AI for environmental consulting, tested on Phase I reports and inspections you already signed.

A Phase I serves a federal purpose. EPA's All Appropriate Inquiries rule, 40 CFR Part 312, sets out the inquiry a buyer makes to claim CERCLA's innocent landowner defense or its bona fide prospective purchaser or contiguous property owner protections, and the same rule governs site assessments paid for with an EPA brownfields grant. Section 312.11 names ASTM E1527-21 as a standard that may be used to meet it, and E2247-23 for forestland and rural property. E1527-13 came off that list on February 13, 2024, and E2247-16 on June 24, 2025, so an old template that still cites either one stands out at once.

The environmental professional is a defined person. Section 312.10 requires a current PE or PG license with the equivalent of three years of full-time relevant experience, or a federal, state or tribal license or certification to perform the inquiry plus three years, or an engineering or science degree plus five years, or ten years of relevant experience. Anyone else may help, but only under that person's supervision or responsible charge. ASTM's practice says a Phase I must be performed by an environmental professional. Drafting help fits inside that line and never crosses it.

Buyers are not the only users. E1527-21 notes that the 2018 BUILD Act brought certain commercial tenants into the bona fide prospective purchaser definition, so a tenant signing a lease may want a Phase I too. For a deal with no acquisition, such as a lease or a refinance, the standard counts the assessment's viability from the date of the intended transaction. One Phase I desk can serve a buyer, a lender and a tenant in the same week, each with a different date to work back from.

The stormwater permits are in transition. EPA's 2022 Construction General Permit expires at 11:59 p.m. on February 16, 2027, and EPA gave notice of a proposed 2027 permit on August 3, 2026. Its industrial permit, the 2021 MSGP, expired on February 28, 2026 and stays in force by administrative continuance for facilities covered before then. Both apply only where EPA issues the permits itself: among the states that means Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New Mexico, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, most Indian country and a few other areas. Idaho took over industrial stormwater in July 2021. Everywhere else a state's own general permit governs, with its own schedule, thresholds and forms.

The answer key is already in your files. Each Phase I you issued sits next to the database report, the historical sources and the field notes it was written from. Each inspection has the inspector's notes and photos and the report the client's signatory signed. Your reviewer scores every draft against those finished documents before anything new is drafted.

One limit covers every job. The proof of concept never signs a report, and never makes your environmental professional's findings, opinions or conclusions, such as whether a condition is a recognized environmental condition. It never decides whether a property, site or facility complies, never submits anything to an agency, never contacts a client, lender, owner or agency, and works only on copies. Your environmental professional decides and signs.