DOJ announces record $20 billion settlement in Gulf oil spill
Source: USA Today
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced a record $20 billion settlement Monday with British energy giant BP Monday, more than five years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill stained more than 1,300 miles of the Gulf of Mexico's coastline in the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the resolution marks the largest settlement against a single entity in U.S. history and will finance an unprecedented project to restore plant and wildlife habitats that were fouled by the spill of 3 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.
"The Gulf was flooded with oil and gulf coast way of life, a uniquely American way of life, was hanging by a thread,'' Lynch said. "By the time the torrent stopped, it had inflicted unprecedented damage. Ecosystems were disrupted, businesses were shuttered, countless men and women lost their livelihoods and their sense of security.''
Included in the agreement, BP has agreed to pay a $5.5 billion civil penalty, the largest such penalty in the history of environmental law, and $7.1 billion in damage claims under the Oil Pollution Act.
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/10/05/justice-settlement-bp-deepwater-horizon/73378556/
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