The largest payout ever given to an informant, the $104 million awarded to Birkenfeld were part of the IRS’s whistleblower program, which rewards informants up to 30 percent of collected funds and fines from pursued claims. Around the time of the award, the IRS was seeking to shrink potential whistleblowers’ payout, which drew fierce criticism from a number of lawmakers. The IRS program, which was revamped in 2006 to offer higher rewards and incentives, was created to encourage informants to come forward with allegations of potential wrongdoings in an effort to help the agency recover an estimated $100 billion a year of underpaid taxes. 

Leading environmental groups declared on Monday that the Obama administration's latest environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline fundamentally violated the nation's core environmental law, an unmistakable warning that they would sue the State Department if it continued to insist that the pipeline poses no significant environmental risk. As if to bolster their case, the Environmental Protection Agency weighed in as well with its own rebuke. 

The Department of Justice reached a $1.4 billion settlement with Transocean for its role in oil giant BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, which polluted the Gulf of Mexico with upwards of 4.9 million barrels of petroleum in 2010. “What’s important to understand,” says the Environmental Defense Fund’s Elizabeth Skree, “is that this settlement represents the first significant funding specifically allotted for Gulf Coast restoration.”The settlement funds will be paid under the Clean Water Act, with a portion of those funds being used to restore the Gulf.