Environmental Law

BP Oil Spill Settlement

By Matthew Barison|2020-11-01T17:37:58+00:00July 2, 2015|Environmental Law|

Today BP agreed to an $18.7B settlement agreement regarding its role in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The settlement effectively ends all federal and state claims against the oil giant. Here is a breakdown of that $18.7B figure:

$5.5B for violation of the Clean Water Act;
$7.3B for damage to natural resources;
$4.9B for state claims (LA, MS, AL, FLA);
$1.0B in claims by local governments.

This outcome is the largest environmental law settlement in US history.

Benefits of the settlement include an end to the various federal and state cases that have been ongoing for the past five years. Those affected now have greater certainty regarding compensation, and large costal restoration projects can be budgeted.

However, this settlement, like those in any [Read More…]

Citizen Suit Forces Georgia City to Clean Up Raw Sewage

The Clean Water Act (CWA), passed in 1972, is one of America’s most important pieces of environmental legislation. The law regulates the release of pollutants into surface waters, and establishes federal enforcement authority. A key component of the CWA is the “citizens’ suit” provision which gives individuals the right to sue not only polluters themselves, but also the government for failure to exercise its enforcement authority.

The CWA’s citizens’ suit authority was recently invoked in a case out of Rochelle, GA, a de-facto segregated, rural, deep-south town. In Rochelle, the majority of the black population lives to the north of the railroad tracks, whereas the majority of white residents live south of the tracks. The city’s sewage system, like many in the [Read More…]