All facilities must be in compliance with all state and/or federal laws/rules regarding emissions. For facilities subject to New Source Review (NSR), the facility must be compliant with all applicable regional and state standards pertaining to NSR.
Now do you think they will accept that we have "been visited by the EPA 8 times", even though EPA has no record or MDEQ has never been approched by this group, will qualify. I don't think so.
Making an application is easy (if they have done so) but the devil is in those pesky details. Lots of information available on this site I would recommend spending some time reading.