§ 25-21,256.Environmental audit; use as evidence prohibited; exceptions.

Section 25-21,256 is the heart of Nebraska’s environmental-audit privilege. An environmental audit prepared under sections 25-21,254 through 25-21,264 is not admissible as evidence in any civil or administrative proceeding, or in an enforcement proceeding under local ordinances. Neither the person who conducted the audit nor anyone to whom its results were disclosed can be compelled to testify about any matter that was the subject of the audit and is addressed in it.

That protection is not absolute. Subsection (1) lists four situations where the privilege does not block use of the audit: where sections 25-21,257 through 25-21,259 allow it; where an agency with regulatory authority obtains and reviews the audit for the limited purpose of confirming the audit exists and checking whether an exception applies; where the audit concerns the generation, storage, transport, or disposal of radioactive material or low-level or high-level radioactive waste; and, most broadly, where the violations at issue would likely result in, or have resulted in, a significant adverse impact on public health or the environment — no protection applies there at all.

The limited regulatory review the section allows is narrow by design: the agency may look only to confirm the audit exists and to check for an exception, not to mine the audit for evidence of a violation to use directly in an enforcement action, unless one of the other exceptions independently applies.