Companies can be penalized when they violate laws designed to protect air, water, and the rest of the natural environment. If a company is in this category, it faced allegations of damaging the environment and was fined or reached a settlement.
Sources
Violation Tracker contains more than 80,000 entries on environmental cases dating back to 2000 with over $124 billion in penalties. About one-third of these were handled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Violation Tracker draws data from EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) database as well as agency press releases and several other sources.
A smaller number of federal environmental cases are obtained from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which covers offshore oil and gas drilling, and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Two-thirds of the environmental entries come from state regulatory agencies, which share responsibility with the EPA for enforcement of federal laws such as the Clean Air Act while also bringing cases under state laws.
In some states, environmental enforcement is also handled through state attorneys general or local prosecutors. There are also some local regulatory agencies, such as the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District in Kentucky.
Violation Tracker also contains selected private litigation, including more than 130 major environmental class action and multi-district lawsuits with total settlements and awards of $18 billion.
Search Techniques
Violation Tracker offers multiple ways to locate environmental cases. In the Basic Search on the homepage, you can combine a company name with the environmental option in the Offense Group dropdown menu and/or a federal agency from the other dropdown.
On the Summaries page (click Other Summaries from the home page) you can retrieve an overview of all environmental cases from the Offense Group Summaries dropdown or overviews for the EPA or other agencies from the Federal Agency Summaries dropdowns. The parent company summaries include breakdowns by offense categories, including environmental.
On the Advanced Search page you can combine a company name and other variables with the environmental choice in the Offense Group dropdown. Using the Offense Type dropdown you can limit the search to specific violations in the following categories:
• Air pollution
• Animal feeding operations
• Asbestos
• Drinking water
• Energy conservation
• Fuel economy
• Hazardous waste
• Lead
• Mining
• MTBE
• Oil or gas drilling
• Oil spills
• PCB
• Pesticides
• PFAS
• Pipeline safety
• Radioactive waste
• Underground storage tanks
• Water pollution
Some cases overlap multiple categories and may thus be accessible only through the "environmental violation" offense type.
You can also use the full text search box to search the names of specific environmental laws or issues (such as hazardous waste) mentioned in the description field of the individual entries. Use the Level of Government dropdown to limit your search to federal, state or local cases.
To locate environmental class action or multi-district lawsuits, go to the Advanced Search and choose private litigation from the Action Type dropdown and the environmental choice in the Offense Group dropdown. Private litigation entries include full case citations. Violation Tracker subscribers also have access to key court documents such as settlement agreements.
