Right now in Texas, if a company in good faith finds, fixes and reports a violation to the State, it is not punished by the State. Unfortunately, the Federal government has the authority to use this same information the company willingly turned over to the State to fine the company for Federal violations of the very same law. The notion that voluntary audits should be encouraged is not ground breaking. Even back in 1990, Congress strongly encouraged voluntary audits in the conference report on the Clean Air Act amendments, noting that substantial benefits could be achieved. Yet here we are at the close of 1997, and Congress still has not acted to give companies the go-ahead to conduct voluntary environmental audits.
States have, however.
23 States have these laws so far. What I propose is that Congress take its cue from the States and adjust Federal law to encourage companies to search for possible variations of environmental regulations. Under my bill, if a regulated entity voluntarily audits its compliance with environmental laws, the government may not turn around and use the audit report against the company in an enforcement action. In addition, if a company does an audit, promptly corrects any violations, and reports the violations to EPA, no punitive action will be taken against the company for the violations. No one gets the benefits of this bill who does not promptly correct and disclose violations uncovered in an audit.