delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
Justice Green, Justice Willett, Justice Devine, and Justice Brown joined.
The standard-form commercial general liability (“CGL”) insurance policies at issue in this case1 give the insurer “the right and duty to defend any suit against the insured seeking damages”. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit asks2 whether “suit” includes super-fund cleanup proceedings conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (the “EPA”) under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation,- and Liability Act of 1980 (“CERCLA”).3 We agree with the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions to have considered the issue that the answer is yes.
I
A
Relief from pollution was first afforded in suits for nuisance and other common law causes of action.4 The United States Supreme Court held that litigants could bring suit based on the federal common law of nuisance5 as long as the common law, had not been displaced by federal statute.6 The Resource Conservation and Re*788covery Act of 19767 and other federal statutes often served as other bases for suits by the EPA.8 State and local governments sued on state statutes and under the common lav?.9
The enactment of CERCLA in 1980 changed the landscape dramatically, giving the EPA “broad power to command government agencies and private parties to clean up hazardous waste sites.”10 The EPA has two options for obtaining a cleanup under CERCLA. “It may conduct the cleanup itself and later seek to recover its costs from potentially responsible parties [ (‘PRPs’) ] in a subsequent cost recovery action”—a lawsuit—“or it can compel the PRPs to perform the cleanup (either voluntarily or involuntarily) through administrative or judicial proceedings.”11 “[E]v-eryone who is potentially responsible for hazardous-waste contamination may be forced to contribute to the costs of cleanup.”12 The only defenses are an act of God, an act of war, and in some instances, an act or omission of a third party.13
As amended, CERCLA also creates a process that begins in the EPA and ends, only if necessary, in the courts. The process starts with a notice letter informing the recipient that it is a potentially responsible party (“PRP”).14 The letter may in*789vite the PRP to negotiate with the EPA over its liability.15 But because defenses to liability are limited, the invitation is effectively a demand.16 The EPA can request information and sanction a PRP’s failure to respond with significant fines.17 It can issue a “unilateral administrative order” directing a PRP to conduct a “remedial investigation and feasibility study”,18 or else—the else being civil penalties and punitive damages.19 The EPA need turn to the courts only for enforcement of its decisions. A PRP cannot seek judicial review until the process is complete,20- and then only for EPA actions that are arbitrary and capricious, based on the agency’s own record.21 As a practical matter, courts afford PRPs no hope of relief, and consequently they have no choice but to comply with the EPA’s directives.22 There will seldom be a court proceeding.
B
In the 1960s, petitioner McGinnes Industrial Waste Corporation dumped pulp *790and paper mill waste sludge into disposal pits near the San Jacinto River in Pasadena, Texas (“the Site”)-. In 2005, the EPA began investigating possible environmental contamination at the Site. In November 2007, the EPA served a general notice letter on McGinnes’s parent company, stating that it was a PRP and offering it “the opportunity to enter into negotiations concerning cleaning up the Site and reimbursing EPA for costs incurred”. In December 2008, the EPA served a similar letter on McGinnes. That letter included 58 requests for detailed information covering virtually every aspect of McGinnes’s involvement with the Site. The letter noted that a failure to respond could result in pénalties of up to $32,500 a day.
In July 2009, the EPA sent McGinnes a special notice letter stating that it had determined that McGinnes was responsible for cleaning up the Site and demanding that McGinnes pay $378,863.61 in costs. The letter required McGinnes to make a good-faith offer to settle with the EPA within 60 days. When McGinnes did not make an offer, the EPA issued a unilateral administrative order directing McGinnes to conduct a “remedial investigation and feasibility study” in' accordance with the EPA’s specifications. The letter warned McGinnes that its willful .failure to comply without cause would subject it to $37,500 per day in civil penalties and punitive damages up to three times the resulting costs to the EPA-
C
During the time McGinnes was dumping waste at the 'Site, it was covered by standard-form CGL- insurance policies issued by Phoenix Insurance Company and. Travelers Indemnity Company (collectively “the Insurers”).23. Each policy provided that
[t]he company will pay on behalf of the insured all sums which the insured shall become legally obligated to pay as dam- • ages because of ... property damage to which- this insurance applies, caused by an occurrence, and the company shall have the right and duty to defend any suit against insured seeking damages on account of such ... property damage, ... and may make such investigation and settlement of any claim or suit it deems expedient....
In May 2008, in the interim between the EPA’s first .two notice letters, McGinnes requested a defense in the EPA proceedings from the Insurers. The Insurers refused on the ground that-the proceedings were not a “suit” under the-policy.
McGinnes sued the Insurers in federal district court for a declaration that the policies obligated them to defend the EPA’s CERCLA proceedings and also seeking attorney fees already incurred. The court granted the Insurers’ motion for partial summary judgment on the duty-to-defend issue, denied McGinnes’s motion, and certified its order for interlocutory appeal. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit certified to us the following question24
Whether the EPA’s PRP letters and/or unilateral administrative order, issued pursuant to CERCLA, constitute a “suit” within the meaning of the CGL policies, triggering the duty to defend.25
*791As usual, the Circuit “disclaim[ed] any intention or desire that the Supreme Court of Texas confine its reply to the precise form or scope of the question certified.”26
II
We agree with the Insurers that “suit” commonly refers to a proceeding in court.27 Although the word is sometimes defined more generally as “the attempt to gain an end by legal process”,28 the more specific connotation is an attempt through process in court. But for three reasons we think “suit” in the CGL policies at issue must also include CERCLA enforcement proceedings by the EPA.
A
When the policies at issue were written, the main avenue of redress for pollution was by suing in court on common law or statutory claims. One effect of CERCLA was to authorize the EPA to conduct on its own what otherwise would have amounted to pretrial proceedings, but without having to initiate a court action until the end of the process. The PRP notice letters serve as pleadings. The EPA obtains discovery through requests for information, indistinguishable from interrogatories under the rules of civil procedure. It engages in mediation through its invitations to settle. A unilateral administrative order resembles summary judgment, The fines and penalties for willful non-cooperation in the process are like sanctions in , a court proceeding, only prescribed by statute. And part of the judicial function is ceded to .the EPA by limiting a PRP’s opportunity for review until the end of the process, and then limiting that review to an abuse of discretion by the EPA, based on its own record.
McGinnes argues that EPA proceedings are the functional equivalent of a suit, but in actuality, they are the suit itself, only conducted outside a courtroom. ' Had the EPA wanted to force McGinnes to clean up the Site before 1980, it would have been required to sue first, and the CGL policies would have obligated-the Insurers to defend—to challenge the pleadings, to contest the scope of discovery, to engage in mediation on a level playing field, to resist judgment, and to settle—all without fear of being sanctioned at the very end for not having cooperated with the opponent. CERCLA effectively redefined a “suit” on cleanup claims to mean proceedings con-' ducted by one of the parties, the EPA, followed by an enforcement action in court, if necessary. McGinnes’s rights under its policies should not be emasculated by the enactment of a statute intended not to affect insurance, but- to streamline the EPA’s ability to' clean up pollution.29
*792The Insurers argue that to hold that their duty to defend applies to EPA enforcement proceedings is to extend that obligation to every demand letter. But a simple demand letter threatening or prefacing a lawsuit is nothing like a PRP letter or unilateral administrative order, which, to use the United States Supreme Court’s choice of words, “command” compliance.30 Likewise, the Insurers’ argument that a PRP letter or unilateral administrative order is but a claim, as distinguished from a suit in the policies themselves, simply blinks reality. The EPA’s demands and directives, backed by threats of fines and penalties, are more like interlocutory rulings than claims. The Insurers argue that EPA proceedings are really pre-suit settlement mechanisms. The point is that before CERCLA those mechanisms were available to the EPA only in judicial proceedings.
The Insurers argue that if “suit” in- ' eludes CERCLA enforcement proceedings, it must also include all administrative proceedings. We disagree. EPA enforcement proceedings are unusual: not only are they like judicial proceedings, they were judicial proceedings before CERCLA was enacted.
We cannot conclude that CERCLA deprived McGinnes of the coverage for pollution cleanup enforcement proceedings it bought years earlier.
B
It is relatively well-settled, in the Fifth Circuit and other courts, that cleanup costs under CERCLA are “damages” covered by the form CGL policies at issue here.31 The Insurers do not dispute this interpretation of the policies, though they do insist that McGinnes’s damages were not the result of an “occurrence”—that is, an accident—under the policies. To interpret the policies as covering the damages incurred as a result of pollution cleanup proceedings without giving the Insurers the right and duty to defend those proceedings creates perverse incentives and consequences for insurers and insureds alike.
McGinnes argues that an insurer’s duty to indemnify without a right or duty to defend creates an incentive for the insured to mount no defense itself, assured that *793whatever damages result will not be its responsibility but' the insurer’s. The Insurers argue that an insured who does not defend against incurring damages may be denied coverage for breaching its duty to cooperate with the insurer to avoid such damages. Whether either scenario is likely, both illustrate the problem with a duty to indemnify without a duty or right to defend.32
C
Finally, the Insurers’ interpretation of “suit” in these standard-form policies33 has been rejected by thirteen out of sixteen state high courts to have considered the issue: Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Vermont, and Wisconsin.34 Only high courts m California, Illinois, and Maine have sided with the Insurers’ position, and California, the most recent of the three, did so in 1998.35 Since then, seven state high courts have sided with insureds.36 The results in lower courts are similarly lopsided in favor of the insureds.37
*794“We have repeatedly stressed the importance of uniformity when identical insurance provisions will necessarily be interpreted in various jurisdictions.”38 We cannot achieve uniformity .with our decision; . the courts have already split. Still, “we think it prudent to strive for uniformity as much as possible."39
We conclude that insureds in Texas should not be deprived the coverage insureds have in thirteen other states.
‡ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜
We answer the Fifth Circuit’s certified question yes.
Justice Boyd filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Johnson, Justice Guzman, and Justice Lehmann joined.
Justice Boyd, joined by Justice Johnson, Justice Guzman, and Justice Lehmann, dissenting.
If you do not like your insurance policy, the Supreme Court of Texas can now change it for you. Never mind all those .times the Court has said “we may neither rewrite the parties’ contract nor add to its language.”1 Forget that we have re*795peatedly said “[i]f an insurance contract uses unambiguous language, we will ... enforce it as written.”2 Ignore our former *796commitment to interpreting insurance policies by relying on the “ordinary, everyday meaning of its words to the general public.” 3 Disregard our prior conviction that a contract’s language is the best representation of what the parties mutually intended.4 Those are just rules of construction, and we have only followed them because they support freedom of contract,5 promote transactional stability and predictability,6 and facilitate industry and commerce.7 As it turns out, those objectives are now provisional, and like a contract, the Court’s precedential opinions are just words on paper, so you cannot assume we really meant what we chose to say.
At times, the Court’s members have characterized other members’ opinions as ignoring these rules while claiming to follow them.8 The Court makes no such *797pretentions today. Instead, it flatly abandons the rules and openly superimposes a meaning onto the term “suit” that the Court concedes to be outside the term’s ordinary meaning, unsupported by the context, and indisputably beyond what the contracting parties actually contemplated. Today the Court demonstrates that it can and will rewrite your insurance policy if it wants to. We may look beyond the policy’s words to decide what we think you must (or should) have meant. We will even make up our own definitions so your words can mean something completely new. Why would the Court do this, in spite of everything we’ve always said about construing insurance policies? Because it seems like a good thing to do here (and on top of that, everyone else is doing it). My law professors (and my momma) taught me better. I respectfully dissent.
I.
“Suit”
The policies at issue require the Insurers to “defend any suit against [McGinnes] seeking damages on account of’ covered bodily injury or property damage. (Emphasis added.) Separately, the policies require the Insurers to indemnify McGinnes by paying “all sums [McGinnes] shall become legally obligated to pay as damages because of’ covered bodily injury or property damage- “caused by an occurrence.” (Emphasis added.) And finally, the policies give the Insurers the right (but not the duty) to “make such investigation and settlement of any claim or-suit it- deems expedient.” (Emphasis added.) The issue here is whether the policies require the Insurers to defend McGinnes against notices, requests, demands, and orders that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent to McGinnes as a “potentially responsible party” (PRP) under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation* and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). See 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601-28.
The policies obligate the Insurers to defend a “suit,” and as the Court concedes, the EPA’s letters and orders under CERCLA do not fit within the ordinary meaning of “suit.” When McGinnes purchased these policies in thé 1960s, dictionaries defined “suit” to mean a proceeding in a court or tribunal.9. This Court has repeatedly done the same. See Schwartz v. Jefferson, 520 S.W.2d 881, 886 (Tex.1975) (defining “suit” as “any proceeding *798in a court of justice by .which- an individual pursues that remedy in a court of justice which the law affords him”) (quoting Nat’l Life Co. v. Rice, 140 Tex. 315, 167 S.W.2d 1021, 1023 (1943)); see also H.H. Watson Co. v. Cobb Grain Co., 292 S.W. 174, 176 (Tex.1927) (same) (quoting Weston v. City Council of Charleston, 27 U.S. 449, 454, 2 Pet. 449, 7 L.Ed. 481 (1829)). So has -the United States Supreme Court, from which we first quoted our definition. See Weston, 27 U.S. at 454; Fed. Hous. Admin., Region No. 4 v. Burr, 309 U.S. 242, 247 n. 8, 60 S.Ct. 488, 84 L.Ed. 724 (1940); Upshur Cnty. v. Rich, 135 U.S. 467, 474, 10 S.Ct. 651, 34 L.Ed. 196 (1890); Kohl v. United States, 91 U.S. 367, 375-76, 23 L.Ed. 449 (1875); Case of Sewing Mach. Cos., 85 U.S. 553, 585, 18 Wall. 553, 21 L.Ed. 914 (1873); Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2, 112-13, 4 Wall. 2, 18 L.Ed. 281 (1866).10 Faced with this- clear precedent, the Court agrees today that the common, ordinary meaning of “suit” is “a proceeding in court.” Ante at 791.11
And the context, in which the policies contrast the term “suit” with the term “claim,-” confirms that the parties intended the ordinary meaning of “suit.” The policies provide that the Insurers “may make [an] investigation and settlement of any claim or suit it deems expedient,” but they only “have the right and duty to defend ány suit.” (Emphases added.) This dis-*799tmction between a “suit” and a “claim” is also consistent with the common, ordinary meaning of the term “claim,” which is “a demand for compensation or an assertion of a right to be paid,” Johnson & Higgins of Tex., Inc. v. Kenneco Energy, Inc., 962 S.W,2d 507, 531 (Tex.1998), “[t]he assertion of an existing right; any right to payment or to an equitable remedy,” Black’s Law DictionaRY 281-82 (9th ed. 2009), or “[t]he aggregate of operative facts giving rise to a right enforceable by a court,” id. at 281. A claim is thus similar in this context to a “cause of action,” at least in the sense that they both “may exist before,a suit is instituted.” Jaster v. Comet II Constr., Inc., 438 S.W.3d 556, 564 (Tex.2014) (plurality op.) (emphasis added) (quoting Magill v. Watson, 409 S.W.3d 673, 679 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.) 2013, no pet.)). A “claim” is readily distinguishable from a “suit” if both words are given their common, ordinary meanings. A party may make a “claim” merely by asserting a legal right or remedy against the insured, and the Insurers may elect to investigate or settle- that claim even in the absence of any further actions. But to bring a “suit,” the party must invoke the authority of a court or tribunal to adjudicate the claim, and only that kind of action will trigger the Insurers’ duty to- defend.
EPA letters and orders do not fall within the common, ordinary meaning of the term “suit,” and the policies’ context does not in any way indicate the contrary. Under, our well-established rules for construing’insurance contracts, that should end the matter. Unfortunately, the Court proceeds, unrestrained by those rules.
II.
“Suits ... Conducted Outside a Courtroom”
McGinnes argues that, even if the term “suit” means proceedings in a court or tribunal, we should construe the term to include EPA letters and orders because they are the “functional equivalent” of a “suit.” The obvious problem with this argument is the policies require the Insurers to defend a “suit,” not “the functional equivalent of a suit,”12 and “we may neither rewrite the parties’ contract nor add to its language.”13 Am. Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Schaefer, 124 S.W.3d 154, 162 (Tex.2003). Undeterred by such formalities, *800the Court concludes that “EPA proceedings” are not just the “functional equivalent of a suit,” they are, “in actuality, ... the suit itself, only conducted outside a courtroom.” Ante at 791. The Court provides three justifications for its newly invented definition: (1) CERCLA did not exist when the parties entered their contract; (2) environmental cleanup costs can qualify as “damages” under the policies; and (3) most other courts have reached a similar conclusion. None convinces me, but more importantly, our well-established rules of construction do not recognize any of the Court’s reasons as a legitimate basis for ignoring or rewriting the unambiguous language of an insurance policy.
A. The Policies Predate CERCLA
The Court asserts that EPA letters and orders under CERCLA are the modern equivalent of what would have been a suit at the time the policies were written. Ante at 791. It assumes that McGinnes and the Insurers intended the policies to cover the kinds of expenses at issue here, but they fell a little short because they defined coverage according to the mechanism the EPA used to impose environmental cleanup costs at the time (“suits”) instead of using a broader term that would include the mechanism the EPA now uses to impose such costs. The Court supports this conclusion by describing the EPA’s CERCLA activities as particularly onerous, one-sided prosecutions, implying that if McGinnes and the Insurers intended the Insurers to pay for the defense of pollution lawsuits, surely they intended the Insurers to pay the costs associated with this far more draconian means of compelling companies to remediate their past pollution. I am not convinced, for at least three reasons.
First, the post-policy changes to the EPA’s enforcement authority provide no basis for the Court’s rewriting of the insurance policies here. “Prior to the passage of pollution control laws, which began in the late 1960s, there was no dispute over the meaning of the term ‘suit’ as used in CGL insurance policies. It was generally understood that a ‘suit’ was initiated with the traditional summons and complaint.” 48 A.L.R.5& 355, § 2[a] (1997). The parties contracted for a duty to defend “suits” and only “suits,” expressly granting the Insurers discretion as to whether to defend against or settle “claims” that were not asserted in a “suit.” The Court replaces these ordinary meanings with some other, as-yet undefined meanings. The Court denies that its holding extends the Insurers’ duty to defend “to every demand letter,” but does not say when a demand letter is a “claim” like any other demand letter and when it is a “suit.” Ante at 792.
Similarly, the Court denies that its holding extends the Insurers’ duty to defend to “all administrative proceedings,” but does not say which administrative proceedings will amount to a “suit,” like those under CERCLA, and which administrative proceedings will not. Ante at 792. The Court simply says that “a simple demand letter threatening or prefacing a lawsuit is nothing like a PRP letter or unilateral administrative order,” ante at 792, and “EPA enforcement proceedings are unusual,” ante at 792. The difference that the Court finds between CERCLA demand letters and other demand letters, and the difference between CERCLA investigations and other administrative proceedings, appears to be the severity of the potential ramifications of failing to cooperate with the EPA. But neither the EPA’s PRP letters nor its unilateral administrative orders are self-executing under CERCLA. As with any party who receives a demand letter, a PRP has the light to deny the EPA’s accusations and force the EPA to bring suit. See *80142 U.S.C. §§ 9607(a)(4)(A), (C), 9613(b), (e), (f), (g); Gen. Elec. Co. v. Jackson, 610 F.3d 110,114 (D.C.Cir.2010).
No doubt, CERCLA strongly incentiv-izes voluntary compliance and grants the EPA substantial power to obtain it. But the EPA can only compel a PRP’s compliance by pursuing its claims against the PRP in court. See Gen. Elec., 610 F.3d at 114. As the D.C. Circuit has explained, the EPA’s four options for cleaning up a contamination, site are to (1) negotiate a settlement with the PRPs, see 42 U.S.C. § 9622; (2) clean up the site itself and seek reimbursement from PRPs in a subsequent suit, see id. §§ 9604(a), 9607(a)(4)(A); (3) file an abatement action in federal district court to compel PRPs to conduct the clean-up, see id. § 9606; or (4) issue a unilateral administrative order instructing PRPs to clean the site. Gen. Elec., 610 F.3d at 114. The unilateral administrative order is the only option that does not involve a voluntary settlement or proceedings in a court of law. Id. But unlike a court’s judgment or á settlement agreement, PRPs are not legally compelled to comply with unilateral administrative orders. Instead, they have the “choice” to “refuse to comply with the [order], in which case the EPA may either bring an action in federal district court to enforce the [order] against the noncomplying PRP ... or clean the site itself and then sue the PRP to recover costs.” Id. at 115. In other words, while CERCLA provides for strict liability and grants the EPA extensive power to enforce its provisions, it does not render the EPA judge and jury of a PRP’s liability. Instead, a “suit” is necessary to impose liability against the PRP’s will, and nothing in CERCLA’s scheme -transforms the EPA’s “claim” into a “suit,” under the common, ordinary meanings of those terms.
' Second, the facts do not support the Court’s assumption that McGinnes and the Insurers would have chosen to insure against the defense expenses if they had anticipated them. Contrary to the Court’s suggestion, the policies were not written at a time when the EPA was imposing liability for violation of federal environmental regulations through suits rather than administrative processes. - Instead, they were written at a time when neither the EPA nor the modern federal environmental regulatory scheme existed at all. The EPA was created in December 1970, after both policies were drafted and executed.14 Nor did extensive federal regulation of pollution exist when the policies were drafted. Before 1970, pollution control was left primarily to the states, which had done very little to implement and enforce pollution remediation requirements on private companies.15 We cannot presume that McGinnes and the Insurers anticipated that the federal government (or any *802government) would impose on McGinnes the kind of' substantial environmental cleanup costs at issue here through judicial proceedings rather than an administrative process because we cannot presume that they anticipated that the federal government (or any government) would impose these kind of costs at all. The kind of massive pollution liability that exists under modem environmental regulation did not exist when these policies were drafted.
• Moreover, the Court’s assumption that McGinnes. and the Insurers intended, coverage for pollution cleanup costs is further undermined by the reality of what, happened when the EPA and governmental pollution liability did come into, existence. In 1970, the year the EPA and the modern age of federal environmental regulation and enforcement were born, the insurance industry drafted an exclusion that denied coverage for pollution under standard-form CGL policies.16 The 1970 pollution exclusion was incorporated into the standard-form CGL policy in 1973.17 In short, the Court’s assumption that the parties anticipated the kinds of pollution-related costs at issue here and intended the “duty to defend.any suit” to cover them finds no support in reality. The kinds of costs that McGinnes incurred here were largely nonexistent when it purchased these policies, and if it had purchased them a few years later, after Congress -created the EPA and enacted substantial environmental regulation, a standard-form CGL policy would have excluded them from coverage.
Third, even if the Court were' correct that McGinnes and the Insurers would have written their policies to cover CERC-LA response costs if they had known that such activities would someday take place outside of judicial proceedings, Texas law does not permit courts to rewrite the parties’ policies to say what the parties might have wanted them to say if they had contemplated subsequent events. “[T]he parties’ intent is governed by what they said, not by what they intended to say but did not.” Fiess v. State Farm Lloyds, 202 S.W.3d 744, 746 (Tex.2006). “[I]t is not for this court to vary the terms of the contract into,which the parties entered, nor to speculate as to what might or might -not have been the consequences if the contract had been differently expressed.” Dorroh-Kelly Mercantile Co. v. Orient Ins. Co., 104 Tex. 199, 135 S.W. 1165, 1167 (1911). As .the author of today’s opinion has himself explained, to “divine the parties’ reasonable expectations and then rewrite the contract accordingly, is contrary to the bedrock principle of American contract law that parties are free to contract as they see fit.” Utica, Nat'l Ins. Co. of Tex. v. Am. Indem. Co., 141 S.W.3d 198, 208 n. 9 (Tex.2004) (Hecht, J., joined by Owen, J., dissenting) (quoting Wilkie v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co., 469 Mich. 41, 664 N.W.2d 776, 782 (2003)). We cannot infer that the parties must have intended the policies'to cover non-existent forms of “proceedings” that might one day arise. Even if that had been their unexpressed intent, we must determine their intent from the words they actually used, and the word “suit” does not include such proceedings.
B. Coverage for “Damages”
. The Court’s second reason for imposing a duty to defend here is that courts in other jurisdictions have construed the policies’ coverage for “damages” to include *803CERCLA cleanup costs—i.e., that the Insurers have a duty..to, indemnify against such costs. The Court reasons that “[t]o interpret the policies as covering the damages incurred as a result of pollution cleanup proceedings without giving the Insurers the right and duty to defend those proceedings creates perverse incentives and consequences for insurers and insureds alike.” Ante at 792. The Court then- identifies possible disincentives and indicates that these possibilities, whether likely or not, “illustrate the problem with-a duty to indemnify without a duty or right to 'defend.” Ante at 798.
This, ground for rewriting the parties’ policies is problematic for several reasons. First, it presupposes this Court’s ruling on a question that we have never decided and that is not presented here. Not all courts have agreed that CERCLA cleanup costs are “damages” under a CGL policy. See, e.g., Indus, Enters., Inc. v. Penn Am. Ins. Co., 637 F.3d 481, 489-90 (4th Cir.2011) (noting that the standard CGL policy language preceded "the enactment of CERC-LA in 1980 and. finding no evidence that subsequently created CERCLA liabilities somehow became automatically includable in the term, “property damage” upon the enactment of CERCLA, without any change to the policy language). We have never addressed that issue, and we need not (and thus cannot) do so here.
Second, even if the term “damages” includes CERCLA cleanup costs that the insured voluntarily accepts without any court proceedings, the Court ignores the policies’ distinction between the Insurers’ duty to indemnify and them duty to defend. “The duty to defend and the duty to indemnify are distinct and. separate duties.” King v. Dall. Fire Ins. Co., 85 S.W.3d 185, 187 (Tex.2002). If we treat the two duties as the same, we render meaningless the contract’s express distinction between them. This we cannot do, even if we think our approach represents better policy arid better alignment of the parties’- interests and incentives.
Third, recognizing the contract’s distinction between the duty to defend and the duty to indemnify does not necessarily create “perverse incentives.” See ante-at 792. If in fact the Insurers’ duty to indemnify requires them to pay all liabilities that the insured voluntarily incurs in response to a PRP letter or administrative order, the policies incentivize the Insurers to investigate and settle those claims promptly to minimize their- potential liabilities.. But that presents a' different question than whether the Insurers must provide a defense- or reimburse the costs the insured incurs in responding to the EPA’s demands.
According to the policies’ language, the Insurers must “pay on behalf of [McGinnes] all ' sums which [McGinnes] shall become legally obligated to pay as damages because of ... property damage to which "this insurance applies,” and may elect to investigate " and settle “any claim or suit it deems,expedient.” But.we are asked in this case whether they must defend McGinnes -against the EPA’s demands and orders, and under the policies’ language that duty applies only to a “suit” seeking such damages. The policies’ use of the term “damages,” even if construed to include pre-suit liabilities (an.issue not presented here), is consistent with the common, ordinary meaning of the term “suit” to define the Insurers’. duty to defend.
C. Everybody’s Doing It.
The Court’s third reason for construing the policies to require the Insurers to defend against’ CERCLA activities is that most other jurisdictions are doing it. See ante at 794 (following the majority position *804to “strive for uniformity as much as possible”) (quoting Trinity Universal Ins. Co. v. Cowan, 945 S.W.2d 819, 824 (Tex.1997)). As the Court points out, its position is the majority position, and the more recent opinions have followed the majority position.18 See ante at 793. But a number of courts in other jurisdictions have rejected that position, for the text-based reasons that Texas law has adhered to until to- , 19 y
*805While we desire to create uniformity when construing insurance forms used in multiple jurisdictions, the Court candidly admits that we cannot achieve uniformity here. Ante at 794 (recognizing that “[w]e cannot achieve uniformity with our decision; the courts have already split”). Under such circumstances, when the “tests already in use render uniformity impossible,” we “adhere to the law of Texas” and refuse to “stretch[]” the “plain meaning” of a policy’s terms. U.S. Fid. & Guar. Co. v. Goudeau, 272 S.W.3d 603, 608 (Tex.2008). “Under Texas law, we are required to construe insurance policies according to their plain language,” id. at 607, and we have never ignored a policy’s plaiñ language simply to achieve uniformity among the different jurisdictions. Even if we were to do so, we should not do it here, when “[w]e cannot achieve uniformity with our decision [because] the courts have already split.” Ante at 794.
III.
Conclusion
Less than four years ago, this Court explained that the circumstances surrounding the execution of a contract may shed light on the meaning of its word's, but we must rely on the words themselves to determine the contract’s effect:
Understanding the context in which an agreement was made is essential in determining the parties’ intent as expressed in the agreement,, but it is the parties’ expressed intent that the court must determine. Extrinsic evidence cannot be used to show that the parties probably meant, or could have meant, something other than what their agreement stated.
Anglo-Dutch Petroleum Int’l, Inc. v. Greenberg Peden, P.C., 352 S.W.3d 445, 451 (Tex.2011). Today the author of that opinion agrees that the term “suit” means “an attempt through process in court,” yet relies on extrinsic circumstances 'and other jurisdictions’ holdings to conclude that the term “must also include CERCLA enforcement proceedings by the EPA,” even though he agrees they are not “an attempt through process in court.” Ante at 791. This is a disturbing decision, not because of its effect on these parties or the insurance policies at issue, but because of its effect on'Texas law. I can only hope that today’s decision will soon be seen as a fluke, an oversight, and a rare misstep by a Court that has otherwise been steadfastly committed to enforcing contracts as written, to refraining from rewriting parties’ agreements, and to determining the parties’ intent by relying on the ordinary meanings of the terms the parties choose.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.