Bill to allow environmental self-audits by industries passes House
The Louisiana House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed an amended version of a bill that would allow industrial facilities to conduct environmental self-audits for certain incidents that don’t normally require notifying state or federal environmental authorities and would make some of those self-audit records secret for up to two years.
House Bill 72, sponsored by Rep. Jean-Paul Coussan (R-Lafayette) passed in a 87-7 vote and moves to the Senate for consideration.
The legislation has undergone some key changes since it was first introduced. When Coussan presented his bill to the House Governmental Affairs Committee May 6, he initially proposed allowing the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to determine the types of incidents that would qualify under the self-audit programs and to determine how long the records would be kept secret.
However, several lawmakers voiced concern over those issues, prompting the committee to pass an amendment that limits the secrecy period to up to two years.
Read more: https://lailluminator.com/2021/05/15/bill-to-allow-environmental-self-audits-by-industries-passes-house/