The New RESTORE Act Regulations, Notice, and Guidelines from Treasury
Co-hosted by the Environmental Law Institute and the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law & Policy.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
11:00 am–1:00 pm CDT
Webinar
Passed in 2012, the RESTORE Act directs 80% of civil and administrative Clean Water Act penalties levied in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to restoration and recovery of the Gulf of Mexico region. The monies collected are placed in a Restoration Trust Fund, and then channeled through five different “pots” of funding. To date, $800 million has been obligated to the Restoration Trust Fund, from a civil settlement between the federal government and Transocean. It is anticipated that the RTF will receive another influx of monies once Clean Water Act penalties from BP are determined.
The Treasury Department is tasked with administering the Restoration Trust Fund, and oversees the grants for two pots of funding. Over several weeks in August, it released several important rules and guidance documents relevant to the administration, distribution of funds, and proposal of projects and programs under the RESTORE Act.
This webinar featured a panel of experts to provide an overview of these complex and interrelated documents, with special focus on the Treasury Department’s interim final rule for administering the Restoration Trust Fund. The goal was to review how the documents relate to each other, the key elements of Treasury’s oversight regulations and how they have evolved since they were first proposed last September, and key issues and opportunities. There is approximately one hour of presentations followed by 30 minutes of Q&A with the webinar audience.
PANELISTS:
Mark Davis, Senior Research Fellow, Tulane University Law School
Sara Gonzalez-Rothi Kronenthal, Senior Policy Specialist, National Wildlife Federation
Jim McElfish, Senior Attorney, Environmental Law Institute
Jim Muller, Bay County RESTORE Act Coordinator
Chris Barnes and Cameron Long, Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS:
Cheat Sheet to Recent RESTORE Act Documents
Presentation – Jim Muller (PDF)
Presentation – Sara Gonzalez-Rothi Kronenthal (PDF)
EVENT RECORDING:
2014-08-28 09.01 The New RESTORE Act Regulations, Notice, and Guidelines from Treasury from Environmental Law Institute on Vimeo.
This event was made possible by support from the Walton Family Foundation and the Naomi & Nehemiah Cohen Foundation.