State parks officials deliberately hid millions, report says

SACRAMENTO — Fear of embarrassment and budget cuts led high officials at the California parks department to conceal millions of dollars, according a new investigation by the state attorney general's office.

The money remained hidden for years until it was exposed by a new staff member who described a culture of secrecy and fear at the department.

The attorney general's report, released Friday, is the most detailed official account so far of the financial scandal at the parks department. The controversy broke last summer with the revelation that parks officials had a hidden surplus of nearly $54 million at a time when the administration was threatening to close dozens of the facilities.

Although much of the accounting issues appeared to stem from innocent mistakes and discrepancies, the report said, about $20 million had been deliberately stashed away.

The report said the problem seemed to begin with calculation errors more than a decade ago. But when those mistakes were discovered in 2002, officials made a "conscious and deliberate" decision not to reveal the existence of the extra money, the report said.

Parks officials concealed the funds partly because they were embarrassed, the report said. But they were also worried that their funding would be cut further if state number-crunchers knew they had a larger reserve, according to interviews conducted by a deputy attorney general.

Parks officials underreported the amount of money they had to the Department of Finance, preventing lawmakers from including the extra funds in state spending plans.

The money "was intended to be a safety net," said Manuel Lopez, a former deputy director at the department, who was interviewed in the probe. Lopez resigned in May while being investigated for a separate scheme allowing employees to be improperly paid for unused vacation days.

Multiple high-ranking officials were involved in concealing the parks money, including Lopez and Michael Harris, the chief deputy director who was fired after the scandal broke. Evidence suggests that the initial decision to keep the money secret was made by Tom Domich, an assistant deputy director who left the department in 2004, the report said.

Domich "unpersuasively denies … his role in the deception," according to the report. The Times was unable to reach Domich on Friday.

Staff members who pointed out financial problems were ignored by their bosses.

"Throughout this period of intentional non-disclosure, some parks employees consistently requested, without success, that their superiors address the issue," the report said.

It is unclear whether ousted director Ruth Coleman knew about the accounting problems, the report said. She declined to be interviewed for the investigation; participation was voluntary for former parks personnel.

Officials have not yet determined whether criminal charges will be filed. There's no evidence that any money was stolen or used improperly, the report said.

The accounting problems were eventually exposed by Aaron Robertson, who started an administrative job at the parks department in January 2012. He told a deputy attorney general that people felt uncomfortable raising concerns at the department.

"There was a great deal of distrust," he said. "People felt somewhat fearful of coming forward with information."

John Laird, the California natural resources secretary who oversees the parks department, said new policies and staff are in place to prevent similar problems in the future.

"It is now clear that this is a problem that could have been fixed by a simple correction years ago, instead of being unaddressed for so long that it turned into a significant blow to public trust in government," Laird said in a statement.

A new parks director, retired Marine Maj. Gen. Anthony Jackson, was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to replace Coleman in November. Robertson was promoted to become his deputy.

The attorney general's investigation is the third report on the parks department in the last month. One more report, from the state auditor, is due this month.

chris.megerian@latimes.com

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Jan. 5

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

Note: Ad-blocking software may prevent display of the puzzle widget.

Ken is a husband and father from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works as a civil engineer. He also wrote the NYT bestselling book "Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share."

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Madonna, Bruce Springsteen biggest 2012 world tours

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop and rock music legends bested their younger chart-topping competition on the concert trail in 2012, according to data released on Friday by trade publication Pollstar.

Pop matriarch Madonna, 54, led all competition, grossing some $ 296.1 million in ticket sales in her 88-show world tour. She topped Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band ($ 210.2 million) and Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters ($ 186.4 million).

The elder statesmen of the music world, while no longer topping the charts or scoring radio hits, are doing well because their older audiences can afford to pay higher ticket prices, Gary Bongiovanni, Pollstar editor, told Reuters.

“Certainly the older acts charge more because they can get away with it,” he said.

The Rolling Stones were able to command an eye-popping $ 529.51 average ticket price. Their five-show tour in November and December grossed $ 35.5 million, good enough for No. 33 on the list.

British rockers Coldplay were No. 4 on the list, taking in $ 171.3 million. Lady Gaga placed fifth grossing $ 161.4 million while at No. 6 Cirque Du Soleil‘s tribute to late King of Pop Michael Jackson grossed $ 140.2 million during a 172-show tour.

Teen sensation Justin Bieber, who played a 35-show tour, failed to crack the top 20, taking in $ 40.2 million, at No. 23.

Acts that cemented their reputations decades ago dominated the top-grossing tours even while playing fewer shows.

Country stars Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw placed seventh grossing $ 96.5 million in 23 shows, while heavy metal pioneers Metallica were one spot lower at $ 86.1 million over 30 shows.

Some artists have been enticed to jack-up their own ticket prices after seeing how much more re-sellers were able to command, Bongiovanni explained.

“Now it’s a matter of how much money can I make,” he said. “Some artists like Springsteen are very popular but if you look at their average ticket price it’s nowhere near Roger Waters, Madonna and Lady Gaga.”

The average face-value ticket price for a Springsteen concert was $ 91.95, which was well below the $ 140.38 average for Madonna and $ 110.96 for Roger Waters.

Eight separate Cirque Du Soleil shows appeared in the top 50, which did not include the circus company’s non-traveling shows in Las Vegas and elsewhere. All told, the Canadian company may have earned close to $ 1 billion in gross ticket sales, Bongiovanni said.

Elton John ($ 69.9 million) and Red Hot Chili Peppers ($ 57.8 million) rounded out the top 10.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant)

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F.D.A. Offers Rules to Stop Food Contamination

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed two sweeping rules aimed at preventing the contamination of produce and processed foods, which has sickened tens of thousands of Americans annually in recent years.

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Checking the temperature of lettuce at an Arizona farm. Safety measures would start at farms.

The proposed rules represent a sea change in the way the agency polices food, a process that currently involves taking action after contamination has been identified. It is a long-awaited step toward codifying the food safety law that Congress passed two years ago.

Changes include requirements for better record keeping, contingency plans for handling outbreaks and measures that would prevent the spread of contaminants in the first place. While food producers would have latitude in determining how to execute the rules, farmers would have to ensure that water used in irrigation met certain standards and food processors would need to find ways to keep fresh food that may contain bacteria from coming into contact with food that has been cooked.

New safety measures might include requiring that farm workers wash their hands, installing portable toilets in fields and ensuring that foods are cooked at temperatures high enough to kill bacteria.

Whether consumers will ultimately bear some of the expense of the new rules was unclear, but the agency estimated that the proposals would cost food producers tens of thousands of dollars a year.

A big question to be resolved is whether Congress will approve the money necessary to support the oversight. President Obama requested $220 million in his 2013 budget, but Dr. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the F.D.A., said “resources remain an ongoing concern.”

Nonetheless, agency officials were optimistic that the new rules would protect consumers better.

“These new rules really set the basic framework for a modern, science-based approach to food safety and shift us from a strategy of reacting to problems to a strategy for preventing problems,” Michael R. Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, said in an interview. The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for the safety of about 80 percent of the food that Americans consume. The rest falls to the Agriculture Department, which is responsible for meat, poultry and some eggs.

One in six Americans becomes ill from eating contaminated food each year, the government estimates; most of them recover without concern, but roughly 130,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die. The agency estimated the new rules could prevent about 1.75 million illnesses each year.

Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2010 after a wave of incidents involving tainted eggs, peanut butter and spinach sickened thousands of people and led major food makers to join consumer advocates in demanding stronger government oversight.

But it took the Obama administration two years to move the rules through the regulatory agency, prompting complaints that the White House was more concerned about protecting itself from Republican criticism than about public safety.

Mr. Taylor said that the delay was a function of the wide variety of foods and the complexity of the food system. “Anything that is important and complicated will always take longer than you would like,” he said.

The first rule would require manufacturers of processed foods sold in the United States to come up with ways to reduce the risk of contamination. Food companies would be required to have a plan for correcting problems and for keeping records that government inspectors could audit.

An example might be to require the roasting of raw peanuts at a temperature guaranteed to kill salmonella, which has been a problem in nut butters in recent years. Roasted nuts would then have to be kept separate from raw nuts to further reduce the risk of contamination, said Sandra B. Eskin, director of the safe food campaign at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

“This is very good news for consumers,” Ms. Eskin said. “We applaud the administration’s action, which demonstrates its strong commitment to making our food safer.”

The second rule would apply to the harvesting and production of fruits and vegetables in an effort to combat bacterial contamination like E. coli, which is transmitted through feces. It would address what advocates refer to as the “four Ws” — water, waste, workers and wildlife.

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Op-Ed Contributors: Is Google Like Gas or Like Steel?

AFTER a two-year investigation, the Federal Trade Commission concluded this week that Google’s search practices did not violate antitrust law. Those who wanted to see an epic battle like the one the government fought with Microsoft in the 1990s were sorely disappointed. But the analogy to the browser war of the Web’s early days was never the right one. It failed to capture the dangers free speech would have faced if regulators had agreed with Google’s critics.

The theories that many critics advanced — that search must be “neutral” because it is akin to a public utility, or that computer-generated search results are not speech and therefore not protected under the First Amendment — would have undermined free press principles across the Internet. That the F.T.C. decision permits Google to continue to use its judgment in analyzing search requests and presenting pertinent results is a victory for online expression and is consistent with First Amendment law since the 1940s.

Seven decades ago, a lawsuit against The Associated Press applied antitrust rules to the media and was resolved in a way that ultimately protected First Amendment interests. This case was always a better parallel than Microsoft to the F.T.C. investigation of Google. Like Google today, The A.P. had extraordinary influence. Then as now there were questions about whether something more than common antitrust law should govern companies that play such an important role in the delivery of information to the public.

Back then, the Justice Department alleged that A.P. bylaws allowed its member papers to impede local competitors by denying them access to The A.P.’s expansive news network. A trial court agreed but applied a theory far broader than routine antitrust law. It held that news was not an “ordinary” product like “steel” governed solely by antitrust, but rather something more “vital” because it was “clothed with a public interest.”

In other words, the trial court wanted to treat the mass media like a public utility, which carried considerable consequences. For example, while it would be illegal under antitrust law for a large steel company to conspire with competitors to fix prices, that company has no obligation to sell to every carmaker that wants steel. A public utility, on the other hand, has to serve everyone in the marketplace equally. Applying that standard to The A.P. would have opened the door to far broader regulation and could, in theory, have meant something as absurd as requiring newspapers to cover every press release or publish every letter to the editor.

When the case reached the Supreme Court in 1945, the modern understanding of the First Amendment, with its insistence on an independent news media, had yet to take shape. So it was with great significance that — even though The A.P. lost its appeal and had to allow more access to its services — the court steered entirely clear of the public-utility model. It looked instead to standard antitrust law in finding The A.P.’s conduct to be a classic restraint on trade.

The court went further in setting down a marker that to this day restrains government regulation of the media. Justice Hugo L. Black, who would become a leading champion of the First Amendment, wrote that nothing in the ruling could “compel A.P. or its members to permit publication of anything which their ‘reason’ tells them should not be published.”

This began a historic run in which the court transformed the media into an institution with the autonomy to serve as a check on government power. The First Amendment as we know it would look very different if public utility obligations had been forced onto the press that day.

If The A.P. was concerned about a regulator in every newsroom, Google was concerned about a regulator in every algorithm.

Advocates of aggressive action against Google saw the computer algorithms behind search as a utility that should be heavily regulated like the gas or electricity that flows into our homes. But search engines need to make choices about what results are most relevant to a query, just as a news editor must decide which stories deserve to be on the front page. Requiring “search neutrality” would have placed the government in the business of policing the speech of the Internet’s information providers. To quote Justice Black, it would have made search engines publish those results “which their ‘reason’ tells them should not be published.”

Others argued that the F.T.C. did not need to be guided by First Amendment concerns at all because search results are created by computers, not by human beings. Yet computers “speak” in many ways today. Lawmakers could have used F.T.C. precedent against Google to regulate the content of Amazon’s book recommendations, the locations on Bing’s maps, the news stories that trend on Facebook and Twitter, and many other online expressions of social and political importance.

The F.T.C. resisted these harmful theories, and as a result speakers all over the Internet won. But that doesn’t mean Google is exempt from regulation. The First Amendment is not a grant of immunity for any business, and antitrust scrutiny does not end where editorial judgment begins. But the A.P. case shows that antitrust laws can be enforced while protecting the right of a free press to print what it chooses and nothing more.

This makes regulation of the media difficult. But regulating speech should not be easy, like regulating a public utility, but hard, as the F.T.C. has correctly found.

Bruce D. Brown is the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a lecturer at the University of Virginia Law School. Alan B. Davidson is a visiting scholar at M.I.T.’s Technology and Policy Program and a former director of public policy for the Americas at Google.

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Audit of L.A. County assessor's office urges key changes

An audit of the embattled Los Angeles County assessor's office released late Thursday recommends key changes, including the appointment of a chief deputy with "managerial competence" and the requirement that private tax consultants register with the county.

Conducted by Strategica Inc., the audit comes as elected Assessor John Noguez fights accusations that he pocketed $185,000 in bribes from a prominent tax consultant and campaign contributor who requested lower tax appraisals on client properties.

Though the audit did not comment specifically on Noguez's alleged malfeasance, its authors wrote that the controversy had helped undermine public confidence in the department with potentially grave results.

"If taxpayers feel that the property tax system in Los Angeles County is being gamed by politically connected taxpayers or contributors to the Assessor's political campaigns then they will be tempted to game the system themselves to re-establish equity," the auditors wrote.

As a means of improving overall management of the department and restoring integrity, auditors said, the county charter should be amended so that supervisors could appoint a permanent chief deputy with strong management and tax assessment skills. Doing so would ensure institutional knowledge and continuity as newly elected assessors rotate through the post.

The position also would make up for the elected official's operational shortcomings.

"The criteria for being the Assessor is not management experience but rather the number of votes received," the auditors wrote.

To avoid potential abuses or the perception of favoritism, the county should adopt new rules that essentially treat tax agents as lobbyists, requiring them to register with the county, prohibiting them from offering gifts and outlining exactly which officials they are authorized to negotiate with.

The audit released Thursday is one of four that have been commissioned by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. It will be formally presented to the board Tuesday.

Among other findings, auditors cited a significant "brain drain" in the assessor's office: 44% of its senior managers have left since 2010 and have been replaced by managers who lack experience or training in running a department. Additionally, the report said, staffers have been given very little supervisory or management training since 2007.

The assessor's office oversees 2.4 million parcels and has a staff of almost 1,400 employees, making it the largest assessment jurisdiction in the nation.

In the last five years, the office has seen the number of assessment appeals quadruple. That increased workload, combined with an antiquated computer system, has greatly increased staff workload, according to the report. Auditors recommended establishing a $35 fee for the filing of all assessment appeals, to help offset expenses and to deter frivolous appeals.

Supervisors called for the audit in April after several stories by The Times about allegations that Noguez and his staff were giving tax breaks to political supporters, who then donated to Noguez's campaign fund. About the same time, Noguez gave two conflicting projections of 2012-2013 tax roll revenues. In December 2011, Noguez estimated that the county's property tax base would grow by $18.7 billion, but then changed the number to $5.1 billion.

So far, the ongoing probe at the assessor's office has resulted in the arrests of Noguez, his chief deputy Mark McNeil, former county appraiser Scott Schenter and private tax consultant Ramin Salari. All four have pleaded not guilty to numerous charges, including conspiracy, bribery and misappropriation of public funds.

To date, auditors have completed three of four audits that the board has requested. The next audit will focus on properties with reductions in value exceeding 20%.

ruben.vives@latimes.com

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Jan. 4

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

Note: Ad-blocking software may prevent display of the puzzle widget.

Ken is a husband and father from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works as a civil engineer. He also wrote the NYT bestselling book "Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share."

Read more by Ken Denmead

Follow @fitzwillie and @wiredgeekdad on Twitter.

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R&B singer Frank Ocean cited for pot possession

BRIDGEPORT, Calif. (AP) — Grammy-nominated R&B singer Frank Ocean is facing a marijuana possession charge after police say he was pulled over on New Year’s Eve in California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada for driving more than 90 mph in a 65 mph zone.

The Mono County Sheriff’s Department says officers stopped Ocean’s black BMW at about 4:30 p.m. Dec. 31 as he was heading southbound on U.S. 395.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jennifer Hansen says a strong odor of marijuana wafted out as a deputy approached the vehicle.

Hansen says the deputy found a small bag of marijuana on the 25-year-old Ocean, whose legal name is Christopher Breaux (broh).

She says the Beverly Hills resident was cited for marijuana possession and released.

Calls and an email message sent to Ocean’s representatives Thursday were not immediately returned.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade.

Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks provide a mental and physical edge.

The drinks are now under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of deaths and serious injuries that may be linked to their high caffeine levels. But however that review ends, one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on a brew of ingredients that, apart from caffeine, have little, if any benefit for consumers.

“If you had a cup of coffee you are going to affect metabolism in the same way,” said Dr. Robert W. Pettitt, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, who has studied the drinks.

Energy drink companies have promoted their products not as caffeine-fueled concoctions but as specially engineered blends that provide something more. For example, producers claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” that Rockstar Energy is “scientifically formulated” and Monster Energy is a “killer energy brew.” Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has asked the government to investigate the industry’s marketing claims.

Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.

As with earlier elixirs, a dearth of evidence underlies such claims. Only a few human studies of energy drinks or the ingredients in them have been performed and they point to a similar conclusion, researchers say — that the beverages are mainly about caffeine.

Caffeine is called the world’s most widely used drug. A stimulant, it increases alertness, awareness and, if taken at the right time, improves athletic performance, studies show. Energy drink users feel its kick faster because the beverages are typically swallowed quickly or are sold as concentrates.

“These are caffeine delivery systems,” said Dr. Roland Griffiths, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who has studied energy drinks. “They don’t want to say this is equivalent to a NoDoz because that is not a very sexy sales message.”

A scientist at the University of Wisconsin became puzzled as he researched an ingredient used in energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy. The researcher, Dr. Craig A. Goodman, could not find any trials in humans of the additive, a substance with the tongue-twisting name of glucuronolactone that is related to glucose, a sugar. But Dr. Goodman, who had studied other energy drink ingredients, eventually found two 40-year-old studies from Japan that had examined it.

In the experiments, scientists injected large doses of the substance into laboratory rats. Afterward, the rats swam better. “I have no idea what it does in energy drinks,” Dr. Goodman said.

Energy drink manufacturers say it is their proprietary formulas, rather than specific ingredients, that provide users with physical and mental benefits. But that has not prevented them from implying otherwise.

Consider the case of taurine, an additive used in most energy products.

On its Web site, the producer of Red Bull, for example, states that “more than 2,500 reports have been published about taurine and its physiological effects,” including acting as a “detoxifying agent.” In addition, that company, Red Bull of Austria, points to a 2009 safety study by a European regulatory group that gave it a clean bill of health.

But Red Bull’s Web site does not mention reports by that same group, the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that claims about the benefits in energy drinks lacked scientific support. Based on those findings, the European Commission has refused to approve claims that taurine helps maintain mental function and heart health and reduces muscle fatigue.

Taurine, an amino acidlike substance that got its name because it was first found in the bile of bulls, does play a role in bodily functions, and recent research suggests it might help prevent heart attacks in women with high cholesterol. However, most people get more than adequate amounts from foods like meat, experts said. And researchers added that those with heart problems who may need supplements would find far better sources than energy drinks.

Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo and Poypiti Amatatham from Bangkok.

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Deepwater Horizon Owner Settles With U.S. Over Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico

The driller whose floating Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew out in 2010, causing a massive oil spill, has agreed to settle civil and criminal claims with the federal government for $1.4 billion, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

The Deepwater Horizon exploded, burned and sank in April 2010. Eleven men were killed and millions of gallons of oil flowed into the Gulf of Mexico and fouled the shores of coastal states. The well, known as Macondo, was owned by British oil giant BP, which settled its own criminal charges and some of its civil charges in November for $4.5 billion.

While this settlement resolves the government’s claims against Transocean, that company and the others involved in the spill still face the sprawling, multistate civil case, which is scheduled to begin in February in New Orleans. In a deal filed in federal court in New Orleans, a subsidiary, Transocean Deepwater, agreed to one criminal misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act and will pay a fine of $100 million. Over the next five years, the company will pay civil penalties of $1 billion, the largest ever under the act.

As part of the criminal settlement, Transocean also agreed to pay the National Academy of Sciences and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation $150 million each. Those funds will be applied to oil spill prevention and response in the Gulf of Mexico and natural resource restoration projects. The agreement will be subject to public comment and court approval. The company agreed to five years of monitoring of its drilling practices and improved safety measures.

In a statement, Transocean Ltd., the Switzerland-based parent of the rig owner, said that the company thought these were “important agreements” and called them a “positive step forward” that were “in the best interest of its shareholders and employees.” Of the 11 men killed on the rig, the company said, “their families continue to be in the thoughts and prayers of all of us at Transocean.”

The company announced in September that it had set an “estimated loss contingency” of $1.5 billion against the Justice Department’s claims.

Shares of Transocean Ltd. rose nearly 3 percent on the news, to close at $49.20.

In a statement, Lanny A. Breuer, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, suggested that Transocean had played a subservient and lesser role in the disaster to that of BP: “Transocean’s rig crew accepted the direction of BP well site leaders to proceed in the face of clear danger signs — at a tragic cost to many of them.” He said that the $1.4 billion “appropriately reflects its role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.”

Under a law passed last year, 80 percent of the penalty will be applied to projects for restoring the environment and economies of gulf states.

That fact was applauded by a coalition of Gulf Coast restoration groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund and the National Audubon Society. A joint statement called this “a great day for the gulf environment and the communities that rely on a healthy ecosystem for their livelihoods.”

Still, the penalty struck some experts in environmental law as somewhat light. David M. Uhlmann, who headed the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section from 2000 to 2007, praised the size of the civil settlement, which he said “reflects the scope of the gulf oil spill tragedy.”

He argued, however, that the criminal penalty should have been at least as onerous, “given Transocean’s numerous failures to drill in a safe manner, which cost 11 workers their lives and billions of dollars in damages to communities along the gulf.” The settlement, he said, should have included seaman’s manslaughter charges, which were part of the BP settlement.

As for the company’s role in following the lead of BP, he said, “following orders is not a defense to criminal charges.”

At the Environmental Protection Agency, Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for the office of enforcement and compliance assurance, called the settlement “an important step” toward holding Transocean and others involved in the spill accountable. “E.P.A. will continue to work with D.O.J. and its federal partners to vigorously pursue the government’s claims against all responsible parties and ensure that we are taking every possible step to restore and protect the Gulf Coast ecosystem,” she said.

The multistate trial over claims in the Deepwater Horizon cases that have not been settled are scheduled to begin in February. Stephen J. Herman and James P. Roy, lawyers who represent the steering committee of plaintiffs in the cases, said that Thursday’s settlement did not change the case, and that the plaintiffs thought that BP, Transocean and Halliburton “will be found grossly negligent” at trial.

BP continued its longstanding argument that the accident, in the words of the spokesman Geoff Morrell, “resulted from multiple causes, involving multiple parties,” and that other companies had to shoulder their share of the blame.

Transocean, Mr. Morrell said in a statement, “is finally starting, more than two-and-a-half years after the accident, to do its part for the Gulf Coast.” He then turned his attention to the other major contractor on the well, and said, “Unfortunately, Halliburton continues to deny its significant role in the accident, including its failure to adequately cement and monitor the well.”

Beverly Blohm Stafford, a Halliburton spokeswoman, said that the company “remains confident that all the work it performed with respect to the Macondo well was completed in accordance with BP’s specifications for its well construction plan and instructions,” and so Halliburton, she said was protected from liability through indemnity provisions of its drilling contract.

“We continue to believe that we have substantial legal arguments and defenses against any liability and that BP’s indemnity obligation protects us,” she said. “Accordingly we will maintain our approach of taking all proper actions to protect our interests.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 3, 2013

An earlier version of this story misstated the size of the spill. It was not the nation’s biggest oil spill.

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