Carnival wants relief from Environmental crimes/fines

Carnival hires D.C. lobbying firm to seek ‘relief’ from Trump regime for past environmental crimes

Yet as billions in revenue keep rolling in, redemption for the titanic company’s environmental sins have seemed less than urgent to chairman Micky Arison and his management crew.

Why? It’s a long and dirty story.

In 2017, Miami-based Carnival was fined a record $40 million after pleading guilty to federal felony charges that one of its Princess Cruise Lines vessels deliberately dumped thousands of gallons of oil-contaminated waste into the ocean near England and then falsified records to try and cover it up.

Two years later, Carnival and Princess got hit with another $20 million criminal penalty after admitting to six violations of probation “attributable to senior Carnival management” that included discharging plastic waste in Bahamian waters and for interfering with court-ordered independent inspections.

In 2022, Princess was fined an additional $1 million after pleading guilty to a second violation of probation for failing to establish an independent internal investigative office.

Carnival’s continued failure to fix the problem reflects “a culture that seeks to minimize or avoid information that is negative, uncomfortable, or threatening to the company, including top leadership (i.e. the Board of Directors, C-Suite executives and Brand Presidents/CEOs),” the court-appointed monitor and independent third-party auditor told U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz in an October 2021 letter.

In July 2025, in a much-smaller offense that has gone largely unnoticed, the California Air Resources Board assessed a $28,000 penalty against Carnival’s Princess Cruise Lines for failing to use fuel within the state’s sulfur content limits when two of its ships entered the ports of San Diego and Los Angeles.

At the same time, perhaps seeking to get in on the action as President Trump wields his clemency power to help both human and corporate criminals, Carnival has hired a Washington lobbying firm to seek “administrative relief for environmental violations issued by EPA and DOJ.”

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