On December 6, 2013, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) increased the statutory maximums for 20 of the 88 civil penalties it administers. At the same time, EPA also revised its civil penalty policies and increased the gravity-based component of all penalties by 4.87% for violations occurring after December 6, 2013. These recent increases are an important reminder that EPA has the statutory authority to pursue significant, and in some cases enterprise-threatening, penalties for environmental violations. But in assessing civil penalties in environmental enforcement cases, EPA case managers and attorneys do not simply apply statutory maximums; instead, they are guided by EPA’s well-established penalty policies, which require the Agency to assess a number of aggravating and mitigating factors before determining an initial penalty demand.