Restoration efforts along the oil-slopped and eroding Gulf Coast would receive their first cash infusion -- an estimated $1.2 billion in penalty payments from BP PLC -- under an amendment the House passed Friday.

The amendment by Rep. Charles Melancon (D-La.), tagged onto the oil spill response legislation that narrowly passed Friday (H.R. 3534), would fund a "Gulf Coast Restoration Program" with civil penalties assessed against BP under the Clean Water Act.

Those penalties could eventually hit $18 billion altogether, if calculated at $4,300 per spilled barrel -- the rate that corresponds to cases of "gross negligence." But that litigation could stretch on for years, with any resulting payments flowing into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, from which Congress would have to later appropriate money to pay for environmental restoration.

Melancon's amendment seeks to jump-start and streamline the process. It would first create a new civil penalty that would apply to any Gulf of Mexico oil spill of more than 1 million barrels, including the BP spill, and then divert those penalty payments directly into the new account.

The measure sets the new penalty at $200 million per 1 million barrels spilled. Some recent estimates put the BP spill at as much as 5.2 million barrels, which would yield a $1.2 billion penalty under Melancon's amendment.

President Obama has called for restoring the Gulf Coast to a condition better than before the oil spill. Even before the April spill, about 1,900 square miles of wetlands, considered essential nursing grounds for the region's fishery and a buffer for hurricanes, had disappeared, since the channelized Mississippi River no longer spreads its sediments across the delta and the oil and gas industries have carved a latticework of canals across the marshlands.

"BP will foot the bill for the cleanup effort," Melancon said in a speech on the House floor. "We'll hold them to their responsibility and their word. But they are not legally bound to address the accelerated land loss as a result of the spill. My amendment will make certain they don't simply clean the water and walk away from the long-term damage to our coast and marshes."

The Senate must take action on a similar measure, which is not likely to happen before recess at the end of this week. Even then, it is only the beginning, as environmental advocates say the total cost for Gulf Coast restoration will likely run in the tens of billions of dollars.

Still, they applauded the Melancon measure as a good first step.

"This is an important start," said Courtney Taylor, activist and attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund's Coastal Louisiana Project. "It's definitely not going to cover all that we need, but it would go substantially toward advancing the program and getting some critical projects off the ground."