Critics of the giant oil company BP say a safety culture is lacking.
The U.S. EPA has released its annual report on enforcement efforts and it shows the agency’s cases resulted in criminal sentences requiring violators to pay more than $4.5 billion in combined fines, restitution and court-ordered environmental projects that benefit communities, and more than $1.1 billion in civil penalties.
“Big cases like the Deepwater Horizon disaster ($3.7 billion) and Walmart’s illegal handling of pesticides and hazardous waste ($80 million) resulted in nationwide reforms and billions of dollars to help affected communities,” says Cynthia Giles, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
In a landmark settlement, AVX Corporation committed to pay over $366 million to clean up contamination in Massachusetts’s New Bedford Harbor, the largest single-site cash settlement in Superfund history.
A recent Clean Air Act settlement with Shell Deer Park in Texas requires continuous monitoring of cancer-causing benzene and vehicle retrofits to reduce diesel emissions, put in place to benefit nearby overburdened communities.
Wisconsin Power and Light, Dominion Energy and Louisiana Generating are reducing emissions from coal-fired powerplants, and conducting mitigation projects that promote energy efficiency and protect clean air for local communities.
Powerplants are the largest concentrated source of emissions in the United States, together accounting for roughly one-third of all domestic greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, nearly a dozen states have already implemented or are implementing their own programs to reduce carbon pollution. In addition, more than 25 states have set energy efficiency targets, and more than 35 have set renewable energy targets.
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