The privilege protects the results of companies' internal environmental compliance audits from disclosure at trial, or in pretrial discovery.
[1] Proponents of such laws further argue that it is necessary to encourage such self-evaluations, because regulatory agencies lack the resources to police all the polluters in their jurisdiction.
[2] Environmental audit privilege statutes have been promoted by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, which circulates a model statute known as the "Uniform State Environmental Audit Privilege Act".
[1] However, most state environmental privilege laws are non-uniform, and vary greatly in their scope, exceptions and effect.
[5] Accordingly, in the past, the EPA has used its statutory powers in the delegation of EPA enforcement authority to discourage states from adopting excessively powerful environmental audit privilege laws.