Regulatory information systems The next generation of environmental
management
Barbara J. Goldsmith Environmental Research & Technology, Inc. (ERT) Concord, Mass. 01742
The number of federal and state environmental regulations affecting industrial activities grew explosively during the past decade and continues to grow at a substantial rate. In 1982, the federal government issued 2077 individual documents affecting Title 40 (Protection of Environment) of the Code of Federal Regulations ( C F R ) ( / ) . Most states also issued large numbers of new or changed regula tions, exceeding the output of the fed eral government. As a result, industrial operators face the enormously chal lenging task of keeping current with changing regulatory requirements and the compliance status of their opera tions. Λ single vinyl chloride manu facturing plant, for example, may be subject to over 450 individual regula tory requirements under the federal Clean Air and Resource Conservation and Recovery Acts alone, and to al most the same number of state and local requirements (2). The problem Individual companies bear the bur den of monitoring environmental reg ulations to determine the applicability of specific requirements to their oper ations and to develop compliance plans. This means that each company must sift through a large group of en vironmental regulations, searching for regulatory requirements affecting in dividual facilities. While companies have access to several environmental 306A
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regulatory reporting services and government publications, these resources do not define which requirements affect an individual corporation, its operating divisions, or its individual plants. Even a large staff assigned solely to tracking environmental laws and regulations cannot readily identify all potential requirements or determine their applicability to particular operations because of the innate complexity of the regulations. This problem is magnified when a company operates different types of facilities in diverse locations. For such a company, identifying environmental regulatory requirements often becomes fragmented as disparate elements of the organization attempt to undertake this task, creating inefficiency through duplication of effort. Environmental regulations involve extensive, detailed language and nonstandard formats, hindering the organization of regulatory compliance information. Environmental regulatory tracking is further impeded by frequent changes in requirements, which are issued at irregular intervals, by changes in plant-specific operating parameters (which in turn may affect the applicability of the regulations),
and by personnel turnover in operating firms. Despite these difficulties, corporate managers and plant operators need to know the specific environmental regulatory requirements that apply to their operations on a continuing basis to ensure compliance and to provide information for efficient corporate planning. For example, a company may need to: • undertake a compliance audit of a facility (or group of facilities) to
TABLE 1
Sample framework for structuring environmental information in a programspecific regulatory summary Statutory authority •
Regulations
• Activities regulated • Activities excluded from regulation •
Agencies
•
Requirements
• Penalties for noncompliance • Compliance date • Regulatory terminology
avoid noncompliance penalties and to ensure cost-effectiveness of pollution controls; • determine (or demonstrate) compliance with the terms of operating permits or compliance orders; • identify environmental costs in corporate planning, including the need to file disclosures concerning capital and operating expenditures for pollution control; • assess long-term environmental risks and liabilities; or • determine the "environmental viability" of planned new or expanded facilities. Management of information Centralized monitoring of regulatory developments would make the process of sorting out regulatory requirements much more efficient. An information system that organizes environmental regulations in terms of the actual regulatory requirements for specific facility operations, with simplified and immediate access to the information, would better serve the needs of both corporate environmental managers and plant operating personnel. Achieving this goal requires a
FIGURE 1
Uses of environmental management system information
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TABLE 2
Condensation of the Clean Air Act into program-specific requirements affecting industrial users Program 1:
New source performance standards (NSPS)
Program 2:
National emission standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP)
Program 3:
Prevention of significant deterioration (PSD)
Program 4:
Nonattainment
Program 5:
Motor vehicle emissions
Program 6:
Aircraft emissions
Program 7:
Fuel registration
Program 8:
Fuel regulation
Program 9:
Delayed compliance orders (DCOs) and other state implementation plan (SIP) variances
Program 10
Stack heights
Program 11
Vapor recovery
Program 12
Imminent endangerment
Program 13
Employee protection
Program 14
Records, entry, and audit
method to codify facility-specific information and to efficiently search all environmental regulatory information applicable to that facility. Both the environmental regulatory information and the operational information must be updated continuously to provide useful management information. A management system Computerized data bases used extensively in other professions (e.g., L E X I S and W E S T L A W , which are used by the legal profession) have proven to be effective search and retrieval systems for particularly large amounts of information. Similarly, a computerized data base of environmental regulatory information can serve as a primary reference resource for industrial operators. The usefulness of an environmental regulatory information system is determined by several factors such as the types of information included, the structure and format of the information coding and retrieval system, and the flexibility and ease of access for the user. Users, representing various divisions or functions (e.g., operational, engineering, planning, legal) within a company typically require different types and levels of detail of information. Figure 1 shows the range of applications by different users and the corresponding kinds of information needed. Many interrelationships between users, applications, and information types exist; some examples are indicated. A wide range of environmental information is required to fulfill the needs of all user groups in a company. 308A
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In addition to identifying direct compliance requirements, daily developments in the environmental field provide important "intelligence" on regulatory trends that may, in turn, bear upon a company's compliance strate-
gies or broader corporate plans. Therefore, many companies also follow proposed federal and state legislative and regulatory actions, ongoing litigation and court decisions related to environmental regulatory issues, instances in which exemptions, variances, or delayed compliance orders are granted concerning regulatory requirements, and so forth. Companies may also want to keep up with scientific and technological studies containing background information and technical interpretation of the environmental, social, or economic costs and benefits associated with a regulatory action. Since no single environmental management information system presently offers a compendium of these diverse types of environmental information, companies must use multiple resources to obtain information on the full range of environmental regulatory matters. These types of information can be incorporated into an environmental information system to provide an expanded information base for corporate decision making on environmental issues. Identification of the environmental regulatory requirements affecting an industrial operation requires the
FIGURE 2
Schematic diagram of an environmental management information system
FIGURE 3
Illustration of how environmental compliance requirements applicable to the Louisiana VCM plant are generated for a single program under TSCA
merging of two distinct sets of information: regulatory information and facility-specific operating information. Because both sets of information are subject to change, their intersection must be tracked continually. Automated environmental information management systems now becoming available merge these two data sets. Figure 2 displays this concept. Environmental regulation data base For greater efficiency, most users require program-specific regulatory reports. Moreover, the automated data base must conform to a "three C s " specification: It must be comprehensive, current, and correct if it is to serve as the primary reference source for environmental regulatory information. How should this information be organized? By way of example, Table 1 lists the category headings being used to organize environmental regulations in the E N V I R O N E T information service that Environmental Research & Technology, Inc. ( E R T ) has developed for industrial clients. This format is used for each program mandated
Types of available regulatory information 3 Full text publication of federal and state environmental laws/regulations B u r e a u of National A f f a i r s (BNA) Environment Reporter Abstracts of legislative and regulatory activity Congressional Research Service, Inc. C o n g r e s s i o n a l R e c o r d A b s t r a c t s (CRECORD) Newletters Inside EPA Case law summaries LEXIS Bibliographic data bases Environment Information Center ENVIROLINE Discipline-specific data bases BNA C H E M L A W Facility-specific data bases Environmental Research & Techn o l o g y , Inc. (ENVIRONET) * Companies may be required to use multiple resources to obtain information on the full range of environmental regulatory matters.
under an individual environmental law. For example, Table 2 illustrates that the highly complex Clean Air Act can be organized into 14 specific programs that place direct compliance requirements on industrial operators. Level of detail in the available regulatory descriptions varies as needed from short summaries, to standard format descriptions of requirements, to the full legal text. Most industrial users indicate that they are interested primarily in environmental regulatory information that directly affects their facilities, and that what they need most are summaries of regulations that specifically create compliance requirements. Once a program has been fully documented in the environmental data base, it can be updated continuously. Facility-specific information The operating information listed under facility-specific information in Figure 2 is used to determine the applicability of specific regulatory requirements to individual facilities. This requires the careful construction of a Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 17, No. 7, 1983
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user profile questionnaire that defines process control and operating parameters, in appropriate levels of detail, to enable correlation between individual regulatory requirements and their applicability to a specific operation. The questionnaire is then completed for each operation defined (e.g., an operating division or an individual plant). Proper structuring of information contained in the questionnaire provides the basis for determining the applicability of a specific regulatory requirement to the operation of interest. A simple example: Do you own or operate a "nitric acid production unit" that commenced construction or modification after Aug. 17, 1971? Yes No This question is designed to determine whether an industrial operation is subject to the New Source Performance Standards for nitric acid plants under the Clean Air Act. Since "nitric acid production unit" has a specific meaning in the context of this question, the definition for this term is included as part of the questionnaire. The facility profile is updated whenever a change occurs in operations or regulatory requirements. Merging data sets Merging the environmental data base and the information contained in the facility-specific profile will produce a listing of regulatory requirements affecting the industrial operation. Computer software can correlate answers to questions in the facility profile to specific regulatory requirements contained in the environmental data base. A "yes" answer indicates the requirement is applicable, and a " n o " answer deletes the requirement as not applicable, thereby producing a regulatory summary containing only those requirements applicable to the specific operation. Continuous updating of both the general environmental regulatory data base and the facility-specific profiles provides users with current regulatory information affecting their particular operations. Printed listings of requirements are available directly from the computer. Users may also want to retrieve information using an on-line system. Case example The following example of a chemical manufacturing plant in Louisiana illustrates the complexity of environmental compliance requirements faced by a single industrial plant. It also shows how an environmental infor310A
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mation management system can reduce this complexity by "selecting" only the directly applicable compliance requirements. The scope of the complete environmental management task becomes apparent if this example is expanded to include all plants and process units in a major manufacturing company. The company in the example operates a vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) manufacturing plant in Louisiana. It produces ethylene dichloride on-site, using ethylene and chlorine as raw materials, and ferric chloride as a catalyst. The ethylene dichloride is then reacted to produce gaseous vinyl chloride monomer. By-products from the process include trichloroethane, ethyl chloride, ethylene dichloride tars, and VCM tars. The principal environmental issues associated with this plant include: Air • emissions of fugitive air contaminants from process equipment; • emissions of sulfur oxides, volatile organic compounds, and particulates
from point sources such as vents, incinerators, and other equipment; and • emissions of hazardous air pollutants. Water • neutralization of acidic effluents; • phase separation of water and organic compound mixtures; • wastewater streams requiring biochemical oxygen demand treatment; • discharge of storm water; and • precipitation of metal ion solutions. Hazardous wastes • generation of metallic sludges; • generation of tank bottoms; and • generation of process filters and related items containing hazardous constituents. Responses to a user profile questionnaire for this plant were used to prepare a summary of applicable environmental compliance requirements. Figure 3 illustrates the relationship between the questionnaire, the environmental data base, and the resulting
TABLE 3
Federal environmental statutes applicable to the Louisiana VCM plant • Clean Air Act • Clean Water Act • Resource Conservation and Recovery Act • Toxic Substances Control Act • Rivers and Harbors Act • Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act ("Superfund") • Safe Drinking Water Act • Atomic Energy Act
TABLE 4
Programs under RCRA applicable to the Louisiana VCM plant • Determination of hazardous wastes • Notification of hazardous waste activity • Generation of hazardous wastes • Transportation of hazardous wastes • Hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities: Permits and interim status General treatment, storage, and disposal Containers Tanks Waste piles Chemical, physical, and biological treatment •
Inspections
• Monitoring, testing, and analysis • Imminent hazards • Employee protection
regulatory summary. The example in this figure concerns polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) under the Toxic Substances Control Act ( T S C A ) . Merging the two data sets indicates that this plant is subject to environ mental compliance requirements mandated under at least eight indi vidual federal environmental statutes (see Table 3). Further, this plant is subject to numerous individual pro grams under each of these statutes (see example for R C R A in Table 4). In addition, it is subject to environmental compliance requirements mandated under multiple Louisiana state regu lations for air, solid waste, and water (see Table 5), and numerous individual programs defined under each of these
regulations (see example for air pol lution in Table 6). A thorough profile for an individual industrial plant typically can be com pleted in a matter of days. Once a fa cility is characterized, a consolidated summary of applicable regulatory re quirements is created that can be updated periodically without addi tional research by the user. By com parison, manual gathering and track ing of environmental regulations in cluding applicability determinations and monitoring changing require ments, require nearly full-time com mitment of one or more professional staff for a single industrial facility. A corporation can use the automated process to generate regulatory infor
TABLE 5
Louisiana environmental statutes/regulations applicable to the example VCM plant Statutes
Louisiana Environmental Affairs Act (Title 30, Chapter 11)
Corresponding regulations
Louisiana Environmental Control Commission air quality regulations
Louisiana solid waste management program rules and regulations Louisiana hazardous waste management plan Louisiana wastewater discharge rules and regulations Louisiana water quality criteria Louisiana Health Act (Title 40, Chapter 1)
Louisiana drinking water regulations
TABLE 6
Programs under Louisiana air quality regulations applicable to the example V C M plant Construction and operating permits
mation specific to each facility but the monitoring and updating functions then become centralized and simulta neous processes across all facilities. This results in significant savings of time and money and ensures that the information is comprehensive, current, and correct. Recapping An environmental regulatory in formation system can greatly improve efficiency by reducing the resources needed to track regulations and by spreading the cost of detailed tracking across a large number of industrial facilities. An accurate and up-to-date basis for compliance review is provided by the single, comprehensive data base of current environmental require ments. Codification of facility-specific information simplifies the process of identifying environmental require ments that are applicable to a compa ny and its individual operations. This system provides information that can be integrated into company-wide quality assurance or compliance audit programs, inform environmental managers and plant personnel con cerning the specific environmental compliance requirements affecting their operations, and provide base in formation for use in corporate plan ning to ensure more efficient opera tions. A regulatory information system also reduces the risks of disrupting operations or of penalties that might result from inattention to regulatory requirements. References ( 1 ) This includes 805 final rule documents, 489 proposed rule-making documents and 783 notices. Source: Information compiled by the Regulatory Information Service Center, Ex ecutive Office of the President, 1983. (2) Source: ERT.
• General permit requirements • Nonattainment permit requirements • Prevention of significant deterioration permit requirements Emission standards and limitations • General source emission standards • Control of visible emissions • Particulate and leaded particulate emissions from process sources • Particulate emissions from fuel-burning equipment • Organic compound emissions • Sulfur oxide emissions • New source performance standards • National emission standards for hazardous air pollutants Operational practices and limitations • Prevention of air pollution emergency episodes • Open burning • Emission inventory and reporting requirements Ambient air quality standards
Barbara J. Goldsmith, α specialist in en vironmental regulation and industrial planning, is senior program manager of ERT's Regulatory Information Services Division, which provides computer-based environmental management services to' industry. She holds a Master of City Planning (MCP) in environmental anal ysis from Harvard University and previ ously served as manager of ERT's office in Washington, D.C. Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 17, No. 7, 1983
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