Over the past several months, many federal agencies have adopted rules significantly increasing the maximum civil monetary penalties (CMPs) they can potentially impose. The increased penalty amounts were adopted in response to recent legislation from Congress requiring that federal agencies make adjustments to “catch up” with inflation. The catch-up adjustments allow agencies to increase their penalty amounts by as much as 150 percent of their November 2, 2015 values. In addition, agencies must make annual adjustments to their CMPs for inflation going forward.