Cleveland-Cliffs to Spend $100M as Atonement for Breaching 2015 Settlement

Editor's Note: This description has been updated to reflect the fact that Cleveland-Cliffs has already spent $100 million on a new electrostatic precipitator (ESP) for its facility in Dearborn, Michigan.Steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs faced costly modifications to an eight-year-old consent decree that was supposed to address air emissions at the company’s manufacturing plant in Dearborn, Michigan.The consent decree involved the U.S. government, the state of Michigan and AK Steel, which Cleveland-Cliffs acquired in 2020. It required AK Steel to implement specific measures to tackle the plant’s visible air emissions. However, these actions did not elevate the plant to full Clean Air Act compliance.