Last year, Congress enacted the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 2015. The Act directed federal agencies to adjust their civil penalties annually. On August 1, 2016, maximum civil penalties imposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administra‐ tion (OSHA) increased significantly. OSHA increased maximum civil penalties by 78 percent, as OSHA had not made any inflationary increase since 1990. The relevant key increases are as follows:
- Maximum penalties for willful and repeated violations increased from $70,000 to $124,709 per violation.
- Maximum penalties for serious and other‐than‐serious violations increased from $7,000 to $12,471 per violation.
- Maximum penalties for failure‐to‐abate violations increased from $7,000 to $12,471 per day per violation.
Even though Virginia implements and enforces its own OSHA programs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the Commonwealth must also adopt these maximum penalty levels.