| Automotive
Regulatory World
U.S. EPA'S VOLUNTARY AUDIT POLICY Incentives for Self-Policing: Discovery, Disclosure, Correction and Prevention of Violations
Summary
On April 11, 2000, EPA issued its final policy on incentives
for self-evaluation and self-disclosure of violations. The
policy took effect on May 11, 2000 (thirty days after publication
in the Federal Register) and refined the March, 1995 Voluntary
Environmental Self-Policing and Self-Disclosure Interim Policy
Statement, which offered regulated entities compelling new
incentives to discover, disclose and correct violations of
environmental law.
Under the Audit Policy, the Agency protects public health and
the environment by encouraging greater compliance with environmental
laws and regulations through self-policing, discovery, disclosure,
correction and prevention. In accordance with the Policy, EPA
may at least partially mitigate the gravity-based portion of
a civil penalty for a regulated entity that meets at least eight
of nine conditions as laid out in the Policy (specifically, conditions
numbered 2 through 9 in the Policy). Gravity-based penalties
are completely mitigated for those facilities that meet all nine
conditions.
The Audit
policy applies to violations under all of the environmental
laws that EPA administers; also referred to as U.S. EPA's "Self-Disclosure
Policy": Incentives for Self-Policing: Discovery, Disclosure,
Correction and Prevention of Violations (4/11/00).
Incentives
Where violations are found through voluntary environmental audits
or efforts that reflect a regulated entity's due diligence
(i.e., systematic efforts to prevent, detect and correct violations,
as defined in the policy), and all of the policy's conditions
are met, EPA will not seek gravity-based penalties and will
generally not recommend criminal prosecution against the company
if the violation results from the unauthorized criminal conduct
of an employee.
Where violations are discovered by means other than environmental
audits or due diligence efforts, but are promptly disclosed and
expeditiously corrected, EPA will reduce gravity-based penalties
by 75% provided that all of the other conditions of the policy
are met.
EPA retains its discretion to recover economic benefit gained
as a result of noncompliance, so that companies won't be able
to obtain an economic advantage over their competitors by delaying
their investment in compliance.
The final policy also restates EPA's practice of not routinely
requesting environmental audit reports.
Safeguards to Protect the Public
In addition to prompt disclosure and correction, the policy
requires companies to prevent recurrence of the violation and
to remedy any environmental harm.
Repeated violations or those which may have presented an imminent
and substantial endangerment or resulted in serious actual harm
are excluded from the policy's coverage.
Corporations remain criminally liable for violations resulting
from conscious disregard of their legal duties, and individuals
remain liable for criminal wrongdoing.
Public Access to Information
The policy contains two provisions ensuring public access to
information. First, EPA may require as a condition of penalty
mitigation that a description of the regulated entity's due diligence
efforts be made publicly available. And second, where EPA requires
that a regulated entity enter into a written agreement, administrative
consent order or judicial consent decree to satisfy the policy's
conditions, those agreements will be made publicly available.
For information about this page, contact: gorman.john@epa.gov
Back
to Automotive Regulatory World index
|
