Business Group Gives Up Effort For Immunity From Whistleblowing Reprisals

Faced with new Republican Gov. Phil Batt’s veto threat, Idaho’s business lobby has abandoned its campaign to win immunity from criminal or civil reprisals for voluntary reports of environmental regulation violations.

Although the bill cleared the Senate on a 28-7 vote last week, Batt said publicly that blanket immunity from punishment is not something he could embrace and that the documents the bill would have kept from disclosure should be open to public inspection.

The Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry had been seeking a compromise but rejected the administration’s proposal to try the scheme for just two years with authority for the governor to make public any information he thought important on serious pollution problems.

The deal would also have given rule-making power for the Division of Environmental Quality to both define the audit procedures and timetables for repairing environmental damage.

“He supports the concept of giving business an incentive to clean up any problems they may have, but he felt there was too much room for abuse in the bill,” Batt’s spokeswoman Amy Kleiner said.

J. Brent Olmstead, the business association’s natural resources director, said the fact that the law would not be permanent would have left business exposed to potential liability so that no one would have invoked the law.

The measure was modeled after laws on the books in Oregon and Colorado that allow companies to investigate their properties for toxic contaminants and then arrange for cleanup without facing regulatory penalties.

House Environmental Affairs Chairman Dolores Crow, R-Nampa, said an attempt would be made to iron out differences over the summer and fall.