ASSE Opposes Effort to Undercut Development of Independent Consensus Standards

In a comment to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR), ASSE strongly opposes 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 says any action risks overlooking the value that consensus standards play in protecting workers, ignores the positive exchanges that are changing how voluntary consensus standards are being made available, and, ultimately, threatens the ability of independent standards-development organizations such as ASSE from hosting the development of such standards.