HB 1974 -- Environmental Audits

Sponsor:  Bivins

This bill allows a company to conduct a voluntary environmental
audit in order to discover and correct noncompliance with
environmental regulations.  If a company complies with the
voluntary audit requirement, it will be exempt from certain types
of criminal and administrative penalties and may keep its
voluntary audit report confidential.  However, any environmental
audit report can be made available by court order or subpoena;
and companies will not be exempt from any tort actions by private
parties.  In order to comply with the voluntary audit
requirements, a company must:

(1)  Discover noncompliance during a voluntary environmental
audit or through a compliance management system and not through a
legally mandated monitoring or sampling requirement;

(2)  Disclose its noncompliance in writing to the Department of
Natural Resources within 21 days or a shorter period of time as
required by law;

(3)  Discover and disclose the potential noncompliance to the
department prior to the commencement of a federal, state, or
local department inspection or investigation;

(4)  Correct any noncompliance within 60 days or a shorter period
of time as determined by the department;

(5)  Agree to take steps acceptable to the department director to
prevent a recurrence of the noncompliance;

(6)  Document that the specific noncompliance was not part of a
pattern and that a similar noncompliance has not occurred within
the previous three years or within the past five years as part of
a pattern at multiple facilities owned or operated by the
company;

(7)  Prove that the noncompliance did not result in actual harm
or present an imminent and substantial endangerment to human
health or the environment or did not violate any judicial or
administrative order or consent agreement; and

(8)  Cooperate as requested by the department and provide the
necessary information.

The department cannot disclose any audit report information
relating to scientific and technological innovations in which the
owner has a proprietary interest that is protected from
disclosure by law.

Missouri House of Representatives
95th General Assembly, 2nd Regular Session
Last Updated September 14, 2010 at 3:12 pm