Environmental, health, and safety (EHS) due diligence typically checks what’s in the ground. The compliance record above ground transfers at closing too.

Every buyer of an operating facility, whether through an asset purchase or a corporate acquisition, knows to ask what’s in the ground. Soil and groundwater contamination can follow a property for decades, and under the federal Superfund law, a new owner can end up responsible for contamination it did not cause.

The factors that can move a violation into a criminal investigation

Last week’s issue covered the off-ramps, the factors that make regulators less likely to pursue enforcement. This week covers the other direction.

Most environmental and safety violations never become enforcement cases. Those that don’t usually share a few traits that are within a company’s control.

Most companies tell their EHS story at the enterprise level. Injury and illness rates are down across the portfolio. Emissions intensity is reduced. Violations are lower company wide. Those are real accomplishments, and they’re worth highlighting. But that’s not how regulators look at a company.

Eighteen months into EPA’s “largest deregulatory effort in U.S. history,” it’s easy for compliance executives to feel like the ground has dramatically shifted.

In EHS and compliance circles the term “monitor” can be used loosely to describe anything from an outside auditor to a consultant reviewing internal processes and reporting.