ASSE Opposes Effort to Undercut Development of Independent Consensus Standards
In a comment to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR), ASSE strongly opposed possible rulemaking to amend OFR’s regulations defining “reasonably available” or change current requirements related to materials incorporated by reference (IBR) in regulations published in the Federal Register, as sought in a petition to OFR. At issue is whether and how voluntary consensus standards should be made available when cited in a regulation. ASSE said any action risks overlooking the value consensus standards play in protecting workers, ignores the positive conversation that is already changing how voluntary consensus standards are being made available, and, ultimately, threatens the ability of independent SDOs like ASSE from hosting the development of such standards.