Testimony of Mr. H. W. Porterfield President, Consulting Resources, Inc. Before the SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATION AND GOVERNMENT INFORMATION On REINVENTING GOVERNMENT: USING NEW TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE SERVICE AND CUT COSTS Held at 9:30 AM, Thursday, 2 December, 1993 Room 342 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, and Ladies and Gentlemen. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. Your letter inviting me to appear here stated that the EnviroText Project is an exciting innovation in providing access to environmental rules and regulations. I whole heartedly agree with you. My presentation today consists of: a. A prepared statement which addresses what EnviroText is, the rationale, need for and background of EnviroText and what EnviroText contains. b. Concluding this statement, we will demonstrate EnviroText for you. We are connected to your monitors with a lap top computer. A member of my staff, Mr. Jeff Lucas, will connect, through a telephone line to Champaign, Illinois and present environmental requirements., real time on the screen for you to see. We have prepared a brief search scenario, which will give you an overview of EnviroText. In the interest of time, we have not structured this scenario to show you the total depth and power of EnviroText's search capability. When we have concluded the demonstration, we will be happy to answer your questions If you wish to learn more about the depth, strengths and details of EnviroText, we will be happy to meet in your offices with your staff at a time convenient to you.. c. At the conclusion of the live demonstration, I suggest several ideas for the further development of EnviroText. EnviroText is short for EnviroText Retrieval System. EnviroText consists of a computerized information retrieval system with a large database of environmental requirements. It literally is a desk top environmental requirements library. It is an EPA initiated, multi-agency supported system housed at the University of Illinois at Champaign. The computer program for EnviroText and much of the database has been developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) at Champaign, Illinois. One of the documents I have provided you is a small brochure which briefly introduces EnviroText. You will note that this brochure asks the question of "How clean is clean?" The answer to that question is another question. "To which law do you wish to clean a particular site?" I am sure this subcommittee would be the first to agree that a multitude of environmental requirements have been promulgated over the years since the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In fact, these twenty-three-plus years have seen an "explosion" in environmental legal requirements. Today, literally thousands of statutes, regulations, cases, policies, and other legal requirements create a landscape which complicates interpretation, enforcement, compliance, and subsequent lawmaking. Some learned practitioners claim environmental law has exceeded the complexities of the internal revenue code. The cumulative impact of all relevant and numerous sources of law form an interlocked system of legal requirements which must be considered when faced with an environmental problem. In order to fully appreciate the magnitude of this challenge, let me reiterate the sources of federal law which must be dealt with in each environmental case. Under the federal sources of law there are: EXECUTIVE BRANCH EXECUTIVE ORDERS: Orders issued by the President as an administrative proclamation. REGULATIONS: Specific requirements are developed and implemented by an appropriate department or agency as a means of implementing statutes. ADMINISTRATIVE ORDERS AND RULINGS: Certain administrative boards have the legal authority to resolve disputes arising from laws within the jurisdiction of that particular department or agency. INTERNATIONAL TREATIES: Are negotiated under executive branch authority (normally the State Department) and submitted to the Senate for ratification. INTERAGENCY AGREEMENTS: Agreements are negotiated between departments and agencies and may cover a wide variety of issues and programs. LEGISLATIVE BRANCH STATUTES: Laws passed directly by Congress, and to be implemented by a specific department or agency. ARTICULATED REGULATION: The recent trend in legislation has been for Congress to include many specific requirements within the statute, rather than requiring the implementing department or agency to guess as to the intent of Congress. LEGISLATIVE OVERRIDE BY CASELAW: The legislature is supreme in that, absent unconstitutional matters, legislation may override caselaw interpretations by changing the statute. JUDICIAL BRANCH CASELAW INTERPRETATION: Affects the impact of the law in the jurisdiction in which the decision is issued. DECLARATION OF UNCONSTITUTIONALITY: There are occasions when a particular law is determined to be unconstitutional, and therefore not valid. In addition to all the above, we have 50 states and 4 territories plus the District of Columbia with their own, equally complicated laws and regulations. We have interstate compacts, interbasin agreements, acquifer compacts, substance concentration requirements, etc. The EPA Superfund Program recognized this dilemma and developed a new acronym, ARARs. ARARs means applicable or relevant and appropriate requirements. The process of defining ARARs became a very time consuming and laborious process. In fact, it created a lot of "billable hours" for lawyers and consultants. Again, the superfund program, recognizing the need to do a more accurate, timely and cost effective job of defining ARARs, decided to build a computerized tool. Therein lies the birth of EnviroText. This project was initiated in FY91 as a joint effort between EPA and DOE. EnviroText is now a multi-agency project with DOE, DOD, U.S. Army, DOI and DOJ, providing monies to EPA. EPA in turn funds CERL through a grant to develop and bring on line EnviroText. We have identified some 150 federal environmental laws which represent the majority of federal environmental requirements. These 150 federal laws have been abstracted into layman's terms and both the abstracts and full text are now on line. When EnviroText is fully implemented, it will contain: Abstracted Federal Laws Full Text Federal Laws Full Text State Laws (not now available) Federal Facilities Compliance Act Abstracted Federal and State Regulations Full Text Federal Regulations Full Text State Regulations (not yet available) Federal Register (not yet available) Unified Agenda of Federal Regulations Congressional Record (not yet available) Congressional Update (not yet available) U.S./Indian Treaties Indian Tribal Codes (not yet available) International Agreements (not yet available) International Treaties (not yet available) NCP Compendium of Superfund Publications ARARs RODs National Register of Historic Places State Historic Preservation Officers Wetlands Fact Sheets and Information Outstanding Rivers List River Conservation Directory 40 Most Asked Questions on NEPA Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations Report of National Performance Review Revision of OMB Circular No. A-130 We have recently completed the Beta text of the system and EnviroText is now in the pilot phase. The purpose of a B-Test is to uncover any quirks, bugs, and user hostile aspects of a given computer program. The schedule currently calls for EnviroText to go on line as a fully operational program in the fall of 1994. Mr. Chairman, I have worked in both the federal government and the environmental and information consulting world for over thirty years. I have seen a lot of federal programs come and go. I have seen the "wheel reinvented" several times. However, in the last two years, I have had the privilege to work on two federal programs which are outstanding successes. EnviroText is one of those programs. The EPA Superfund Program has received criticism for many things. However, I firmly believe the superfund program office should be a given a big pat on the back for recognizing the magnitude of the problems associated with ARARs, and developing a tool to assist in resolving the ARARs deleniation. The Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has done an outstanding job in developing and implementing EnviroText and other computerized management tools. However, there is little CERL can do without continued support and funding from the supporting agencies. There are currently some areas of the EnviroText development for which CERL is underfunded. Certainly the EPA should be the best source of environmental requirements. They do not know themselves how many regulations they have promulgated. If I may quote from a statement made by the EPA Administrator, Ms. Carol Browner, in September 1993: "We all know that environmental laws - and therefore environmental regulations - are growing more and more complicated. It's even complicated to find out what the rules are. Local officials have pointed out that the right information has been very difficult to find, and then when they do find it, it's very confusing. As a result, one of the first things EPA needs to do is let everyone know just what they are responsible for in a way they can understand." If I could speak with Ms. Browner I would say, you've got it. EnviroText works! Use it! Support it! Because of agency inaction during what appears to be a prolonged reorganization, EnviroText may be delayed but hopefully will not die. Mr. Chairman, with your permission we will now demonstrate EnviroText. Afterwards, I would like to offer a few closing remarks. DEMONSTRATION Mr. Chairman, the Superfund Program's charter is somewhat more limited than EPA's overall charter. EnviroText should, at the very least, be elevated to an overall agency program and adequately supported. EnviroText is a system which should be available to governments, industry, foreign countries, and international organizations. We demonstrated EnviroText at the 1992 superfund conference. One attendee from the Swedish Government was there to learn more about the U.S. regulations on concentration of specific polluting substances. His job was to re-write some of the Swedish regulations. We ran a quick search, found what he wanted, printed it out and he went away happy. In fact, EPA received a nice letter of thanks. EnviroText will not (in my estimation) meet the scheduled goal to be "on-line" in late 1994 and beyond, the way things are now. During the EPA reorganization, practically all work on EnviroText has ceased. The money is there, the hours are there, the contractor and grants are in place, but there seems to be no one there to (throw the switch) and sign the papers. Since there is a crying demand for EnviroText on the part of Governments -- Federal, State, local and even the private sector, I can only hope that someone someplace else doesn't spend a lot of money in the interim, reinventing "this wheel." Mr. Chairman, your invitation to me to speak here today asked that I talk about how the EnviroText system could simplify compliance for businesses. Sir, I believe the time has come for a coming together of information. There are more management information systems for environmental issues than one could ever have imagined a few short years ago. My company recently conducted a study of DOD and DOE concerning their programs in pollution prevention and mechanisms for keeping track of their progress. We identified and evaluated some 206 separate information systems. EPA alone has published a directory of all their information systems. In my opinion a separate project office should be established which could cut across all federal offices, bring together the best parts of the various systems and put into place one environmental information system. This system would have two parts: 1) a requirements part (EnviroText already has that), and 2) a technology part. (There are numerous technology and technology transfer systems which would be quickly combined.) This mega-environmental information system would have a service center manned with technically competent professionals where people desiring information could contact the service center, the service center would query the system and provide the answers. This could be run on a "users-fee basis." It has been shown that an average professional making a query of an information system takes about 8 minutes. A computer can do the same query in about 30 seconds. A service center staffed with competent people and equipment with expert systems would be far more cost effective. When the mega-environmental information system concept has been finalized, a competitive procurement process should be initiated between private enterprises, not-for-profit organizations, and educational institutions to implement the system. Note Mr. Chairman that there is currently no schedule for EnviroText being available to businesses. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you. If we may help in any way, we will be more than happy to do so and I am happy to answer any questions. Let me also reiterate that we will be happy to meet with members of your staff to further explore, describe, and/or demonstrate EnviroText.