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With its enactment of the Budget Reconciliation Act on September 5, 1990, Congress has increased maximum Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) penalties a whopping sevenfold. The maximum penalty for a willful or repeated violation is now 70,000 dollars, up from 10,000 dollars, and the maximum penalty for a serious or other-than-serious violation is 7,000 dollars, up from 1,000 dollars. These amounts are ceilings, not floors. But to ensure that flagrant violators are fined sufficiently, the minimum penalty for a willful violation is now 5,000 dollars.