In February 2002, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that General Electric must dredge approximately 150,000 pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from a 40-mile stretch of the upper Hudson River in New York state. In November 2006, a federal district court in New York approved a consent decree entered into between GE and the EPA that established a framework for implementing the 2002 ruling. “The dredging will be performed in two phases with an intervening peer review of performance after phase 1. Under this consent decree, we have committed up to $0.1 billion to reimburse the EPA for its past and future project oversight costs and agreed to perform the first phase of dredging. We further committed that, subject to future agreement with the EPA about completion of dredging after completion of phase 1 and the peer review, we will be responsible for further costs, including costs of phase 2 dredging.”