An Automated System for Determining Applicability of Regulations

Environmental personnel at both federal facilities and in the private sector face the daunting task of tracking regulations at the federal, state, and local levels. Determining which regulations may apply to sources at a facility, whether these sources are in compliance with applicable regulations, and what to do should a source by found to be out of compliance are all time intensive tasks which require a significant level of technical expertise. As part of the development of the Air Compliance Advisor (ACA) software program a regulations data engine was developed using EXL, the special purpose programming language developed for the ACA. The EXL programming language is well suited to the construction of a means for testing the potential applicability of a set of regulations. This paper provides an overview of the various type of regulations that environmental personnel must consider, the software programs currently available for regulations, and the development of an alternative method for treating regulations.