In October 2011, the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) and the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law hosted a day-long forum focused on creating a new era of accountability for states responsible for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. At the event—the Carey School’s annual Ward Kershaw Forum—environmental advocates joined with senior officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), and the Maryland General Assembly to explore ways to hold polluters accountable, including reinvigorated government oversight and enforcement, with participants considering what these concepts really mean in the Bay context, why their achievement has proved so elusive, and how we might do better. This article draws on those discussions.