The Department of Justice has reached a $1.4 billion settlement with Transocean for its role in BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, which polluted the Gulf of Mexico with upwards of 4.9 million barrels of oil in 2010.
“What’s important to understand,” says the Environmental Defense Fund’s Elizabeth Skree, “is that this settlement represents the first significant funding specifically alloted for Gulf Coast restoration.”
The $1.4 billion will be paid under the Clean Water Act, with a portion of those funds being used to restore the Gulf, as directed by the RESTORE Act, passed on July 6, 2012, by President Barack Obama. Thursday’s Transocean settlement will direct 80 percent of Transocean’s civil and criminal penalties to the Gulf Coast.
“By sending the vast majority of the $1.4 billion in fines to the areas damaged by the oil, we will rebuild and protect one of the most important ecosystems in the country,” said U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond in a statement issued to the press. “This settlement is extremely important because 80 percent of the Clean Water Act fines will be sent directly to the states hardest hit by the oil spill pursuant to the RESTORE Act…
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