Endangered Species Law & Policy

This January, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce announced updated civil monetary penalties for violations of federal wildlife and natural resource protection laws including the Endangered Species Act (ESA), Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (BGEPA), Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), Lacey Act, National Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA), and others.

The Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 requires federal agencies to adjust their civil penalties for inflation no later than January 15 of each year, in order to ensure that civil monetary penalties for violations of federal law retain their deterrent effects and to further the policy goals of the underlying statutes. The adjustment is based on the annual cost-of-living adjustment multiplier; in 2023, that multiplier was 1.07745, resulting in an increase of 7.745% in the maximum civil penalties that can be assessed.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is the agency within the Department of the Interior responsible for enforcing the ESA, BGEPA, MMPA, and Lacey Act. Its 2023 inflation adjustments for civil monetary penalties were published in the Federal Register on January 30, 2023, at 88 Fed. Reg. 5,796, and the Service’s adjusted penalties took effect on publication of the rule.

The Department of Commerce published a list of inflation adjustments for all of the agencies within it on January 3, 2023, at 88 Fed. Reg. 3. That list includes adjustments to penalties assessed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), including penalties assessed by NOAA Fisheries (also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service) for violations of the ESA, MMPA, NMSA, Magnuson-Stevens, and Lacey Act.

The Department of Commerce’s 2023 civil monetary penalty inflation adjustments were effective January 15, 2023, and apply to those penalties assessed by the Department of Commerce after the effective date of the penalty adjustment (but before the effective date of next year’s adjustments), including penalties for violations that predated the effective date of the adjustment.

The adjustments for the laws listed in this post are below.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Adjustments:

NOAA Fisheries Adjustments:

These amounts are maximum penalties for violations under the listed laws. The actual penalties assessed for specific violations may be set by the agencies depending on several factors. NOAA’s Office of the General Counsel (Enforcement Section) has published a Policy for the Assessment of Civil Administrative Penalties and Permit Sanctions that provides guidance on determining the penalty to be assessed for specific types of violations.