Two real, published enforcement settlements, lined up. Every figure below is public record; the head-to-head is computed at build time over those real numbers. Penalty bars share one log scale, so they read across the gutter.
The largest Clean Water Act penalty in U.S. history.
For the 2010 blowout that discharged millions of barrels of oil, BP agreed to a $5.5 billion Clean Water Act civil penalty - part of a record $20.8 billion global settlement with the United States and five Gulf states.
Source: U.S. DOJ / EPA consent decree, 2015 (entered 2016)
The settlement that reset the price of an oil spill.
After the 1989 tanker grounding fouled 1,300 miles of Alaskan coastline, the 1991 settlement combined a $900 million civil recovery paid over ten years with $100 million in criminal restitution.
Source: U.S. DOJ / EPA / State of Alaska settlement, 1991
| Field | BP Exploration & Production | Exxon (Exxon Valdez) |
|---|---|---|
| Program | Clean Water Act | Clean Water Act |
| Operator | BP Exploration & Production | Exxon (Exxon Valdez) |
| Location | Gulf of Mexico | Alaska |
| Year | 2015 | 1991 |
| Settlement / penalty | $5.5 billion | ~$1 billion |
| Source | U.S. DOJ / EPA consent decree, 2015 (entered 2016) | U.S. DOJ / EPA / State of Alaska settlement, 1991 |
⇆ Swap sides · All cases & states
These are landmark settlements, not live ECHO facility records. Day-to-day
compliance metrics - quarters in noncompliance, formal-action counts, last inspection -
are not part of a settlement figure; they join per facility from the ECHO Exporter
(loadFacilities() in src/lib/source.ts). See the
Methodology for what is real versus illustrative on this site.