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DEWSNUP v. TIMM Scalia, J., dissenting

of “ allowed unsecured claim[s] ” in Chapter 12 plan); § 1325(a)(4) (setting standard for treatment of “allowed unsecured claim[s]” in Chapter 13 plan). (Emphases added.) When, on the other hand, the Bankruptcy Code means to refer to a secured party’s entire allowed claim, i. e., to both the “secured” and “unsecured” portions under § 506(a), it uses the term “allowed claim”—as in 11 U. S. C. § 363(k), which refers to “a lien that secures an allowed claim.” Given this clear and unmistakable pattern of usage, it seems to me impossible to hold, as the Court does, that “the words ‘allowed secured claim’ in § 506(d) need not be read as an indivisible term of art defined by reference to § 506(a).” Ante, at 415; see ante, at 416–417. We have often invoked the “ ‘normal rule of statutory construction that “ ‘identical words used in different parts of the same act are intended to have the same meaning.’ ” ’ ” Sullivan v. Stroop, 496 U. S. 478, 484 (1990) (quoting Sorenson v. Secretary of Treasury, 475 U. S. 851, 860 (1986) (quoting Helvering v. Stockholms Enskilda Bank, 293 U. S. 84, 87 (1934) (quoting Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. v. United States, 286 U. S. 427, 433 (1932)))). That rule must surely apply, a fortiori, to use of identical words in the same section of the same enactment. The Court makes no attempt to establish a textual or structural basis for overriding the plain meaning of § 506(d), but rests its decision upon policy intuitions of a legislative character,1 and upon the principle that a text which is “am1

For example: “That is what was bargained for by the mortgagor and the mortgagee. . . . Any increase over the judicially determined valuation during bankruptcy rightly accrues to the benefit of the creditor. . . . [W]e see no reason why [the lienholder’s] acquiescence in [the bankruptcy] proceeding should cause him to experience a forfeiture of the kind the debtor proposes. . . . [T]he benefit of an allowed unsecured claim. . . does not strike us as proper recompense for what petitioner proposes by way of the elimination of the remainder of the lien.” Ante, at 417–418. Apart from the fact that these policy judgments are inappropriate, it is not at all clear that evisceration of § 506(d) is even necessary to effectuate them. The feared “windfall” to the debtor may be prevented by 11