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Alert! Yes – Inflation Affects Everything: EPA Increases Fines for Civil Non-Compliance

What You Need to Know

  • Key takeaway #1

    EPA released its 2025 new civil maximum penalties covering the statutes the agency implements.

  • Key takeaway #2

    The 2025 penalty maximums increased by slightly more than 1.00 % that last year’s penalty levels.

  • Key takeaway #3

    Statutory violations do not automatically result in the agency’s pursuit of the maximum fines; instead, personnel involved in the cases assess the appropriate fine on a case-by-case basis.

Client Alert | 2 min read | 01.23.25

On January 8, 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a final rule in the Federal Register adjusting upward the maximum monetary civil penalties for violating its regulations. This rule raised the minimum and maximum fines for 2025 by 1.02% from their 2024 levels. New penalty amounts go into effect immediately and apply to violations occurring after January 8, 2025.

Federal agencies are required by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015, 28 U.S.C. § 2461, to publish annual updates to their civil penalties by January 15th each year. See Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget guidance.

The 2025 adjusted penalties apply to violations under major environmental statutes implemented by EPA, including the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Clean Water Act (CWA), Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Clean Air Act (CAA), and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), as well as the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.

Below are some of EPA’s new civil penalties for violations of key statutes:

Statute

2025 Civil Penalties

2024 Civil Penalties

CWA[i]

$68,445           (per day for each violation)

$342,218         (daily maximum)

$66,712           (daily maximum per violation)

$333,552         (daily maximum)

CAA[ii]

$59,114 - $124,426     (per violation)

$472,901         (daily maximum per violation)

$57,617 - $121,275     (per violation)

$460,926         (daily maximum per violation)

CERCLA[iii]

$71,545           (per day initial violation)

$214,637         (maximum penalty subsequent violation)

$69,733           (per day initial violation)

$209,202         (maximum penalty subsequent violation)

RCRA[iv]

$93,058           (maximum per day)

$90,702           (maximum per day)

TSCA[v]

$49,772           (maximum per day)

$48,512           (maximum per day)

A full listing of EPA’s new civil penalties maximums can be found in 40 C.F.R. § 19.

Violations of the environmental statutes may not always result in a maximum penalty. EPA calculates specific penalty amounts on a case-by-case basis. EPA-regulated entities should take note of this increase, however, as these new fine amounts guide EPA enforcement personnel as they decide which actions to pursue, considering factors such as “the seriousness of the violation, the violator's good faith efforts to comply, any economic benefit gained by the violator as a result of its noncompliance, and the violator's ability to pay.” Id.

Stay tuned for more civil fine updates for other federal environmental statutes as soon as they are released.

[i]   See 33 USC §§ 1319(d), (g)(2).

[ii]  See 42 U.S.C. §§ 7413(d)(1), 7524(a), 7545(d)(1).

[iii] See 42 U.S.C. §§ 9604(e)(5)(B), or 9609(a)(1), (b), (c).

[iv]  See 42 U.S.C. § 6928(g).

[v]  See 15 U.S.C. § 2615(a)(1).

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