systems in the testing of there are two things i don't think this case is about one it is not a mortgage bankers case and what we did argue well when you say that you're not talking about the subject matter right issue i also don't think it's a death squads case because frankly you were more i mean i mean maybe it's just a repackaging but you are arguing that this had sufficient substantive content that it still had to go through notic grounding system i'm sure this building is grounded grounded well but let's take somethings it easier for us to understand your oh car has an electrical system and you park things into it all the time and take it out and when your battery goes dead the mechanic checks the electrical system on the car he doesn't check all your fords in that and while judge williams you suggest that while anything you  expose it and then if you could explain to me whether my diagram in my head is wrong that would be helpful and i'm going to use the program policy manual the two thousand and three ferguson ok as as my guide here ok so  three things which gives as a part of a grounding system i agree you may not it understand you may not agree that they're part of one but i still want to know the pieces and it's got one two three number one is equipment grounding conductors these are the conductors used to connect the metal frames electrical equipment to the grounding electrode conductor so that's one thing right yes something that's a metal frame around whatever the piece of equipment is great can think of it best as you have a house you have an electrical box in the basement and it's nuts which is ok well see i don't want to think about it that way i want to think about a piece of i want to know what's wrong with what i'm thinking about you have a large piece of portable electronic equipment and i'll let her generator for example and i have it in my attic to make sure the air conditioner or the heater works when the storm comes imagine that ok and there is something or home fast which is the electrical grounding conductor then there is something called a grounding electrode conductor which they describe as the conductors connecting the grounding electrode to the equipment grounding conductor and then the bottom thing is the grounding electrodes which are the  did you have an electronic machine you plug in vaguely the extension cord and then hopefully with three prong plug he played into the outlet and at that point it is grounding electrode conductor correct it if it has a grounding alive if it has a third wire if one has a third wire right on that somewhere that doesn't conduct electricity except in the event of a short in which case the hope is that instead of going through my hand he will go through this third wires right yes ok so it is what is necessary to take to get the equipment i don't know the drill in housing of my drill why isn't all of that a system whoa you are let me say this this in the policy this is all the standard itself speaks of a groundings i don't want to know why this is why it's not a reasonable reading for this to be a grounding system it's three pieces all of which are necessary to complete the circle because otherwise the standard really doesn't fit our quarters here drill or extension and the reason is we're talking about a grounding system and looking back at the hitting pack and i case i'm on my pretend that didn't occur about some system that seem place just server or ground it doesn't make sense for expansion we have you can have it if you interpret talking about something that's stationary and fix it is reasonable the problem is that when you apply it to something by extension cords and our cores then it may be plugged in hundreds of times in a given year that you and not the rest of the standard doesn't fit the installation doesn't fit there are only moderated maybe there's just a lot of installations it's pretty easy to test these thin about a core a core is only a component of that system and the standard requires testing of the grounding system so frankly if you plug in a core in a sense you modify the system and again that doesn't that doesn't it doesn't fit your position is that nothing that has to be plugged into an outlet is part of a of a system so if there's huge electrical equipment but it's that says electrical grounding means to connect with the ground to make the earth part of the circuit that best the agency's definition that was a definition before the taconite case right so all it it does to disconnect it it is not unplugging for example large drilling one of these attacks are not mines that we're talking about has a trailing cable that goes back normally even to were substation or  not the same thing do you equate extension cords to that sort of drilling cable is to say this building is the equivalent of a shack with a homeless person it's not attached or installed into a power source right into a substation right which it ultimately is attached to the electrical grid yes all right some are only you have a very small drill sometimes it may have its own core other but conceptually it looks identical or at least identical him off that we would regard what the agency says as a reasonable reading of this rule tell me why that's not so that's not so because was a reasonable reading of the rule under our would that be the end of the case if you thought that it was you was ambiguous and then it was a reasonable reading of the full that the way this is all of standards are written twelve or twenty five twenty six and twenty seven actually applied to hand tools and that's something that would have to be privately if you will of the extension cord is only covered send it back to the a l j and he can i will be address the issue of whether this particular piece of equipment needs to be grounded because all we all know i'm not sure what it has to do with your argument is certainly not on this record but i'll think if you will hold that extension cords don't have to be tested i think at this point based on what the secretary has asserted then you'd probably have to and we had already that what that means but we haven't a all day decision said what they were doing was illegal you understand you have the agency's view in the in the manual right there no doubt about that yes and there's no doubt about the  that an ale jay's opinion is not presidential by itself it's not binding on the commission right so he knew that also so you know under any circumstance you know there's a risk that the commission would follow its manual rather than the  resistance doesn't make sense stanley doesn't make sense as they're trying to feed it to the system and feed it to anything that might be added to the system but there's no reason that both of them could be done exemption court right they could say that today but tomorrow they could say no we don't test every time you welcome it because what they are saying here is and it is not binding they can change it just like you changed and so what we're saying is you walk at the wall and figure out what the wall says and see if it makes sense for good morning and a fisa court my name is sarah johnson and i represent the secretary of labor this case is about an electoral standard that has the purpose of protecting minors from electric shock and electrocution and as perhaps would be helpful to walk through we were talking about what you were talking before about the components of a system and how that building now picture in your mind and there is one confusion that i'd like to clear up if i could the conductor in that extension cord is an equipment grounding conductor rather than a grounding electrode conductor and oh thanks so maybe if i could trace the path of the system is that it's very clear what the what the system entails so if you take for example the four hundred eighty volt welder inside the welder the ground wire would be attached to the metal casing of the welder then it and then the ground wire runs through the power cord and you correctly understood and when you are using an extension cord that ground problem would plug into the extension cord and then you have another ground wire running through the extension cord that's also going to make grounding conductor on the back side of the outlet you have another ground wire that's also an equipment grounding conductor that runs to the circuit breaker or fuse box and then at the circuit breaker fuse box the equipment grounding conductor connects with the grounding electrode conductor so that's include these equipment grounding conductors is that if the circuit breaker the fuse box that turns off the power to the equipment in the event of an electrical fault so when the if the welder were to have a short order some sort of we could have electricity in the can and the frame of the metal frame of the equipment with became energized the ground wire would send a signal all the way back to the circuit breaker to turn off the power source to the equipment and s and so you can actually have a problem in extension cords if they're not working that the resistance would what if you were it would be too high and so will what would happen if you had a high resistance in a corner would be it would take longer for that message to get back to the circuit breaker or fuse box and so you could have a lag time between when the quitman is energized through the electrical fault and when it turns out i'm just curious why you only require records of resistance testing and not continuity is that show how fast or slow it's moving exactly in your honor you also asked whether we test both continuity in rate and resistance on all of the elements and we test we require testing of continuity and resistance on both kinds of because you like you would get an error right problems in continuity are caused by brakes right or other things yes so the reason that it it's so important to test the equipment grounding conductors is because they're  and when you start talking about extension cords which the joy of an extension cord has been plugged into lots of things eight different things during the day and a different wall outlets steering the day but surely you don't mean that every one of every time you plug in an extension or if you installed a crown in system but the regulation also couldn't mean that critical components of the grounding system need not be tested on a problem with the regulation so extension cord plug it into the drill plug it into the outlet you'd say fine let's test it right then that's the first time you're doing it and then an hour later i go down with the power now i'm looking into the lights but is that a new installation or a modification because now it's an entirely different grounded system with the lights grounding system as opposed to the drills ground system and then the next hour it could be the screwdriver system there could be a more expansive reading of those two terms installation modification or narrower ones and every day in this case we're talking about that and more testing and know what we're to interpret in the regulation to see if this is consistent and we can see that you can't get deference to interpretation that is not consistent with the regulatory language and if the first time i plug in the drill that's an insulation i don't understand why when i plug in the lights the first time i plug in the lights with the same extension cord that electrocution then we could up all the standard is and the secretary's interpretation of what is reasonable when because it is in those terms or not absolutely preclude applying the tables are plugged in unplugged of resistance and that testing once a year is sufficient for that purpose and that that risk doesn't change whether it's plugged into a y or plugged into a drill that's a different kind of risk we're talking about is not the big you're worried about connection between the three prong plug on the drill and the three holes on the extension cord and so that was a nice tight good effective grounding system doesn't tell me at all that when i take the lighting system which the navy has an this system is tested in pieces and so so what it is doing here is is ensuring that each of these pieces has integrity that is tested initially upon modification to give it at the secretary could take a different interpretation in the future as to insulation in modification and the court would have to review whether that was a reasonable interpretation of those  own definition of her peer review now so i suppose you could make a for you for vagueness argument about this regulation but it hasn't been made each of these words can be attacked this is what happens in inconsistency in favor of the overriding purpose of the standard which is to protect minor safety and health to if these cables and ports are tested there's a very important component of the grounding system where d of course are there going to questions about th injury or illness if you went down and i sit in injury or illness if you're actually shocked or some likely that particular quarter of a particular time will be shorter ground what it means if i touch that equipment i won't get shot and that's all it means it doesn't mean that it will kick the resistance here and of course there's nothing in this game that says what's acceptable resistance for grounding system i will tell you that is my understanding the grounding resistance that they think of talk about her system is approximately twenty five ohms there was one case we cited in our brief maybe we'll talk about that there is no and i'm not aware in this secretary has not offering what is an acceptable resistance for an extension for it because it frankly doesn't make sense that that one small component you look at the whole system and the whole system is got a resistance of somewhere probably twenty five ohms or less which i'm not i that lasted holmes in high school so it's but it's not very much over a whole system particularly one like any of these systems that are involved  are in says i'm thirty four and box seventeen that is i have no idea what i can see i think tail is but they were installed on emergency lighting this action by the operator terminates this  babies and if you don't within that time is all of the time the reason why you may wedding get a withdrawal of our group are any withdraw from that area of the mine so there's a basement is one thing but you also we also got the fact that how do you figure out what all this means well here's the thing you're a mine operator and you've got to comply and him my experience is they want to comply just tell us what the rules are and in this case in this six that the courts have to be at examined annually so when you say you want all you want to know is what the rule is and you're happy to comply that's not exactly right you want this particular rule overturned yes i do yoga because i think