CD-ROM beats federal paper trail

Despite the national focus on unfunded mandates and attempts to roll back or weaken a number of federal laws, complying with federal regulations remains one of the major concerns for both businesses and local governments.

Indeed, adhering to the demands of federal law can be quite daunting. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) alone has promulgated more than 15,000 regulations in 15 volumes that are applicable to a variety of industries.

But, many local officials are unaware of the regulations that govern their operations because research methods for government regulations have been outdated until recently.

Although the federal government has some electronic publishing, accessing federal regulations is still limited to visiting a local library and looking through information, most of which is not indexed or categorized, in stacks of manuals.

Now, however, some computer firms are addressing the need for easy access to various regulations by compiling them according to subject and putting them on disk. Online database services allow local governments or businesses to select a topic or procedure and search for regulations that may apply.

Different types of online services are available, and selecting the research means depends on several factors: the volume of information needed, the format desired and how often the information will be accessed. Purchasing floppy or compact discs with large compilations of indexed topics is better for larger, more broad searches, and is less costly than online services.

Online services, which can be accessed by the user or a third party, are more suitable for periodic searches on specific topics. Also, hourly subscription rates for many such firms can be quite expensive.

The format desired for the information will also affect the selection process. Some research firms paraphrase the text of the regulations, while others offer the ordinances verbatim.

Deciding between the two would depend largely on whether compliance from a loose translation is adequate. Additionally, some firms provide case studies and examples of how other local governments or businesses are complying with federal regulations.

Examples of compliance by other businesses in similar industries also are available through trade associations, which keep members informed about changing industry requirements and conduct research about regulations that affect other businesses in the industry.

Franchising is another method of keeping abreast of current information governing industry procedures. Franchise experts in the particular area of interest can provide helpful information about compliance measures.

Federal regulations computer databases have an added advantage of being more current than the printed version, and, depending on the industry, as many as 3,000 changes can be made daily. Since federal regulations manuals are updated every July and printed in December, many ordinances are no longer current when the new manual is printed.

Online services shorten the time between ruling and compliance for municipalities by offering databases that are updated more frequently than the Federal Register, which updates monthly.

Most CD-ROM regulations publishers update their databases dailys and can offer customers a finished product in as little as two weeks.

Some of the database packages include federal acquisition and tax regulations, OSHA and EPA regulations and the government sourcebook.