(1) In order to encourage owners and operators of facilities and persons conducting other activities regulated under this chapter or its federal counterparts or extensions, both to conduct voluntary internal environmental audits of their compliance programs and management systems and to assess and improve compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements, an environmental audit privilege is created to protect the confidentiality of communications relating to voluntary internal environmental audits.
(2) An environmental audit report shall be privileged and shall not be admissible as evidence in any civil or administrative legal action, including enforcement actions.