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LOCKHART v. UNITED STATES Opinion of the Court

Petitioner sued in Federal District Court, alleging that under the Debt Collection Act’s 10-year statute of limita­ tions, the offset was time barred. The District Court dis­ missed the complaint, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit afﬁrmed. 376 F. 3d 1027 (2004). We granted certio­ rari, 544 U. S. 998 (2005), to resolve the conﬂict between the Ninth Circuit and the Eighth Circuit, see Lee v. Paige, 376 F. 3d 1179 (CA8 2004), and now afﬁrm. B The Debt Collection Act of 1982, as amended, provides that, after pursuing the debt collection channels set out in 31 U. S. C. § 3711(a), an agency head can collect an outstand­ ing debt “by administrative offset.” § 3716(a). The avail­ ability of offsets against Social Security beneﬁts is limited, as the Social Security Act, 49 Stat. 620, as amended, makes Social Security beneﬁts, in general, not “subject to execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process.” 42 U. S. C. § 407(a). The Social Security Act purports to pro­ tect this anti-attachment rule with an express-reference pro­ vision: “No other provision of law, enacted before, on, or after April 20, 1983, may be construed to limit, supersede, or otherwise modify the provisions of this section except to the extent that it does so by express reference to this section.” § 407(b). Moreover, the Debt Collection Act’s offset provisions gen­ erally do not authorize the collection of claims which, like petitioner’s debts at issue here, are over 10 years old. 31 U. S. C. § 3716(e)(1). In 1991, however, the Higher Educa­ tion Technical Amendments, 105 Stat. 123, sweepingly elimi­ nated time limitations as to certain loans: “Notwithstanding any other provision of statute. . . no limitation shall termi­ nate the period within which suit may be ﬁled, a judgment may be enforced, or an offset, garnishment, or other action initiated or taken,” 20 U. S. C. § 1091a(a)(2), for the repay­