The Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division today cited settlements concerning the Deepwater Horizon disaster and its successful defense of U.S. EPA greenhouse gas regulations as highlights of its 2012 agenda.

The division secured more than $397 million in civil penalties and other monetary relief and ensured, via court settlements, that more than $6.9 billion in corrective measures will take place, according to a report issued today.

Forty-seven criminal cases against 83 defendants led to 21 years of prison sentences and $38 million in criminal fines, the report says.

The top two achievements mentioned in the report are the civil settlements the division handled in relation to companies implicated in the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The report mentions a $1.4 billion settlement with Transocean Ltd. finalized earlier this month and a similar agreement with MOEX Offshore 2007 LLC, worth $70 million, that was reached in February 2012.

DOJ has yet to reach a settlement with BP PLC over the civil claims against the oil giant, although it has resolved all criminal claims (Greenwire, Nov. 15, 2012).

The report also mentions the division's success in litigation over the lawfulness of the Obama administration's first suite of greenhouse gas regulations. In June, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the rules (Greenwire, June 26, 2012).

DOJ fared less well when the same court threw out EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, a setback not referenced in the report(Greenwire, Aug. 21, 2012).

Ignacia Moreno, who heads the division, said in a statement that actions taken during 2012 "resulted in immeasurable benefits for human health and the environment for all of the American people."

Division employees showed "dedication, expertise and professionalism" during the course of the year, she added.