SOLVED, fyi this handles 2yr and 4yr date checking (this century only)in a text field.
DECLARE bad_year EXCEPTION;
BEGIN
IF :NEWDATA.USER_1 > ' ' Then
if TO_CHAR(TO_DATE(:NEWDATA.USER_1, 'MM-DD-RRRR') ,'YYYY') > '2100' OR TO_CHAR(TO_DATE(:NEWDATA.USER_1, 'MM-DD-RRRR') ,'YYYY') < '2000' then...