On July 1, 2016, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
issued an interim final rule that modifies statutory
civil monetary penalty amounts for statutes administered by the
agency. EPA's interim final rule, which becomes effective on
August 1, 2016, implements requirements of the Federal Civil
Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 (the
2015 Act) and, according to EPA, is designed to increase EPA's
statutory civil monetary penalties to reflect inflation –
significantly, in some cases – and to ensure civil penalties
maintain their deterrent effects. EPA has stated that its adjusted
civil penalty amounts will not necessarily affect the process it
uses to assess penalties or the amounts it will ultimately assess,
but EPA's adjusted statutory penalty amounts could result in
significant penalties in some enforcement cases. In some cases, EPA
now has authority to impose penalties of hundreds of thousands of
dollars per day per violation.
