Voluntary Environmental auditing in light of EPA`s criminal enforcement initiatives
- Kroll Associates Inc., Parsippany, NJ (United States)
With the advent and encouragement of recent initiatives by EPA and state environmental regulators for the development and use by business entities of voluntary environmental compliance and audit programs has come an increased concern over the potential for criminal prosecution of individuals charged with the responsibility for ensuring environmental compliance. With the EPA avoiding the issue of whether audit findings will be used as evidence in a joint civil and criminal investigation (i.e., multi-media inspection), a sense of heightened concern has been prevalent in the regulated community. This paper will address the use of audit methodologies that incorporate law enforcement/criminal investigatory techniques as well as suggested attorney-client reporting structure that should be applied in auditing in order to prevent/mitigate the potential for criminal enforcement actions. The goals of the paper are to enable both corporate compliance managers and environmental auditors to be aware of the potential pitfalls and/or liabilities associated with compliance audit findings. Additionally, to educate auditors on when and how to take further steps, through the use of investigatory interviewing techniques, in order to develop answers to questionable data and/or confirm findings of the environmental audit to avoid civil and criminal penalties. The goals of an environment audit should be to avoid both civil and criminal prosecution through the advanced identification of liabilities and the subsequent development of protocols to achieve compliance. However, oftentimes the use of a pre-established {open_quotes}checklist.
- Research Organization:
- National Association of Environmental Professionals, Washington, DC (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 125973
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9506115--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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