We are concerned with a control problem related to the vanishing viscosity approximation to scalar conservation laws. We investigate the Γ -convergence of the control cost functional, as the viscosity coefficient tends to zero. A first-order Γ -limit is established, which characterizes the measure-valued solutions to the conservation laws as the zeros of the Γ -limit. A second-order Γ -limit is then investigated, providing a characterization of entropic solutions to conservation laws as the zeros of the Γ -limit.
