The so-called "Environmental Audit Privilege" bill, which was originally written by the Coors corporation and circulated by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), is turning up in state legislatures across the country. In the early 1990s, Coors battled the Colorado Public Health and Environment Department over smog-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by its brewery in Golden, Colorado. Although Coors and the state eventually settled on $237,000 in penalties, with Coors agreeing to reduce the brewery's VOC emissions by 200,000 tons a year, the company apparently decided to strike back, through ALEC's "model" bill. According to the Good Neighbor Project for Sustainable Industries, "ALEC’s model audit secrecy and immunity legislation is based, in large part, on the Colorado audit/immunity law. This model legislation was reviewed and re-drafted on February 2, 1995 by ALEC's National Task Force on Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources, including Allan E. Auger of Coors and Cindy Goldman, a wife of a Coors executive. Auger was also Chairman of ALEC's Private Enterprise Board in 1995." This law passed both houses and was signed into Colorado law in 1998.

Much of ALEC's legislation originates from corporations' government affairs offices. In addition, before ALEC can circulate model legislation it first must be approved by a "task force" that must have corporate representatives. Although state legislators are also on these task forces, nothing can move out of the task force without agreement from its corporate representatives. In other words, corporations such as Coors have complete veto power over anything ALEC does.

This bill has been aptly named the "polluter protection act" because state penalties are waived and records are sealed when polluters conduct "self-audits" and report their own violations of environmental laws. This bill puts the public's right-to-know about environmental, workplace, and industrial hazards far behind protecting the secrecy of polluters and other corporate wrongdoers. As a high-ranking EPA enforcement official put it: "This is coming from big companies that have been targets of enforcement action." ALEC's "Environmental Audit Privilege" bill grants corporations the privilege of confidentiality and gives special protection from government proceedings. In short, ALEC's bill would allow Enron to decide whether or not it needs an environmental audit, and then allow them to keep that information secret so it would not be used against Enron later in a criminal proceeding.

Since 1993, 26 states have passed "Environmental Audit Privilege" laws similar to ALEC's model legislation. These statutes grant privilege and/or immunity to corporations who conduct self-audits, preventing such documents from being used against them in court or to assess fines. Contrary to their proponents' claims, these bills do not increase the frequency of audits or the reporting of violations, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Instead, the bills make it harder to punish corporations who violate the law and inhibit the public's ability to find out about such violations. In fact, the EPA has threatened to revoke states' federally delegated powers if they do not amend their audit privilege laws. Twenty-two states have done just that, but Illinois, Kansas, and Idaho are holding out and Mississippi is likely to lose control of an important lead paint removal program because of its unwillingness to change its law.

We need legislation that promotes accountability and openness, not corporate confidentiality. ALEC's environmental audit bill grants special privilege to the polluters who need it least.

Ran 4/29/02, 10/7/02