CROMERR.net is an informational and networking site provided by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) and Premirus Corporation to assist other organizations that are subject to CROMERR Requirements in their compliance efforts. ODEQ and its contractor, Premirus, have worked through the CROMERR application process with the US EPA and have received approval by the EPA. Oklahoma expects to be fully compliant and fully operational on its CROMERR portal in early 2009.

This site has been set up to provide other organizations with access to the Oklahoma application to the EPA and describe Oklahoma’s approach to CROMERR. In the near future, a working prototype version of the portal will be added to this site, along with a general discussion group to allow organizations subject to CROMERR to discuss solutions and approaches to CROMERR compliance.

Oklahoma's application has been approved by the EPA. The Federal REgister publication from October 7, 2008 and the approval letter from the EPA are linked below.

CROMERR, an acronym for the phrase “Cross Media Electronic Reporting Rule,” was adopted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2005, for the purpose of providing a unified legal framework for electronic reporting under all of EPA's environmental regulations. CROMERR specifies the requirements for states, tribes and local governments that operated delegated programs to accept electronic reporting, including electronic signatures, from regulated facilities under most environmental regulations. Once a system is put in place that satisfies the requirements of CROMERR, regulated facilities can file electronic reports instead of paper reports, reducing the amount of paper created and transferred, and thereby reducing the cost of reporting and compliance monitoring for both the facilities and the agency operating the delegated program.

The Oklahoma approach to CROMERR compliance is encompassed in the Oklahoma Electronic Reporting System (ERS), a single portal for all document submission for both state and federal programs. The portal recognizes varying requirements for submission, and controls the submission of documents to ensure that the requirements for submission of documents complies with the level of verification required by the type of document submitted. Representatives of regulated entities, usually referred to as signatories, navigate to the portal, sign in, answer questions that validate their identity, and submit digitally signed documents to the system. These documents are then validated, stored, and routed to the appropriate authority within the agency for acceptance or rejection. This portal can also deliver human readable format (HRF) copies of documents and can create and deliver internally signed documents that can then be validated as having been generated by the regulating entity.

The Oklahoma approach uses Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), digital signatures, and secure encrypted transmission to accept and validate submissions. ERS is implemented as a web portal gateway to the agency’s Edoctus™ Document Management System, with digital signature verification, document archival and retention, issuance of new digital signature certificates and all other operational processes implemented as business rules within the rules engine of Edoctus.

For more information on the Oklahoma CROMERR project contact Tom Copeland at the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality. Tom's phone number is (405) 702-0164.