exclusion.” To understand that clarification, we must first examine the “waste exclusion” that the amendment clarified and, more particularly, the ambiguity that needed clarification. I therefore begin with a discussion of the relevant pre-1984 law. I then examine the text of the statute as amended and explain why the apparent tension between the broad definition of the term “hazardous waste generation” in the 1976 Act and the more specific exclusion for the activity of incinerating household wastes (and mixtures of household and other nonhazardous wastes) in the 1984 amendment should be resolved by giving effect to the later enactment.

I

When Congress enacted the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), it delegated to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) vast regulatory authority over the mountains of garbage that our society generates. The statute directed the EPA to classify waste as hazardous or nonhazardous and to establish regulatory controls over the disposition of the two categories of waste pursuant to Subtitles C and D of RCRA. 42 U. S. C. § 6921(a); see ante, at 331-332. To that end, the EPA in 1980 promulgated detailed regulations establishing a federal hazardous waste management system pursuant to Subtitle C.

Generally, though not always, the EPA regulations assume that waste is properly characterized as hazardous or nonhazardous when it first becomes waste. Based on that characterization, the waste is regulated under either Subtitle C or D. Household waste is regarded as nonhazardous when it is first discarded and, as long as it is not mixed with hazardous waste, it retains that characterization during and after its treatment and disposal. Even though it contains some materials that would be classified as hazardous in other contexts, and even though its treatment may produce a residue that contains a higher concentration of hazardous matter than when the garbage was originally discarded, such waste is regulated as nonhazardous waste under Subtitle D. See ante, at 332-333. Thus, an incinerator that burns nothing but household waste might “generate” tons of hazardous residue, but as a statutory matter it still is deemed to be processing nonhazardous waste and is regulated as a Subtitle D, rather than Subtitle C, facility.

Section 261.4(b)(1) of the EPA’s 1980 regulations first established the household waste exclusion. See 45 Fed. Reg. 33120 (1980). The relevant text of that regulation simply provided that solid wastes derived from households (including single and multiple residences, hotels, and motels) were “not hazardous wastes.” The regulation itself said nothing about the status of the residue that remains after the incineration of such household waste. An accompanying comment, however, unambiguously explained that “residues remaining after treatment (e. g. incineration, thermal treatment) are not subject to regulation as hazardous waste.” Id., at 33099. Thus, the administrative history of the 1980 regulation, rather than its text, revealed why a municipal incinerator burning household waste was not treated as a generator of hazardous waste.

The EPA’s explanatory comment contained an important warning: If household waste was “mixed with other hazardous wastes,” the entire mixture would be deemed hazardous. Yet neither the comment nor the regulation itself identified the consequences of mixing household waste with other wastes that are entirely nonhazardous. Presumably such a mixture would contain a lower percentage of hazardous material than pure household waste, and therefore should also be classified as nonhazardous — assumptions that are not inconsistent with the EPA’s warning that mixing household waste “with other hazardous wastes” would terminate the household waste exemption. The EPA’s failure to comment expressly on the significance of adding 100 percent nonhazardous commercial or industrial waste nevertheless warranted further clarification.

Congress enacted that clarification in 1984. Elaborating upon the EPA’s warning in 1980, the text of the 1984 amendment— § 3001(i) of RCRA, 42 U. S. C. §6921(i) — made clear that a facility treating a mixture of household waste and “solid waste from commercial or industrial sources that does not contain hazardous waste,” § 6921(i)(l)(A)(ii), shall not be deemed to be treating hazardous waste. In other words, the addition of wowhazardous waste derived from other sources does not extinguish the household waste exclusion.

The parallel between the 1980 regulation and the 1984 statutory amendment is striking. In 1980 the EPA referred to the exclusion of household waste “in all phases of its management.” Similarly, the 1984 statute lists all phases of the incinerator’s management when it states that a facility recovering energy from the mass burning of a mixture of household waste and other solid waste that does not contain hazardous waste “shall not be deemed to be treating, storing, disposing of, or otherwise managing hazardous wastes.” See 42 U. S. C. § 692l(i). Even though that text only refers to the exemption of the facility that burns the waste, the title of the section significantly characterizes it as a waste exclusion. Moreover, the title’s description of the amendment as a “clarification” identifies an intent to codify its counterpart in the 1980 regulation.

The Report of the Senate Committee that recommended the enactment of § B001(i) demonstrates that the sponsors of the legislation understood it to have the same meaning as the 1980 EPA regulation that it “clarified.” That Report, which is worth setting out in some detail, first notes that the reported bill adds the amendment to §3001 “to clarify the coverage of the household waste exclusion with respect to resource recovery facilities recovering energy through the mass burning of municipal solid waste.” S. Rep. No. 98-284, p. 61 (1983). The EPA had promulgated the exclusion “in its hazardous waste management regulations established to exclude waste streams generated by consumers at the household level and by sources whose wastes are sufficiently similar in both quantity and quality to those of households.” Ibid. The Report explains that resource recovery facilities frequently take in household wastes that are mixed with other nonhazardous waste streams from a variety of commercial and industrial sources, and emphasizes the importance of encouraging commercially viable resource recovery facilities. Ibid. To that end, “[n]ew section [B001(i)] clarifies the original intent to include within the household waste exclusion activities of a resource recovery facility which recovers energy from the mass burning of household waste and non-hazardous waste from other sources.” Ibid. The Report further explains:

“All waste management activities of such a facility, including the generation, transportation, treatment, storage and disposal of waste shall be covered by the exclusion, if the limitations in paragraphs (1) and (2) of [the amendment] are met. First, such facilities must receive and burn only household waste and solid waste from other sources which does not contain hazardous waste identified or listed under section 3001.
“Second, such facilities cannot accept hazardous wastes identified or listed under section 3001 from commercial or industrial sources, and must establish contractual requirements or other notification or inspection procedures to assure that such wastes are not received or burned. This provision requires precautionary measures or procedures which can be shown to be effective safeguards against the unintended acceptance of hazardous waste. If such measures are in place, a resource recovery facility whose activities would normally be covered by the household waste exclusion should not be penalized for the occasional, inadvertent receipt and burning of hazardous material from such commercial or industrial sources. Facilities must monitor the waste they receive and, if necessary, revise the precautionary measures they establish to assure against the receipt of such hazardous waste.” Ibid.

These comments referred to the Senate bill that became law after a majority of the Senate followed the Committee’s recommendation “that the bill (as amended) do pass.” Id., at l. Given this commentary, it is quite unrealistic to assume that the omission of the word “generating” from the particularized description of management activities in the statute was intended to render the statutory description any less inclusive than either the 1980 regulation or the Committee Report. It is even more unrealistic to assume that legislators voting on the 1984 amendment would have detected any difference between the statutory text and the Committee’s summary just because the term “generating” does not appear in the 1984 amendment. A commonsense reading of the statutory text in the light of the Committee Report and against the background of the 1980 regulation reveals an obvious purpose to preserve, not to change, the existing rule.

II

The relevant statutory text is not as unambiguous as the Court asserts. There is substantial tension between the broad definition of the term “hazardous waste generation” in § 1004(6) of RCRA and the household waste exclusion codified by the 1984 amendment: Both provisions can be read to describe the same activity. The former “means the act or process of producing hazardous waste.” 90 Stat. 2799; 42 U. S. C. § 6903(6). Read literally, that definition is broad enough to encompass the burning of pure household waste that produces some hazardous residue. The only statutory escape from that conclusion is the 1984 amendment that provides an exemption for the activity of burning household waste. Yet that exemption does not distinguish between pure household waste, on the one hand, and a mixture of household and other nonhazardous wastes, on the other. It either exempts both the pure stream and the mixture, or it exempts neither.

Indeed, commercial and industrial waste is by definition nonhazardous: In order for it to fall within the exclusion created by the 1984 amendment, it must not contain hazardous components. As a consequence, the only aspect of this waste stream that would ordinarily be regulated by Subtitle C of RCRA is the ash residue. EPA could reasonably conclude, therefore, that to give any content to the statute with respect to this component of the waste stream, the incinerator ash must be exempted from Subtitle C regulation.

The exemption states that a facility burning solid waste “shall not be deemed to be treating, storing, disposing of, or otherwise managing hazardous wastes for the purposes of regulation under this subchapter” if two conditions are satisfied. See ante, at 334. As long as the two conditions are met — even though the material being treated and disposed of contains hazardous components before, during, and after its treatment — that material “shall not be deemed to be . .. hazardous.” By characterizing both the input and the output as not hazardous, the 1984 amendment excludes the activity from the definition of hazardous waste generation that would otherwise apply. For it is obvious that the same activity cannot both subject a facility to regulation because its residue is hazardous and exempt the facility from regulation because the statute deems the same residue to be nonhazardous.

Thus, if we are to be guided only by the literal meaning of the statutory text, we must either give effect to the broad definition of hazardous waste generation and subject all municipal incinerators that generate hazardous ash to Subtitle C regulation (including those that burn pure household waste) or give effect to the exclusion that applies equally to pure household waste and mixtures that include other nonhazardous wastes. For several reasons the latter is the proper choice. It effectuates the narrower and more recently enacted provision rather than the earlier more general definition. It respects the title of the 1984 amendment by treating what follows as a “clarification” rather than a repeal or a modification. It avoids the Court’s rather surprising (and uninvited) decision to invalidate the household waste exclusion that the EPA adopted in 1980, on which municipalities throughout the Nation have reasonably relied for over a decade. It explains why the legislative history fails to mention an intent to impose significant new burdens on the operation of municipal incinerators. Finally, it is the construction that the EPA has adopted and that reasonable jurists have accepted.

The majority’s decision today may represent sound policy. Requiring cities to spend the necessary funds to dispose of their incinerator residues in accordance with the strict requirements of Subtitle C will provide additional protections to the environment. It is also true, however, that the conservation of scarce landfill space and the encouragement of the recovery of energy and valuable materials in municipal wastes were major concerns motivating RCRA’s enactment. Whether those purposes will be disserved by regulating municipal incinerators under Subtitle C and, if so, whether environmental benefits may nevertheless justify the costs of such additional regulation are questions of policy that we are not competent to resolve. Those questions are precisely the kind that Congress has directed the EPA to answer. The EPA’s position, first adopted unambiguously in 1980 and still maintained today, was and remains a correct and permissible interpretation of the EPA’s broad congressional mandate.

Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

       The dissent is able to describe the provision as exempting the ash itself only by resorting to what might be called imaginative use of ellipsis: “even though the material being treated and disposed of contains hazardous components before, diming, and after its treatment[,] that material ‘shall not be deemed to be . . . hazardous.’” Post, at 346. In the full text, quoted above, the subject of the phrase “shall not be deemed . . . hazardous” is not the material, but the resource recovery facility, and the complete phrase, including (italicized) the ellipsis, reads “shall not be deemed to be treating, storing, disposing of, or otherwise managing hazardous wastes.” Deeming a facility not to be engaged in these activities with respect to hazardous wastes is of course quite different from deeming the output of that facility not to be hazardous.

       “Treatment” means “any method, technique, or process, including neutralization, designed to change the physical, chemical, or biological character or composition of any hazardous waste so as to neutralize such waste or so as to render such waste nonhazardous, safer for transport, amenable for recovery, amenable for storage, or reduced in volume. Such term includes any activity or processing designed to change the physical form or chemical composition of hazardous waste so as to render it nonhazardous.” 42 U. S. C. §6903(34).
      “Storage” means “the containment of hazardous waste, either on a temporary basis or for a period of years, in such a manner as not to constitute disposal of such hazardous waste.” §6903(33).
      “Disposal” means “the discharge, deposit, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking, or placing of any solid waste or hazardous waste into or on any land or water so that such solid waste or hazardous waste or any constituent thereof may enter the environment or be emitted into the air or discharged into any waters.” §6903(3).

       Nothing in the dissent’s somewhat lengthier discourse on §3001(i)’s legislative history, see post, at 343-345, convinces us that the statute’s omission of the term “generation” is a scrivener’s error.

       We express no opinion as to the validity of EPA’s household waste regulation as applied to resource recovery facilities before the effective date of §3001(i). Furthermore, since the statute in question addresses only resource recovery facilities, not household waste in general, we are unable to reach any conclusions concerning the validity of EPA’s regulatory scheme for household wastes not processed by resource recovery facilities.

         In view of our construction of § 3001(i), we need not consider whether an agency interpretation expressed in a memorandum like the Administrator’s in this case is entitled to any less deference under Chevron than an interpretation adopted by rule published in the Federal Register, or by adjudication.

       Section 223 of the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 amended § 3001 of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976. See 98 Stat. 3252; 42 U. S. C. § 6921(i). The text of the provision is quoted ante, at 334.

       The full text of 40 CFR § 261.4(b)(1) (1993) reads as follows:
      “(b) Solid Wastes which are not hazardous wastes. The following solid wastes are not hazardous wastes:
      “(1) Household waste, including household waste that has been collected, transported, stored, treated, disposed, recovered (e. g., refuse-derived fuel) or reused. ‘Household waste’ means any waste material (including garbage, trash and sanitary wastes in septic tanks) derived from households (including single and multiple residences, hotels and motels).”

       “When household waste is mixed with other hazardous wastes, however, the entire mixture will be deemed hazardous in accord with §261.3(a)(2)(ii) of these regulations except when they are mixed with hazardous wastes produced by small quantity generators (see § 261.5). While household waste may not be hazardous per se, it is like any other solid waste. Thus a mixture of household and hazardous (except those just noted) wastes is also regulated as a hazardous waste under these regulations.” 45 Fed. Reg. 33099 (1980).

       In this regard, because the regulations left unexplained the ramifications of mixing household waste with nonhousehold waste that is not hazardous, the Court errs by asserting unqualifiedly that the Chicago incinerator “would have been considered a Subtitle C generator under the 1980 regulations.” Ante, at 334.

       “Since household waste is excluded in all phases of its management, residues remaining after treatment (e. g. incineration, thermal treatment) are not subject to regulation as hazardous waste.” 45 Fed. Reg. 33099 (1980).

       The Conference Committee adopted the Senate amendment verbatim. Its Report stated: “The Senate amendment clarifies that an energy recovery facility is exempt from hazardous waste requirements if it burns only residential and non-hazardous commercial wastes and establishes procedures to assure hazardous wastes will not be burned at the facility.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 98-1133, p. 106 (1984).

       The majority’s refusal to attach significance to “‘a single word in a committee report,’ ” ante, at 337, reveals either a misunderstanding of, or a lack of respect for, the function of legislative committees. The purpose of a committee report is to provide the Members of Congress who have not taken part in the committee’s deliberations with a summary of the provisions of the bill and the reasons for the committee’s recommendation that the bill should become law. The report obviously does not have the force of law. Yet when the text of a bill is not changed after it leaves the committee, the Members are entitled to assume that the report fairly summarizes the proposed legislation. What makes this Report significant is not the single word “generation,” but the unmistakable intent to maintain an existing rule of law. The omission of the single word “generating” from the statute has no more significance than the omission of the same word from the text of the 1980 regulation.

       The Court characterizes my reading of the text as “imaginative use of ellipsis,” ante, at 335, n. 1, because the subject of the predicate “shall not be deemed to be . . . hazardous” is the recovery facility rather than the residue that is disposed of after the waste is burned. That is true, but the reason the facility is exempted is because it is not “deemed to be ... disposing of... hazardous wastes.” Thus it is the statutorily deemed nonhazardous character of the object of the sentence — wastes—that effectively exempts from Subtitle C regulation the activity and the facility engaged in that, activity. If, as the statute provides, a facility is not deemed to be disposing of hazardous wastes when it disposes of the output of the facility, it must be true that the output is deemed nonhazardous.

       Although the first nine pages of the Court’s opinion give the reader the impression that the 1980 regulatory exclusion for pure household waste was valid, the Court ultimately acknowledges that its construction of the statute has the effect of “withholding all waste-stream exemption for waste processed by resource recovery facilities, even for the waste stream passing through an exclusively household waste facility.” Ante, at 338. Of course, it is not the 1984 amendment that casts doubt on the validity of the regulation, see ante, at 338, n. 4, but the Court’s rigid reading of § 1004(6)’s definition of the term “hazardous waste generation” that has achieved that result. Since that definition has been in RCRA since 1976, the Court utterly fails to explain how the 1984 amendment made any change in the law.

       At oral argument Government counsel advised us that the Chicago incinerator is one of about 150 comparable facilities in the country and that the EPA has never contended that the acceptance of nonhazardous commercial waste subjected any of them to regulation under Subtitle C. Tr. of Oral Arg. 25.

       See specially Judge Haight’s comprehensive opinion in Environmental Defense Fund, Ine. v. Wheelabrator Technologies, Inc., 725 F. Supp. 758 (SDNY 1989), aff’d, 931 F. 2d 211 (CA2 1991). That decision is cited with approval by Circuit Judge Ripple, 985 F. 2d 303,305 (CA7 1993) (dissenting opinion); Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Chicago, 948 F. 2d 345,352 (CA7 1991) (dissenting opinion), in this litigation.

       Although there has been some ambivalence in the EPA’s views since 1985, see 725 F. Supp., at 766-768, there is no ambiguity or equivocation in either its original or its present interpretation of RCRA.