EPA Consent Decree Tracker

Plaintiffs challenged BOEM's decision that Sable Offshore Corp. was not required to revise its development and production plan for the Santa Ynez Unit under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The court dismissed the complaint, finding that the plaintiffs' asserted procedural injury had no basis in the statute, was not traceable to any BOEM action, and could not be redressed by a court order. The plaintiffs had also invoked a statutory provision governing approval of new plans rather than revision of existing ones.

The Oregon Natural Desert Association sued the Air Force alleging it illegally discharged countermeasures — chaff and flares — from fighter jets into waterways over the Paradise North area of eastern Oregon without a Clean Water Act permit. The Air Force denied a permit was required, citing a presidential exemption for its fighter jet training operations in Idaho, Oregon, and Nevada. The plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the suit following that exemption determination.

Donald Do conspired to illegally export 292 loggerhead musk turtles to Taiwan by submitting false paperwork to obtain a federal export permit, falsely claiming he had hatched and raised the turtles. He purchased wild-caught musk turtles poached from Florida and elsewhere, and attempted to obtain additional turtles from a co-conspirator in Louisiana. Do also attempted to conceal his role by lying to his California co-conspirator about having sold the turtles to domestic buyers.

Sunseeker International Limited and Sunseeker USA Sales Co. Inc. pleaded guilty to two violations of the Lacey Act for importing and using illegally obtained Burmese Teak on luxury yachts sold in the United States. The teak originated from Myanmar's Myanma Timber Enterprise, which is subject to U.S. sanctions, making all transactions involving its timber prohibited. The illegal teak was incorporated into yacht components and two yachts valued at approximately $2.98 million and $1.07 million respectively.

The M/V Dali, operated by Synergy Marine and Synergy Maritime, lost power twice in four minutes while departing the Port of Baltimore due to unauthorized modifications to the vessel's fuel supply system, causing it to crash into the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024. The crash killed six construction workers, destroyed the bridge, and discharged pollutants including oil, shipping containers, and their contents into the Patapsco River and Chesapeake Bay. The defendants are also charged with obstructing the NTSB investigation and making false statements about the vessel's fuel pump configuration.

Defendants discharged oil, including oily bilge water, from the commercial fishing vessel Amelia Joyce into waters of the United States, including the Acushnet River at Fairhaven Harbor, in violation of Section 311(b)(3) of the Clean Water Act. Additionally, Defendants failed to equip the vessel with required pollution control equipment as mandated by 33 C.F.R. § 155.420(a), and William E. Mullis owned four other corporations each operating vessels in the same size class that also lacked the required pollution control equipment.

The Kroger Co. and its wholly owned subsidiaries violated Section 608 of the Clean Air Act and EPA's Subpart F Regulations by failing to comply with leak repair and recordkeeping requirements for commercial refrigeration appliances, comfort cooling appliances, and industrial process refrigeration units containing ozone-depleting substances at its grocery stores and manufacturing facilities. EPA issued a Finding of Violation in April 2020 after information requests revealed widespread noncompliance across thousands of appliances at hundreds of locations. Kroger subsequently conducted a self-evaluation identifying appliances with high cumulative leak rates and completed initial response actions prior to lodging of the consent decree.

Cleveland-Cliffs Steel Corporation (successor to AK Steel Corporation) released hazardous waste at its Middletown Works facility, a 2,600-acre integrated steel mill in Middletown, Ohio. The facility's closed landfills historically received industrial wastewater treatment sludges, steel production process sludges, and slag, causing contamination requiring long-term corrective measures under RCRA. The consent decree requires Cliffs to implement EPA-approved corrective measures at multiple site areas to achieve long-term protection of human health and the environment.

DC Water's Potomac Interceptor sewer line collapsed in January 2026, resulting in the unauthorized discharge of more than 200 million gallons of raw, untreated sewage into the Potomac River. DC Water failed to properly operate and maintain its sewer system in compliance with the Clean Water Act and its permits, allowing untreated sewage to enter the Potomac River, its tributaries, and areas with risk of human contact. An additional 500,000 gallons were discharged on February 8 when diversion pumps clogged and had to be shut down.

From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, Ford Motor Company disposed of paint sludge and other industrial waste from its Mahwah, New Jersey automobile assembly plant at the Ringwood Mines/Landfill site. This disposal contributed to contamination of soil, groundwater, surface water, and mine shafts with benzene, 1,4-dioxane, and lead. The contaminated groundwater poses an unacceptable health risk to nearby communities and threatens the Wanaque Reservoir, a drinking water source for over two million New Jersey residents.

Chevron U.S.A. Inc. invalidly generated over 2.2 million advanced biofuel production credits (Renewable Identification Numbers or RINs) on renewable diesel that had previously been used for RIN generation, in violation of the Clean Air Act's Renewable Fuel Standard program. This occurred from January 2022 through August 2022, and the invalid RINs were sold to third parties, constituting impermissible double-counting under the RFS program. The RFS program prohibits generating RINs more than once on any volume of renewable fuel to prevent double counting.