Audit-privilege laws: the right to know nothing?

In theory, environmental audit-privilege laws grant immunity to companies that uncover environmental problems during self-audits and that take steps to correct them so that information gleaned from such audits cannot be used against the company in a lawsuit. Supporters of audit-privilege laws believe these laws encourage more audits and more disclosures of regulatory violations because of the greatly reduced chances that audit findings will result in penalties. Opponents argue that in actuality, the level of audit activity in states that have audit-privilege or immunity laws is no different from that in the states without them and that companies in states with the laws are no more likely to disclose violations than companies in states without them. In addition, some citizens' groups, as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, continue to criticize the worst of the audit-privilege laws as measures that protect potential polluters.