Document ID: OSHA-2013-0028-0013
Agency: osha
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2015-01-08T05:00Z

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

	+ + + + +

	OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND
	HEALTH ADMINISTRATION

	+ + + + +

	NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED TESTING LABORATORY
	STAKEHOLDER MEETING

	+ + + + +

	WEDNESDAY
	OCTOBER 22, 2014

	+ + + + +

              The Stakeholder Meeting met in the Frances Perkins Building, Cesar Chavez Auditorium, 200 Constitution Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C., at 8:58 a.m., Kevin Robinson, facilitator, presiding.

STAFF

KEVIN ROBINSON, Facilitator
AMANDA EDENS
LEE GRABEL
TOM HANNIGAN
TERRANCE ROACH

PRESENTERS

MILTON BUSH, American Council of Independent 	Laboratories
MIKE BUZARD, American Association for 	Laboratory Accreditation
ANDREW EVANS, GAMBICA
JÖRG ED. HARTGE, ZVEI
TODD LUCEY, Measurement, Control & 	Automation Association
PAUL MOLISKI, Intertek
KEITH MOWRY, Underwriters Laboratories
RAJ NATHAN, International Accreditation 	Service
STINA WALLSTRÖM, Orgalime

	T-A-B-L-E  O-F  C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

Introduction & Opening Remarks

       Amanda Edens	5

       Dr. David Michaels	5

       Kevin Robinson	13

Options for Using the Private Sector to
Increase the Efficiency of the NRTL Program

       Keith Mowry, Underwriters
       Laboratories	21

       Andrew Evans, GAMBICA	31
       
       Raj Nathan, IAS	39

       Shawn Paulsen, CSA Group	52
       
       Paul Moliski, Intertek	63

       Milton Bush, ACIL	70
       
       Todd Lucey, MCAA	76

       Mike Buzard, A2LA	88

Open Discussion	97

Options for Certification Marks
       Paul Moliski, Intertek	153

       Shawn Paulsen, CSA	157

       Todd Lucey, MCAA	164

       Jorge Hartge, ZVEI	171

       Keith Mowry, UL	176

       Milton Bush, ACIL	181
       
Questions & Comments	182

Options for Factory Inspection
       Todd Lucey, MCAA	201

       Stina Wallstrom, Orgalime	208

       Keith Mowry, UL	214

Questions & Comments	219

Option for Fees
       Kevin Robinson	256

NRTL Directive Update
       Kevin Robinson	257

Questions & Comments	271

	P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S
                                                                    (8:58 a.m.)
              MS. EDENS:  Good morning, glad to see you made it on an icky rainy day.  I'd like to kick it off, before I do some opening things, and Kevin sort of tells you about what the day is going to be like, we have a pretty full schedule.
              But first I'd like to introduce our Assistant Secretary, Dr. David Michaels.  He's been here, he's the longest running Assistant Secretary for OSHA.  And he's done a lot of great things.  And one of them is sort of pushing us to be more innovative in the NRTL program.  So, David?
              DR. MICHAELS:  Thank you, Mandy.  Kevin, and Tom and Lee, thank you all.  Thank you all for being here.  This is, we like doing these stakeholder meetings.  We always like to have input.
              
              OSHA listens, is one of our many slogans.  And you're very important NRTL stakeholders.  We work closely with you, and we really tried to refocus this program a little bit.  I think Mandy's done an excellent job thinking about ways we can move in some new directions.
              The testing industry, in fact all of industry, has changed in the last 25 years. But the NRTL program hasn't changed very much.  And we recognize that we really have to do things differently.
              We need to be more efficient, we need to be able to think about how our work interacts with you and how your work interacts with all the manufacturers and the users in all these electrical products around the world.
              So we're glad that so many people are here from laboratories.  Some of the international stakeholders have all come today to give us some input.
              
              Now, I know that we've made some changes in tracking which I think have made us much more efficient.  And we're now, we've cut down our average review time by about 50 percent since Mandy has joined the, has headed up our directorate that includes the NRTL program.
              So I think we're very proud of what we've done.  But I think we recognize we have a long way to go.  And we really are looking to you for some help.
              So what we did, as you all know, because that's why you're here, we issued this request for information to get some input from you.  We've asked a lot of questions, some questions about how we can work more closely with the private sector and make use of private sector data, how do we align our program with international standards?
              
              Because we have a very different economy than we did 25 years ago.  And we really, you know, the globalization that we've seen, that we've been a part of in many parts of OSHA, really have to be a part of the NRTL program as well.  We want to see how we can accept data from other testing organizations.
              So these are tough questions.  We're very optimistic that we can get some very good answers from you and begin this discussion.  And out of it will come a better program, better for you, better for the manufacturers and better for the workers in the United States who'll be safe, more safe as a result of this.
              So again, thank you all so much.  Thank you.  I think we have a great team who's going to listen to you and ask some questions of you.  And I think you'll have a very productive day.  So thank you so much.
              (Applause)
              
              MS. EDENS:  And thanks, David, for coming in.  I think that just shows sort of our Assistant Secretary's commitment to the program.  David is very busy.  He just spent three hours in an airport trying to get to our state planning meeting up in Niagara Falls and then came here.
              And then we have a lot of stuff going on, as you might imagine, with the recent sort of events around Ebola.  OSHA's been engaged in that process.  So David is, his time is very limited in where he can go out and do these things.  So I was very glad that he could come.
              You know, like he said, when I first came one of the things we talked about was a number of different programs within the directorate, and NRTL was one of them, where we wanted to push to be more innovative, to be more efficient.
              And that's the charge I gave to Dave Johnson when he came and when he left.  And that's the same charge that I'm giving to Kevin and whoever the new director is who we hope to get very soon.
              
              So, you know, I think at the heart of this, it is an OSHA program, so the heart of this is always worker safety.  So we always are bearing that in mind when we look at that.
              But we are very interested.  And I think some of you have seen the commitment we've put to improving the program and making it more efficient.  And I think some of you have benefitted by that.
              One thing I'd like to do is I would like to acknowledge some of the assistance we've had from NIST, Amy Phelps here, take a bow and get some applause here.  She's helped us a lot.
              We've turned to some of our interagency partners to sort of look at the ways they do things to give us some help about how we might align with international standards.
              
              And Amy has been very helpful to us, to help us think about ways to look at the ISO standards and how we can make our NRTL program more transparent so that people have an easier way of knowing what it means to be an applicant and what it takes to get approved.
              Because I think in the past you sort of had to dig through lots of Federal Registers to try to figure out what our policies were.
              And so I think what we're trying to do is put them all in one document, align them with ISO standards, where you're already doing some of those programs, so that you don't have to sort of double your efforts to comply with sort of the OSHA program.
              So those are some of the things we're doing.  And as David said, we have just sort of got some of the low hanging fruit at first, and now we're trying to get at some of the harder issues.  And that's the things we'll be working on the next few years.
              
              And Kevin has been instrumental in that.  He's been with the OSHA program for awhile.  And though Dave was sort of a very good process man, Kevin is really sort of the, and Tom, and Bernard you know, are sort of the brains of the outfit.
              They do have a lot of in depth electrical engineering experience and experience with NRTL's inside OSHA and outside OSHA.  So I think they bring a lot to bear, have really been the people, the knowledge that have been able to enable us to move forward.
              So I, without further ado, I'll just turn it over to Kevin to tell you about what our day's going to be about and how we hope to engage you and get some really good ideas and to respond to some of the things that we've sort of thrown out for thought.  So, Kevin?
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thank you.  Before we begin, I just want to orient you.  We are in the middle where the big smiley face is.  The first question I was asked today are where are the bathrooms?  There they are.
              
              If you go out to the elevator lobby, if you go out the doors, either go left or right, go past the elevator lobbies, they're sort of hidden in the hallways, you'll find the restrooms.
              The next question I was asked was where can I get coffee?  Take the elevators upstairs to the sixth floor.  There's a cafeteria up there, full service cafeteria.  It's also probably the easiest place for lunch.
              If you happen to be a smoker and this meeting just gets to you and you do need that break, again, the easiest place is upstairs on the sixth floor.  If you go out onto the outside terrace on the side that's overlooking the Washington Monument, that is the designated smoking area up on the sixth floor.
              
              In case of an emergency, we have two basic processes here.  First is a shelter in place.  We will stay here, we will not move.  We will, however, be joined by the children from the day care center.  Hopefully we don't have to do that today.
              If there is an emergency and we're asked to evacuate, we're going to actually go out the doors and we'll be exiting the doors behind the auditorium.  And we'll actually be meeting at the southwest corner Louisiana and C Street.
              It's probably about three blocks away from here.  Just follow the masses of people.  And we'll stay out there until such time as an all clear is given by a DOL representative.
              Just some of the players, my name is Kevin Robinson.  I'm the acting director for the Office of Technical Programs and Coordination Activities.
              Tom Hannigan is an electrical engineer, also with the NRTL program.  Lee Grabel is our lead attorney for the NRTL program, and Mandy Edens is the director of the Directorate of Technical Support and Emergency Management.
              
              Not here are Lee Anne Jillings,  our deputy director who helps Mandy out a lot.  Bernard Pasquet was unfortunately not able to be here today.  He's also an electrical engineer with the program.
              And Terrance Roach, who is probably still outside signing people in, he will be starting with OSHA, I'm sorry, with the NRTL program the first week of November.  We stole him from another directorate, so we're very happy to have him onboard, and you'll probably be interfacing a lot with him in the future.
              Just to give you an idea, sort of the time lines for some of the improvements that we are moving forward with, the draft NRTL directive or an excerpt of the NRTL directive was published on our Website in August for informal comments.
              
              If there are any comments on that, we would certainly appreciate you providing them to us.  It will be going into a more formal notice and comment period, published in the Federal Register, but having an informal comment period just to address some first round of questions that you may have.  It's certainly going to be helpful to us to guide that directive.
              Obviously, we've got the stakeholder meeting here today.  Approximate time frames for everything, we hope to have the NRTL directive published for preliminary notice in the spring, probably March time frame is what we're shooting for.
              It'll be published with a 60 day notice and comment period.  Following that comment period, we'll address any questions or concerns that were raised during that comment period.  And our goal is to have the final directive published sometime around this time next year, a very aggressive schedule.
              
              Once we get the directive out and finalized we will be starting to conduct assessments of the NRTLs with that new directive.
              We'll probably start off doing sort of a gap analysis, and we'll be certainly reaching out to stakeholders to see how long it might take to implement the changes that we may make.
              Following the assessments where we get to figure out exactly where we may need to make some modifications, we'll probably then publish a second update in the 2017/2018 time frame.
              And if it's ultimately needed to move some of the options that we are presenting here today, we may need to go into rulemaking, regulatory change, which is a much longer process.
              
              It goes without saying, if you can just silence your electronic devices, we are going to be recording this and providing a transcription.  So any participants and speakers, before you do speak, if you could just kindly state your name and the organization that you're with.  It will make things a lot easier for our transcriptionist.
              And if you do have any questions, if you can hold them until we get to the open discussion format it'd be greatly appreciated.
          And finally the legal, today we are not looking for a consensus.  We're simply looking for individual stakeholder views on the issues that we're presenting here today.
              Documents that have been distributed online and documents that are presented in the folders are simply for informational purposes only.  And they only represent the potential actions that OSHA might take.
              If OSHA decides to take any actions on these matters, we will issue both a preliminary and a final Federal Register notice with an opportunity for public comment.  And that was it.
              
              So with that, I think we're going to get into our first round of presentations.  Presenting today for the first topic will be Keith Mowry from Underwriters Laboratories, Andrew Evans from  GAMBICA, Raj Nathan from IAS, Shawn Paulsen from CSA Group, Paul Moliski from Intertek, Milton Bush from ACIL, Todd Lucey from MCAA and Mike Buzard from A2LA.
              So if those folks wouldn't mind coming up, and we'll exit the stage here.  And while those guys are coming up, I'm just going to go through a brief presentation of what we're going to be discussing with this first presentation.
              So OSHA, in the Federal Register notice that announced this meeting, we proposed several options for the use of private sector accreditation bodies.
              
              First is OSHA's considering a model that will use private sector accreditation as evidence of conformance to ISO 17025, ISO 17065 to facilitate the processing of applications and performing onsite assessments.
              Although OSHA would continue to conduct onsite assessments to NRTL program-specific requirements, inclusion of accreditations may facilitate validation of generic ISO 17025 and 17065 requirements under this approach.
              The second option was a model under which we would make use of one or more private sector accreditation bodies as part of accreditations.
              The third option is we were considering a model under which OSHA would contract with independent contractors to assist us in some capacity with the conducting of onsite assessments.
              And the fourth option that we're considering is the separation of testing and certification functions.  Right now, NRTLs are required to have both testing and certification activities.
              
              So we've proposed an option for consideration under which we would accredit, or recognize rather, testing organizations and certification bodies.
              So with that, I can give it up to our first presenter.  Our first presenter is Keith Mowry from Underwriters Laboratories.  You can stay there or you can come up here, whichever you prefer.
              MR. MOWRY:  No, I'll stand up.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.
              (Pause)
              MR. MOWRY:  Well, good morning.  My name is Keith Mowry.  I'm manager of accreditation services with UL.  I'm involved with the full range of accreditation activities all the way from helping to write the international standards to actually posting individual audits of UL by accreditation bodies.
              
              All our comments today on all the topics are going to start from two basic positions.  First, we completely support the use of 17065 as requirements for NRTLs.  But when you use 17065, for those of you who are using it and have read it, you know there has to be a certification scheme.  Because 170675  keeps referring to the certification scheme.  You have to do things in accordance with the scheme.
              So our second position is that OSHA needs to develop, and maintain and, as necessary, clarify the NRTL scheme.  So that's where all of our positions start from.
              We're going to be coming back to these two points over and over again.  And the ramifications and implications of them are going to be woven into all of our comments.
              With regard to this first topic, I'm not sure exactly that our views fit into, neatly, any one of the four options.  So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a summary of what we envision and then comment a little bit on each of the four options.
              
              What we envision is that a certification body that wants to be an NRTL would be accredited to 17065 specifically for their performance of the NRTL scheme by an accreditation body acceptable to OSHA.
              They would bring that accreditation to OSHA as a prerequisite for being recognized by OSHA as an NRTL.  They would maintain that accreditation, and again it's specific for operation of the NRTL scheme, they would maintain that accreditation.
              And when it's time to be renewed, they would bring OSHA the evidence that they have continued to be accredited by this accreditation body acceptable to OSHA.  And that would be the basis for the renewal.
              
              OSHA would keep making the decisions.  OSHA would be the one deciding who's recognized and who's not.  But all the assessment to 17065 and the NRTL scheme, which I believe in this Federal Register notice is often referred to as NRTL program-specific requirements, to me that's the same thing.  That's what the scheme is.  But it's the private sector accreditation body that would be assessing the NRTL.
              OSHA should retain the right to assess whatever it wants to, not as part of the normal recognition and renewal process, but on an as-needed basis for issues that they think are worth looking at.  It keeps everybody honest.
              We think OSHA should use NVCASE to qualify the accreditors who are going to be acceptable to OSHA.  That's what it was designed and built for.  We think that NVCASE can actually look at an accreditor's ability and capability to address the NRTL specific scheme.
              Other means of evaluation and assessment of accreditation bodies don't get to that scheme level.  And we think that's important.
              
              We're going to assume that OSHA will continue to approve the standards that are acceptable for use in the program.  So as a result, OSHA's going to need to play some sort of role in scope expansions.  We don't have the details on that sorted out yet.  I think that needs a little bit more discussion.
              But it only makes sense that if OSHA is making the decision on what standards are acceptable, then they're going to need to be involved in scope expansions as well.  For those of you who go through the OSHA scope expansion process, I think you see the connection there.
              Now, with regard to the four options, I think what we've described might be somewhat aligned with Option 2.  But we've gone into a lot more detail.
              
              With regard to Option 3, we don't support that.  We think that the time you're going to save using technical experts is about the same amount of time you're going to spend identifying, qualifying, contracting and managing those technical experts.  So we think it's going to be a wash.  You know, we don't really think it's going to make a significant difference in the efficiency of the program.
              With regard to Option 1, the big concern we have here is the mandatory use of laboratory accreditation.  We get assessed to 17025 requirements a lot.  It's built into the 17065 assessments we undergo.  They're all brought together under one process.
              We think that's more efficient.  It's, frankly, the way we run our business.  We don't run it as separate activities.  It's a continuous process that we use to serve our clients.  And we'd like to be able to be assessed like that.
              Now, if laboratory accreditation works for others, great.  But mandatory laboratory accreditation would create a lot of costs and disruption for us in terms of how we're already assessed by private sector accreditation bodies.
              
              Option 1 doesn't really talk about the use of laboratory accreditation for external sources of test data that we all accept test data from.  That's the big question mark.  It's hard to embrace Option 1 without knowing what that impact would be.
              The references to laboratory accreditation in the actual Federal Register Notice are a little unclear.  They confuse us.  So we'd want to get those straightened out.
              Option 1 notes that audit reports findings and corrective actions might be findable and releasable under the Freedom of Information Act.  That's not generally conducive to good accreditation processes.
              The international standard for accreditation talks about confidentiality.  I think everybody recognizes that for accreditation to be effective there needs to be confidentiality.
              
              Now as the scheme owner, relying on accreditation, you usually have access to everything.  But trying to conduct accreditation out in the public, like under Freedom of Information Act, we don't think that's going to work.
              And finally, Option 1 identifies actually redundant assessment by OSHA and private sector accreditors.  And it might just be a wording issue, but of course we wouldn't want to see that.
              With Option 4, our concern is that Option 4 notes that OSHA would be assessing even more bodies than it's doing today.  It would be assessing individual laboratories as well as NRTLs.
              Given the external sources of test data we accept from, that could run to thousands of laboratories.  We don't think that's very realistic for OSHA to tackle that.
              In terms of Option 4, we really wonder whether there's a need for NRTL program-specific policy for laboratories for 17025 compliance.
              
              When you take 17025 and couple that with the product standard that's being used for testing, we really wonder if there's more that needs to be added on top of that.
              Now, if the intent in Option 4 that was that OSHA would be relying on external accreditation bodies to accredit test labs and CBs, then that looks a lot like Option 1.  But our concerns about Option 1 would then apply to Option 4.
              Really the key problem we see, at least as far as we're concerned in Option 4, is the idea of mandatory acceptance of test data from authorized labs.
              
              This is practiced in other schemes.  We certainly recognize that.  But in terms of product safety certification, it's really incompatible with our liability risks.  It's incompatible with our reputation risks.  It's incompatible with the demands that others are placing on us as a certification body for safety certification.  And frankly, it's incompatible with the requirements of 17065.
              Now, in terms of that last piece, OSHA's the scheme owner.  They can contradict 17065 all they wish.  Scheme owner is the king of the mountain.  Anybody who knows me knows I say that all the time.
              Also, laboratory accreditation and 17025 requirements were never written and were never intended as a basis to transfer the responsibility for the test data.
              When certifiers use test data, there's legal precedent and there's expectations in the market that we take responsibility for that test data.  That's not what laboratory accreditation was designed to be a basis for.
              It's a good tool.  It does what it's supposed to do.  But all you've got to do is read the laboratory accreditation contract between an accreditor and a lab, and you know there's absolutely no responsibility of it being transferred at all.
              
              So that's a run-down of what we envision would be a way to use the private sector resources and our comments on each of the four options.  I think we're a hybrid, somewhere in between.  And I'll look forward to going into more details if there are questions.  Thank you very much.
              (Applause)
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thank you, Keith.  Next up is Andrew Evans.  And just a reminder to all the presenters.  Keith, you did well, but --
              MR. MOWRY:  I was too long.
              MR. ROBINSON:  No, you weren't.  Actually you were under.  That's why feel horrible saying this.  But just a reminder to all the speakers for this section are limited to about ten minutes of speaking time.  So Andrew?
              
              MR. EVANS:  Thank you.  I'm Andrew Evans from GAMBICA in the U.K.  Thanks to Kevin and -- shall I see if that works, there we go -- GAMBICA in the U.K.  Thanks to Kevin and OSHA for this opportunity to speak to you all.
     	So just as a brief intro, as we haven't got that much time, just background is that we're the U.K. trade association for instrumentation, and control, alternation and laboratory equipment in the U.K.
              We have about 200 members which range from small laboratory equipment manufacturers to huge multinationals like ABB, Siemens, Snyder, Thermo Fisher, Honeywell and those sorts of companies.  So it's quite a cross section.  And we manage that by splitting it into different sectors.
              So I look after the process control, process instrumentation and control sector.  There's a test and measurement sector, laboratory equipment sector and the industrial automation sector.  But we also have cross-sector roles.
              
              Mine is the technical and standards part.  So I cover all sectors for technical and standards which involves me spending a lot time at meetings in Brussels on different directives, task forces.
              So in the U.K. we have imaginatively titled United Kingdom Accreditation Service, UKAS.  So that's the sole national accreditation body.  And that accredits the test labs for certification, and testing and calibration.
              And since the introduction of the new approach directives and Decision 768 of the European Commission which is the marketing of products, that's backed up by a regulation for improved accreditation and market surveillance which is Regulation 765.
              And part of that, it puts requirements on member states to have an accreditation process and improved market surveillance.
              
              And part of that is that each member state can only have one accreditation body per state.  And it's a not-for-profit enterprise so that there can be no competition.  It's free from any competition and commercial activity.
              And UKAS are a signatory to the multilateral agreement of the EA, the European Corporation for Accreditation.  So each member state in Europe has an accreditation body.  They're signatory to the EA.
              And that exists, this has to exist for the regulation 765 to work.  So it coordinates the European accreditation infrastructure so that the results of conformity assessment services in one country can be accepted in other countries without further examination.  And this is for the benefit of the European community and the global economy.
              
              So the EA members use these international standards.  So we've already mentioned 17025 for testing and calibration.  And for certification bodies, it's 17065.  And there are various other international standards used for different activities.
              And for it to work, the mission is that there's harmonization across all member states.  There's consistency in accreditation, so that there's an even playing field and transparency in the operation.  So everybody can see what's going on and, of course, the reciprocal acceptance.  So there's a mutual recognition between the different member states.
              Also the EA is part of ILAC, so the International Laboratory Accreditation Corporation.  So it conforms with the international view of accreditation as well.  And it also acts as a technical resource.
              So just to talk briefly about ILAC, the International Laboratory Accreditation, that's been formed for 30 years.  And it was originally set up to remove technical barriers to trade.
              
              And it was in 2000, 36 members signed a mutual recognition agreement here in Washington, D.C., to promote the acceptance of technical testing calibration data.  So that came into effect in 2001.
              But then in October 2012, two years ago, that was extended to include the accreditation of inspection bodies.  I think the IAAC, the Inter-American Accreditation Corporation, which was recently set up for cooperation between the Latin American countries, they are signatories to ILAC.
              So how do we make sure that the EA functions in the way that we expect it to?  And we do that by having an advisory board.  So the advisory board is made up of the stakeholders.
              
              So I am part of the indirect customers, which is what they call the industry college, which isn't an educational establishment, but it's just the term for that part of the group.  So there's the conformity assessment bodies, the industry and the NABs. the National Accreditation Bodies, as well.
              And we set out, we've recently revised our expectations of what we expect the EA to deliver for us.  And we want to see transparency in the functions and confidence in the competence of each accreditation body, and integrity.
              It has an important role, not just safeguarding of the public, but also there's a certain regulatory role that it provides as well.
              So from my perspective and the industry college, our expectation, our ultimate aim is that we would have one-stop assessment and testing so that we could get a product conformed, you know, conformed to,  product's assessed.
              And then the results of that would be accepted internationally, so we wouldn't have to repeat the process for each world area.  And this should be done in reasonable time at a reasonable cost.
              
              Also for accreditation to work, there should be no accreditation of accreditors.  So it's the last level of conformity assessment.  So we are in favor of a model where OSHA uses private sector accreditation.
              And I think, for the last point to work with industry expectations, there needs to be peer evaluation, or there is peer evaluation across the EA so that at a maximum, about four years, there's a peer review of an accreditation body in another state.
              And that body is assessed to 17011 which is the standard for accreditation of conformity assessment bodies.  So that body's assessed against that, at least every four years.  We think that it would introduce flexibility and efficiency.
              
              And in these tough economic times, in high wage economies like Western Europe and America, we feel that accreditation has an important role to play in improving the time to market for new product development.
    	So to compete in a global economy, I think accreditation has got an important role to play in the efficiency of new product development.  Thank you.
              (Applause)
              MR. ROBINSON:  Next up is Raj Nathan from IAS.  Raj?
              (Pause)
              MR. NATHAN:  Good morning.  My name is Raj Nathan.  I'm the vice president for International Accreditation Service.
              At the outset, I'd like to thank Kevin for outstanding work.  I mailed him yesterday at about 10 o'clock my Power Point.  At 10:15 I got an email back from him.  That's a model bureaucrat, I guess.  Thank you, Kevin, for your responsiveness all along.  I appreciate that.
              
              Bear with me, I'm still on California time with my thought processes three hours behind, so I appreciate you following us.
              So hopefully some of the issues can be clarified during the question and answer session.  We certainly know what the subject here today is.  We are from California.  We have been headquartered in Southern California for a little over 40 years.
              And two weeks back, we decided to move from where we were headquartered and 15 miles away to Orange County from Las Angeles County.  But we're still in Southern California, one of the oldest accreditation bodies in the United States.
              We used to be called, for some of the folks here, in the very old, old days back when dinosaurs used to walk the earth, ICBO.  And since about at least a dozen years we are IAS, International Accreditation Service.
              
              We are a subsidiary of ICC, again, to throw some more acronyms, International Code Council, what is one of the largest, I guess, building codes and mechanical codes and so forth, writing organization, membership organization.
              We accredit a wide range of companies.  And one of the slides down here will tell you our activity in accreditation.  As a matter of fact, looking around this auditorium, and to my left here, Paul, Keith, colleagues we've worked with for more than 25 years when I had a full head of dark hair.
              We, you know, we are very much connected with the whole international conformity assessment process for many, many years.  We are one of the original signatories for the international conformity practices that was signed, I believe, in '95 or '96 in Bandon, Indonesia.
              So we were there, as they say, at the inception, the conception.  So we know about the conformity assessment practices predating the Guide 25, and Guide 25, and 17025 and all that stuff.
              
              We know about Guide 39, and precursor to Guide 39 and, of course, now 17065 and so forth.  So this business comes relatively easy to us.
              We understand the dynamics of it, we understand the complexity of it.  And we can talk more about it during the Q and A, hopefully.
              A couple of speakers have already alluded to some of the acronyms.  We are throwing some acronyms around this morning, so let me add a few more to that, PAC, ILAC which the previous speaker mentioned, IAF and APLAC.
              These are four acronyms, I think, generally speaking, the audience here needs to be aware of.  ILAC for labs, International Accreditation Cooperation, APLAC, regional body, Asia Pacific Lab Accreditation Cooperation, performs -- you talked about IAC.
              
              The previous speaker talked about EA.  IAF, International Accreditation Forum for product certifications, management system certifications and so forth.  PAC is a regional body within IAF for Pacific Accreditation Cooperation.
              So keep these acronyms in mind.  And also keep a couple of more acronyms in mind, MRA, Mutual Recognition Arrangements and Multilateral Recognition Arrangements.
              I know that sort of language is not in these draft documents, and obviously the intent is different.  I notice my colleague here, Roger Muse, in the audience who we worked very closely with all of the U.S. accreditation bodies.
              And one of the things for our colleague from U.K. is we do have a number of private sector accreditation bodies in United States.  We're not a sole, single non-competitive kind of accreditation scheme in the United States.
              
              So we do have, within the private sector, within the accreditation community, a very robust, I believe, competitive and technically vigorous process with a variety of accreditation bodies.  I do want to acknowledge that fact.  And there are other accreditation bodies who may not be present in this audience today.
              That provides, I guess, a variety.  It provides a certain level of diversity, if you will, on the technical side.
              Just as an illustration, a number of federal, state, private regulatory organizations we've been involved with for, as I said, a little over 25 years, some later than others.
              For instance, there's one in the middle which is LA DBS, Los Angeles Department of Building Services.  New York City Building Department, for instance, is another one.
              
              Of course, you recognize some of the federal organizations, EPA with EnergyStar, Water Sense, those sort of programs, Caltrans for California Transportation, Department of Transportation, and so forth.  And this list is obviously very limited.
              There's hundreds and hundreds of those kind of -- so you are not, you won't be the first and certainly you won't be the last within the federal hierarchy to do these sort of things.
              And you can talk to your compadres in EPA.  And, I guess, FDA is going through the same process.  So keep that in mind as you explore this framework you're trying to go into.
    	I think the previous speaker kind of mentioned about some of these things.  But very quickly, AB stands for Accreditation Bodies.  I think it's clear 17011 is the other ISO standard that was mentioned.
              The other standard that you need to be aware of is 17021, also which is the counterpart.  And Paul and Keith can talk about it.
              
              But anyway, standard process, technical competency, somebody mentioned duplication, certainly minimize the duplication, time, time is very big.
              Because the key element in your proposal was timeliness and efficiency which really translates to time.  Of course, I think it really translates to time element.
              And that's one of the things IAS has been very successful.  We have now 900 clients, accredited organizations, in 36 countries.  We have clients all over the world.
              We, at any given time, we have assessment teams deployed in, you know, virtually any part of the world.  So one of the things is, and historically, you know, based on anecdotal evidence, that's one of the challenges OSHA always will have, and any organization of your size and complexity will have.
              
              Ninety days is just incredible.  I know I travel all around the world evaluating other accrediting bodies.  I was in Japan recently evaluating them.  I mean, they fell off the chair when I told them 90 days.
              And I think that's, frankly, other organizations can do better than that.  I think today it's global world.  In any other sector, if you're in, I see a gentleman is from Apple, 90 days is probably next year.
              In this business, I got an email yesterday from a lab in Qatar which said can you come next week?  I said, no, I can come in three weeks.  Now some organizations will say three weeks, how can you get to Qatar?  But that's what we have to do in a global alignment.
              Commercial customers, we put a strong team, we're able to deploy, we have the resources.  More importantly, we have the infrastructure and the commitment to do that.
              
              So again, that's just an average.  It certainly exceeds that when you have complex scopes, you have problems with the customers.  And I challenge many organizations to meet those sort of metrics in terms of timeliness and certainly the robustness of the assessment.
              And again, interestingly the last point is very important.  If there is a scope change, somebody said about scope change, we can literally do that on a 24/7 basis.  We can't quite match what Kevin is doing, but we'll get pretty close to that in terms of scope changes and any divisions to the scope.
              This is kind of a complex flow chart.  You have it on the Power Point.  But all is says is what is the process?  And this is a very standard process, I'm sure, with A2LA, or ANSI, ANAB, any of these organizations.
              
              There is one minor point, and I'll allude to that a little later, but you can look at it.  This is a generic flow chart for all of our programs.  And there are some variations to it, protesting labs, or inspection bodies or product certification.  But this process really achieves that 90 day goal or less.
              We don't have to go through all this, but essentially 17025, 2005 version is the effective standard.  We all know about it. We accredit little over 350 labs, as I said, in about 35 or 36 countries now.
              Calibration labs, 17025, 2005 again, a very critical component, and I notice your draft document talks about a number of things.  I have some questions, but I'll hold off during the discussion time on that.
              Product certification, I think he did an excellent review of that whole thing.  I won't get into that, but it's a 2012 standard.
              And again, IAF and PAC, inspection agency which is not quite mentioned, it's a very large program.  We are one of the oldest accrediting bodies.  Obviously, it's a very critical component of product certification.
              
              Current requirement is based on '98 policy.  Our policy, international policy, is 2012 standard, will kick in on March 1, 2015.  So both the standards are working in tandem.  So if you go to our Website and look at an inspection agency, you'll see both these standards, again, ILAC and APLAC, and it's a very, it's a growing area for it.
              I just give you a flavor here of all the accrediting, I mean all the CBs we have accredited for 30 years, even before I joined this company.  And this very much is the who's who, you know.  I'm not, you know, preaching to the choir here, but I think you recognize most of the names.
              I do recognize some individuals in the audience from here too.  And there are other individuals I notice who, in your list, that have applied and hopefully will get the NRTL.
              
              But I did a quick review.  And my number, the 54, is an estimate.  We noticed that 54 of the NRTL lead organizations are already accredited by us in one fashion.  And the bulk of them testing labs.
              And what's interesting is each one of these, if you go down to our Website you will see each one of the locations will have a corresponding scope.
              And I didn't necessarily see that kind of delineation in the OSHA NRTL listing.  In other words, accreditation is specific to the standard and so forth.
              But we pretty much cover, as we speak.  Now whether we cover specifically the technical methods and standards, I don't know that.  Paul, and Keith and others can talk about it.  But if the organization requests that scope, we have the ability to do that.  We have the technical wherewithal to do it.
              
              So just to summarize, the resources collectively in United States is very much there.  We also have a private sector infrastructure which is very robust, which has been vetted.
              Somebody mentioned, a speaker mentioned that we get evaluated every four years.  You are welcome to join us in the evaluation anytime, see how in the back end the sausage is made.
              But the point about Keith on confidentiality is an interesting and important issue.  Hopefully you'll discuss it during discussion.
              As I was speaking, I noticed Peter Unger walked into the auditorium.  Peter Unger is the chair of ILAC, also president of A2LA.  And he can obviously throw some more light on the private sector model.  And again, thank you for the time, Kevin.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thank you.
              (Applause)
              MR. ROBINSON:  Next up is Shawn Paulsen from CSA.  Shawn?
              
              MR. PAULSEN:  Good morning.  My name is Shawn Paulsen.  I'm the manager of conformity assessment with CSA Group.  I'd like to start by thanking, again, OSHA for putting on this stakeholder event and allowing our organization to speak on a couple of topics.
              So to start off with, I just wanted to give you a very brief overview of the CSA Group and then focus on the use of the private sector accreditation for ISO/IEC 17025 and 17065 recognition and then on OSHA's proposal for the delegation and use of the private sector accreditation bodies to assess the NRTLs for recognition to the NRTL program.
              So just very briefly, a couple words about CSA Group.  We were formed in 1919 as a Canadian engineering standards association, primarily as an SDO at that time.
              
              We did obtain national certification or recognition as a national certification body for Canada in 1947.  We are an independent, not-for-profit membership-based organization with offices located around the world.
              We became an NRTL in 1992 and have actively participated in that program ever since.  CSA labs are accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 by various accreditation bodies globally.  And we also recently completed our assessment 17065.
              So just to give you an idea on some of the accreditation bodies that we do use, these are primarily in Canada and the U.S.  We are also actively involved in international schemes, such as the IECEE, the CB scheme, the IEC Ex and also the recently established IECRE.
              So now to focus on the use of private sector accreditation for 17025 and 17065, so we realized that, again as mentioned before, that 17025 and 17065 are documents that are utilized by accreditation bodies globally currently.
              
              OSHA could recognize, I guess, accreditation to the ISO/IEC 17025 or 17065 without further evaluation.  That's one of the things that we hope that they would consider.  We do see this first option as a favorable option going forward.
              Just to look at some of the benefits that could be realized under the first option, there could be a reduction in the overall assessment time as part of the OSHA assessments.
              There could be a reduction in OSHA's resources required to carry out their assessments if they're not focusing on 17025 or 17065 components.
              There could also be a reduction in the NRTL resources to support the assessments and reduction in the overall assessment cost due to the reduced time of the assessment and also the duplication of the accreditation body assessments.
              
              Just looking at a few of the weaknesses, there are some potential weaknesses that we see with this approach as well in Option Number 1.  And we don't see that there'd be any real reduction in accreditation body or NRTL assessments.  So we're still going through the same number of assessments.
              Now, there could be significant cost to the labs that are utilized by the NRTL and where that site currently is not fully accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025.  However, they still operate under the NRTL program.
              We find that assessments can vary between accreditation bodies, and OSHA would need to be prepared to accept the accreditation body assessment reports without further scrutiny.
              
              There could also be an issue with accessing the full accreditation body report.  And I think Keith mentioned this.  These are considered confidential by a number of the accreditation bodies, and they could be difficult to access.  The NCRs, however, that we would have received could certainly be made available.
              Another potential weakness is on the treatment of the NCRs by the accreditation bodies.  And will OSHA be, you know, in a position to accept the NCRs that we may receive without further evaluation or scrutiny?
              So just to look at some of the resource and cost implications, we don't see any anticipated increase in the NRTL resources or costs associated with Option I.
              Again, there could be significant cost to labs that participate in the NRTL program that currently do not have 17025 accreditation.  And we feel that OSHA could benefit from a reduction in their time for assessments.
              
              So now looking at the use of private sector accreditation bodies as part of the NRTL recognition process, again, CSA could see this as a favorable path forward only after a number of concerns had been properly addressed.
              One concern is that OSHA would need to publish a clear set of guidelines on the NRTL specific requirement to ensure that all accreditation bodies are assessing in the same manner.
              Many labs that are certification bodies utilize multiple accreditation bodies for their scopes or portions of their scopes.  So some of the accreditation bodies, while they're a signatory to the ILAC or IAF MOUs, are located in different geographical locations and may not be fully trained to assess to the OSHA specific requirements.
              Also, for those NRTLs that utilize multiple accreditation bodies, will each of the accreditation bodies assess to the OSHA requirements, or will one be selected to perform that assessment?
              
              If this approach is considered, OSHA should also ensure that there are multiple options for recognized accreditation bodies.  So we don't want to lock in to one or two accreditation bodies.
              Also, as part of the program requirements, reciprocity would also need to be addressed, again, where the accreditation bodies or the NRTLs are operating outside of the U.S.  And, you know, OSHA would have to address that part of it if they can.
              So looking at the benefits, we do see a number of benefits with Option Number 2.  And that's where accreditation bodies would perform the entire assessment.  So they could perform 17025, 17065 and the NRTL requirements during one assessment.  That's reducing the overall assessments to the NRTLs.
              There could be a benefit to the NRTLs that are looking to expand scope.  And the standards could be assessed at the same time that the accreditation bodies are performing their assessment.  This would, again, help address timeliness to market for new technologies.
              
              There could be a reduction in NRTL resources and cost due to the reduction in the number of assessments.  There could be a potential resource savings for OSHA as well due to a reduction in the number of assessments.
              Private sector accreditation bodies could provide the technical support and technical experts that are needed.  And that's addressing OSHA's concerns, I think, for accessing technical experts.
              Now, looking at the weaknesses, there are a few weaknesses as well that are critical.  There needs to be multiple accreditation bodies that would be recognized by OSHA to ensure that there are options available to the NRTLs.  We wouldn't want to see that the entire process gets bottlenecked by only using one or two accreditation bodies.
              
              Assessments by different accreditation bodies can vary, as we know.  And different documentation is utilized by different accreditation bodies.
              So would OSHA be, you know, willing to accept the accreditation body reports, or would a separate OSHA report format also need to be completed?  If so, then that adds time and cost.
              So with the recognition of the accreditation bodies, we feel there needs to be an understanding if and how foreign-based accreditation bodies will be recognized, you know, if they'll be recognizing any AB that's a signatory to the ILAC or IAF MOUs?  And again, these are some of the questions that we feel need to be addressed.
              As I mentioned earlier, there would have to be a clear set of guidelines developed by OSHA to ensure that all accreditation bodies are assessing basically to the same set of requirements.
              
              So again, when we look at costs or resource implications, when we look at the proposed approach as an NRTL, we would see no anticipated increase in the NRTL resources or costs with Option Number 2.
              In fact, there could be significant NRTL savings provided that the overall number of assessments or reassessments can be reduced.
              There could be significant cost increases to the NRTL if the NRTL needs to transition to accreditation bodies that they currently do not utilize.
              OSHA could see a reduction in their resources due to the reduced time.  However, in place of the NRTL assessments, OSHA could be spending more time providing training, oversight and liaising with the various accreditation bodies that they might be considering.
              So when we look at the two options, our organization would certainly support Option Number 1 of the two options.  We feel Option Number 1 has the greater benefit, both to the NRTL and OSHA.
              
              You know, we do see many benefits to Option Number 2.  However in this case, I think if you look at the weaknesses and the concerns that, in this case, they outweigh the benefits.  Thank you.
              (Applause)
              MR. ROBINSON:  Next up is Paul Moliski from Intertek.
              MR. MOLISKI:  Good morning.  My name is Paul Moliski.  I'm with Intertek.  Intertek is an NRTL.  We were the, I believe, the second NRTL recognized after the grandfathering of UL.
              In fact, a mutual, in the early days, I think MET was the first NRTL.  Intertek was the second.  We're an international provider.  We have 13 NRTLs, about 40 sites included in our network of laboratories.
              
              I've had, you know, in the last 18 months or so, we have recognized improvement in the process of handling NRTL applications.  I think we have to congratulate OSHA on that.
              I think we've also seen periods of time where there's been significant challenges in managing those applications and scope extensions.
              So the idea of having this stakeholder meeting, I think, is great.  I think we're going to get valuable input.  And I think we can look forward to the next generation or the next phase of NRTL.
              Looking at this globally, it's really a cornerstone, it's really a program unique to the rest of the world.  And I think that the U.S. should be very proud of the success we've had with NRTL.
              The first question, increase the efficiency of the NRTL program, use of private sector accreditation is evidence of conformity to 17025, 17065.
              
              In my responsibility with Intertek, I've had the opportunity to develop certification programs in several other countries, other regions, visibility to six certification bodies using about eight accreditors in addition to OSHA.
              So we have a variety of experiences to pull from.  And some of those experiences, you know, may benefit our discussion today.
              In the first proposal, use of private sector, a very important role that OSHA's played since the beginning is creating a level playing field for all CBs to participate in.  And I think that's critical. And we should continue that model going forward.  Proposal A would continue this.
              The scoping within using private sector, there would have to be some guidelines as was mentioned earlier.  OSHA would have to map out what the expected scopes in the laboratories and in the certification body would be expected.
              
              I think Keith mentioned there would have to be some scheme guidelines developed also for the 17065 accreditation body to follow.
              In the 17025 scope for testing laboratory, I think it would have to be expected to see some of the core electrical standards used.  I don't know if you could expect to have every standard, but there would have to be some guidelines as to what the minimum technical scope is going to be required for that laboratory to operate.
              17065 allows the scheme to direct and guide in the compliance to 17025, which that would give OSHA some freedom to develop your guidance.  We are also in favor of using 17065 as the model going forward.
              In using private sector, and this would be challenging should you want to extend and use multiple ABs, the understanding of U.S. regulatory requirements would be critical in developing the NRTL program using private sector.
              
              I think we've, you know, we tried to make some recommendations here or statements that, you know, are realistic.  This proposal may lead to reduced NRTL assessment time only if ABs are required to accept current accreditations to 25 and 65 that the NRTL holds to reduce any duplication or redundancy.
              Proposal 2, OSHA would delegate responsibility to private sector accreditation bodies.  There would be a risk that this proposal would turn responsibility of compliance of NRTL over to third party ABs.  I'm not sure how far OSHA wants to push in that direction.
              The proposal will decrease OSHA interaction assessments with NRTLs.  One benefit now, I don't think anyone likes to have assessments, but having the interaction with OSHA is beneficial to NRTL sites, the certification bodies operating the NRTL program.
              
              Some of the, we received very good guidance from OSHA assessors.  One of the simplest rules of thumb that I've always been told is, when in doubt, think of your operation as an extension of OSHA.
              And, you know, if you're going to develop rules for your internal requirements, follow what the OSHA rules would be.  And that is a good direction to follow.  So, you know, that type of advice during assessments has been very useful.
              The idea of using a private sector process is used in other countries.  We've had varying levels of success in that.  There have been experiences in working with other countries when you successfully pass the private sector accreditation.
              And then you have to resubmit to the government agency responsible.  And we've actually had applications held up by the government because we're a foreign-owned company.
              
              And this is an area that, I think, OSHA would need to monitor.  It may work in your behalf, or it could turn in to be a political tug of war, so just a word of caution.
              OSHA contracts with independent technical experts.  I think it was mentioned earlier this could turn in to be a very big job for OSHA to manage, locating, training, maintaining this group of assessors.
              Maybe, I don't know if some of the ABs in the room would, you know, like to comment on that.  But I know there's challenges in maintaining a team of assessors.  And it's something to consider going forward.
              This is Option 4.  We were not in favor of this option.  The splitting of the testing and certification, we found several points that were, you know, questionable.
              
              We really don't see how it's going to help efficiency.  It could turn into additional legwork for NRTLs.  NRTLs now are permitted to accept third party test data.  There's a program allowing that.
              And when we need to use it for certain reasons, for certain test capability, certain location of testing, we do use that Program Number 2.  But we don't think it would be a benefit to broaden that approach than what's already in place.  And I guess that's the end of my slides.
              (Laughter)
              MR. MOLISKI:  Thank you.
              (Applause)
              MR. BUSH:  I'm Milton Bush from ACIL, thank you.  Thank you, Joan.  Well, this is a first.  I think I actually might be the oldest one on the panel for the first time.  So I'm going to sit.
              And I've got to congratulate Kevin in putting me, what, fifth on the panel, one, two, three, four, five, sixth on the panel.  Because as the only lawyer on the panel with a bunch of engineers, they wouldn't have had any time.  So you saved some time there.
              
              So ACIL is American Council of Independent Laboratories.  I'm the chief executive officer responsible for general oversight of the organization as well as government affairs.
              And ACIL is a 77 year old trade association.  And we have various committees and sections within ACIL, one of which is our conformity assessment section which covers both EMC and third party certification activities.
              We also have other sections in ACIL.  We're a mile wide and an inch deep in some instances.  We have food safety laboratories, construction materials and engineering testing laboratories, as well as environmental science laboratories.
              I think I'm going to use my time to talk a little bit about what may be some of the differences that ACIL has with some of the comments that were made up this point.
              
              I agree with almost all of UL's comments, IAS, GAMBICA, CSA, ITS.  One of the differences in ACIL's position is that we don't specify any particular recognition authority.
              What we say as a trade organization is that we will support any recognition program that meets the requirements of ISO/IEC 17011.
              And there're a number of recognition authorities operating in the United States and around the world that meet those requirements.  And in fact, our constituencies within ACIL support more than one recognition authority.  And we think that's a good thing.
              And overall, we think that competition at all levels, and always has been our position, that competition at all levels, both at the recognition, accreditation, certification and laboratory levels is a good thing.
              
              And in fact, you'll find it in all of our position statements over the years.  Accreditation is a good thing, but it's better done if it's not sole source.  It's better done if there's allowed to be competition in the marketplace.
              I really liked your idea, Shawn, about -- and this is not an ACIL position, of course -- I liked your idea of OSHA accepting, I use the word virgin, 17025 or 17065 programs with then the OSHA-specific requirements then being OSHA's focus.  And I thought was a good idea, not necessarily and ACIL position, but it was a good idea.
              Another good idea that I thought, that was pointed out, that Paul stated, was really we've seen this over the years in a lot of different sectors, is when ABs don't really understand U.S. regulatory requirements there can be some real serious repercussions in the marketplace.
              
              So I thought that was an excellent point.  And it has to be something that OSHA needs to take into serious consideration.
              One of the things that came to mind was during Paul's presentation.  And I think the reason it brought to mind an idea, and ACIL has not taken a formal position on this, is regarding separating accreditation from the assessment.
              The bulk of the work is in doc review, and onsite visits and the follow-up associated with that.
              ACIL has been involved in the last five years in privatizing the environmental laboratory accreditation programs in various states.
              Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the states operate laboratory accreditation programs.  And there's 50 of them.  And it's a mess.  So what we've tried to do is to create a national program by use of a private sector laboratory.
              
              And most recently, last year, Florida privatized their environmental laboratory accreditation program.  But they did not delegate the accreditation function.  They privatized the assessment function and therefore kept the accreditation function, met its requirements under the Safe Drinking Water Act, as well as their state requirements.
              So there's an option there that could save OSHA a heck of a lot of money and time, especially when you're operating in a global program without giving away what could be regulatory authority and would not, maybe not require a rule change.
              Now, the one area that we do disagree with most of the panelists is then in separating the testing and certification functions.
              We represent both certification bodies and laboratories.  Most of our members are accredited to 65 and 25.  I go back to the guide days, so that's what they mean to me.
              
              So when you're a trade association that represents diverse interests, you either run like hell, you don't take a position, you wax philosophic or you get very practical.  And I think OSHA's going to have to look at all those options, particularly the one that's practical.
              And fundamentally, as a regulator and as a specifier, if the separation of those two functions does not improve worker safety, then that should be the standard that you should be looking at, from my experience in dealing with regulators, is what's the agency's mission?
              And if that improves by separating those functions, and that improves worker safety, then that should be your vanguard.  If not, then it shouldn't happen.  I think that's it.  Thanks.
              (Applause)
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thanks, Milt.  And next up is Todd Lucey from MCAA.
              
              MR. LUCEY:  Good morning, everybody.  My name is Todd Lucey.  I am currently the chairman of Measurement Control Automation Association.
              I'm here with Bob Carrell, a vice-chair, and also President Cynthia Esher and a number of other colleagues that we have in the audience.
              So appreciate the opportunity to come in and speak.  And, Kevin, thank you for that opportunity and, OSHA, the opportunity to have the stakeholder meeting.
              We've talked a lot in our organization really for the last decade of trying to get our hands around, as manufacturers, what we can do to support -- and we certainly do support the NRTL program -- but what we can do to help improve the process' efficiency.  And most important is it's all about safety, and I'm going to talk about that.
              
              So we're going to have time in each of the three sections, A, B and C.  We'll start and focus in on the first proposal and the draft on Section A.
              But I do want to give a quick introduction.  And the first thing before I do that is I want to show a short video.  So, Kevin, if you can help me out and start that video.
              (Video Playing)
              MR. LUCEY:  So what you're witnessing here, it's just a one minute video.  But this is a plant in Garland, Texas.  The customer is Nexeo.  They're one of the three largest chemical distribution companies in the world, Univar, Brenntag and Nexeo.
              Formerly the Ashland Chemical Distribution arm of Ashland is now Nexeo, a customer of ours, and that we work with.  And you're going to hear us refer to a number of customer examples throughout the day today.
              But I think what you see and what's happened is this was an explosion that occurred in a tanker as they were mixing chemicals in the tanker itself.
              
              The tanker built up static electricity charge because of the way the tanker was being filled.  They were not regulating the initial flow into the tanker, so when it was empty what they got is splashing in the tanker and droplets were forming.
              So it's basically like a rain storm, right.  So when you see lightening happening in a rain storm, that's in essence what happened inside the tanker.
              And then as a result of that fire, it expanded out to the two tankers next to it and ultimately caught the methanol pump on fire and then resulted in what you see here.
              My point in bringing all of this up and in showing -- is this working, I might have to just click on the screen one more time, just get it back in the presentation mode.  There you go, that works.
              
              Okay.  So I'm going skip through this real quick, because I've pretty much explained it.  But there was two trucks parked next to the tanker.  They were mixing Toluene, Lacolene and Methanol.  The tank that they were pulling out of, Methanol was actually being filled by the rail cars that you see here.
              I should point out that Nexeo did give us permission to talk about this.  They knew we were going to be here today.  Because they want to help us as an industry move forward as well with these kinds of issues.
              So once the explosion occurred, the Methanol pump, the one in blue, is what caught on fire, caught the other trucks parked then on fire.
              Unfortunately, all the emergency stops and things worked in the tanker area.  But the e-stops weren't connected to the rail cars and out to the tank farm system.
              
              So unfortunately, the fire had fuel from the tank farm system and the railcars throughout this process.  So they weren't able to shut off the fuel source.
              I talked about how the explosion actually occurred.  What we did, working with Nexeo, is we solved the safety issues.  But, in addition to that, and what we see with our customers, what they're looking for, is they're all focused on safety and spending money.
              And I'll show you how much Nexeo has spent over the last couple of years in this area.  But they also want to see economic benefit.  So it's about spending money, but they also want to see improvements in what they're doing.  And I'll talk about that here in just a second.
              Over the last two years, Nexeo's spent $25 million on this particular issue alone in further automating and improving safety at each one of their truck loading bays throughout the country and in Canada as well.
              
              Ultimately, the solution is doing the mixing and blending prior to putting it into the tanker and a number of other safety issues that were implemented, like fireproof valving systems and other things that were put together like that.
              So my purpose, again, why are we bringing that up and just using it as an example?  I think maybe for a period of time there was a lot of view that the manufacturing input was either missing or was self-serving.
              From our perspective, we work with customers every day in the petrochemical oil and gas industry.  And for us, it's all about safety.  How do we improve safety for the personnel.
              Fortunately, in this incident, there was no loss of life.  But I can tell you, in the videos that we're taking, just ten seconds prior to the explosion one of the operators walked out of the bay.  So they were within ten seconds of a loss of life incident which clearly is a very bad thing.
              
              So one of the things that we believe is that we see, as voice of the industry, that it is time that we continue to address, which is why we appreciate this stakeholder meeting by OSHA, to fix a very complex, confusing and outdated system.
              So we're very glad to see movement in this area.  And especially in the last three years, we feel like we're starting to get some traction and want to see that going forward.
              
              We are however, and I think it's important to note, we see it every day as manufacturers, that we are putting customers, the Dows of the world, the Nexeos of the world, the Proctor and Gambles of the world, in a bad place with making decisions on do I spend money and how much money do I spend in safety versus what's the economic benefit, and how much money and what kind of returns do I get for those investments.
              
              We need to eliminate that.  We need to be better as an industry to help through this issue.  And I think some of these core things we're dealing with will improve that.
              And the last point, we also believe that, as a leader from the U.S. perspective in this area, we should be better through the NRTL program and the OSHA initiatives, along with all my colleagues sitting over here, to help participate in the overall world view in bringing all that together.
              We should be leading more of that effort and making sure that we're not a barrier to the global marketplace.
              
              Okay, so no doubt that we have equipment that we manufacture that does come under the NRTL approach and program.  A number of the things that we want to address, and we're going to comment here on Number A, but especially the inefficiencies that it causes for us and each one of these A, B and C sections we're going to talk about.
              MCAA, as I mentioned, we're a trade organization, not-for-profit.  We're 160 members strong, and we do serve all of these different industries.
              And so our comment on Number A, and we're going to focus in on Option 4, is that we do believe that separation of testing and certification is something that is a benefit, again, going back to comments that were just being made about competition.
              We feel that opening it up so that we can go to different testing organizations that are certified and then those testing organizations being recognized by each of the certification members or accrediting bodies is a positive thing for the speed to market and the timeliness of what we're doing.
              Key to that however, and fundamentally back to the comment that was made about everything should focus in on safety, we agree with that as well.
              
              And we believe that the testing organizations should all be testing to the same standards.  And those standards are critical to set and make sure are clear.
              We don't need to have different testing agencies testing to their own standards or proprietary standards.  We feel that accrediting bodies should differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace on other factors besides which testing standards that they're using, their own or others.
              Especially important then is that they are able to be recognized transparently from one accrediting body to the other, so one certification company to the other.
              
              So if we're going to use a testing agency and the accrediting body is FM or UL, they should recognize any of the testing bodies' work as long as those testing bodies are maintaining the standards and testing to the same standards that we would set as an industry, so that we're not giving up anything on the safety side, but we're gaining, as manufacturers, flexibility, opening up to the competitive marketplace.
              And then the accrediting bodies and certification bodies would differentiate themselves in customer service, time to market, opportunities then to work from a costing standpoint.  These would be all things of where you can differentiate yourself as a competitive agency.
              Okay, so that kind of gives a first statement.  We don't have much comment on Options 1, 2 and 3 as we feel those are more in the realm of the certification bodies.  However, in general, we would support, you know, the private sector being involved in that to help speed the process up.
              
              And again, this time to market and being competitive in the global marketplace, when I come back in Section B and C, we'll talk a little bit about some customer comments that we have from Proctor and Gamble, Gilbarco and others, of the real limiting factors that exist in the marketplace.  Thank you.
              (Applause)
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thanks, Todd.  And hiding in the back is Mike Buzard from A2LA.  Mike?
              MR. BUZARD:  Again, my name's Mike Buzard, and I'm from A2LA, a senior staff member.  I've been with the company about five years.
              You have a blurb in your packet about who A2LA is.  We are a non-profit third party accreditation body, private sector.  The names of the folks up here are very familiar to me in my five years.  And I also see some other names and faces out in the crowd that are familiar.
              We've talked about confidentiality.  I'm wondering how all these guys got my notes about what I was going to speak about.  So now I'm fishing for something to fill ten minutes with.
              
              I guess, very briefly and kind of to take the 10,000 foot view first, Option Number 3 is one, as a third party accreditation body, we would recommend staying away from.
              As mentioned three or four other times ahead of us, or ahead of me, excuse me, OSHA taking on the role of almost essentially what the ABs do right now in terms of hiring technical contractors to go out and do your assessments, it is very onerous, it's costly.
              You go through training, and retraining, and retraining and turnover among your assessors for us.  So that, I think, would be the most burdensome prospects to change to this program overall.
              Option Number 4 is kind of, almost like an add-on to Options 1 and 2.  You've heard some input from the folks who would be directly affected by it.  From an AB standpoint, it's kind of a double-edged sword.
              
              There are benefits to separating them.  Some of them are that you would have more access for folks like the manufacturers.  Do we just want to go to a testing body?  Do we just want to go to a certifier, have them handle things?
              On the flip side of that you, as the regulator and recognition folks, you have a lot more paperwork to deal with when you've got the one person, one person, one person, one person rather than the NRTLs who are handling everything on their own right now.
              So it's a way, Option A or B, you know, are the values good to you?  Are they good to the other stakeholders?  We don't have much input beyond keep aware of the risks, and are they weighed out by the benefits with Option 4.
              So going back to speaking on Options 1 and 2, two is our preferred option that we would recommend going towards for changing the program.
              
              We feel that this has the most benefits to all the stakeholders in the program.  OSHA, this does remove some of your burden about worrying about going out and doing the audits or assessments yourselves.  You put that weight on the accreditation body's shoulders.
              You know, you've heard Mr. Nathan up here, IAS has been around for, what is it, 40 plus years?
              MR. NATHAN:  Yeah.
              MR. BUZARD:  And A2LA has been around for 30 plus.  We have the infrastructure in place.  We have the assessors in place.  We can do it.
              We do understand, I mean, we've had the comments up here, it's well aware that there are some challenges and some training that all of our accreditation body folks, assessors included, would need to go through to become aware of regulatory requirements, the specific program requirements that are involved with NRTLs.
              
              And then any oddities, aside from that, in terms of the scope layouts, things like the UL test methods which may need to be there, I know Paul and Keith have brought up scopes and schemes and how they would work out with the accreditation bodies and the organizations being accredited.
              All that stuff would be up to you guys to handle.  Do you want to specify only UL test methods, consistency among everybody, IEC, ANSI, the list goes on and on about all the published international methods to use.  We think Number 2 would be the best option for that.
              So we did have a comment earlier also, yes, this has the potential to take away your interaction with the NRTLs.
              
              But I'd kind of just like to flip that over as you're no longer spending a month ahead of time looking at their documents before going onsite for a week.  You've got that whole month now freed up to have that interaction with them and others.
              So again, a double-edged sword there.  I think you might have some benefits in removing yourselves from the assessments.  We absolutely would still encourage OSHA to contain or to hold onto that power of final recognition.
              Yes, you're assessed, yes, you've been accredited to 17025, 17065 by an accreditation body.  But does OSHA still recognize the certifier to participate in this program?
              You know, we fully support that kind of set up.  It's what most other regulatory bodies within the government and outside the government have still done with us.
              
              The FCC/TCB program is probably the most similar to what I think a lot of the comments are aimed at here.  And Keith, at the very first, mentioned the NIST and NVCASE program in terms of a way of evaluating the accreditation bodies.
              I think A2LA's evaluated by NIST on a two-year basis for the NVCASE program.  The peer evaluations from the regional ILAC and IAF folks are on a four-year.  And we've always had regulators and people like that coming in observing these assessments by our peers, by NVCASE.
              And that's something OSHA would still absolutely be involved in if they would want to be.  I think IAS would probably be willing to do the same thing and any other accreditation bodies you guys would be interested in bringing on to the program.
              Option Number 1, still viable.  You guys are still holding on to a lot of that extra burden though, of still going out and doing a second assessment to the technical competencies for the CBs and the testing labs.
              
              That's your choice.  You know, you've heard the costs, and the benefits and the drawbacks to that.  I won't go into that again.
              But Number 1, if nothing else, allow us to take some of that burden off of you.  We're already doing it for the guys who are out there accredited to 025 and 065.  Go ahead and cut a couple days of your time off on sites.  Spend it doing stuff at home with your families, back here in your offices.
              I guess, really, the last thing for me, since everybody else has taken everything I wanted to talk about, I do kind of want to focus on promoting the IAF and the ILAC MRAs.
              We do have the peer evaluations in those by other accreditation bodies within our regions.  A2LA, back in February I think, and we had to extend it into March due to the snow, we had over a dozen people coming in from the APLAC and IAC areas to evaluate testing, calibration, medical testing, inspection bodies, product certification, reference materials and PT providers.
              
              So we had quite the gamut of people coming in and seeing are we competent to offer these accreditations.  I don't know about all the other ones, you know, Milton recognized or had recommended using.
              Any accreditation body that demonstrates compliance to 17011, we would kind of push against that a little bit, because we don't know what the peer evaluations are, what the quality of these other ABs are that aren't part of that signatory status.
              That's about it for my comments, since everybody else has spoken.  Thank you guys for your time.
              (Applause)
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thank you.  Well, this will never happen.  We're actually way ahead of schedule.  So we are scheduled to take a break right now for about ten minutes.
              
              Again, coffee if you need it is upstairs on the sixth floor, elevator lobbies on either end.  And then when we come back from the break, we will start grilling these guys on questions.  So it is now, let's go, let's say 10:45, meet back here.
              (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 10:32 a.m. and resumed at 10:55 a.m.)
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay, so I think I can speak for everyone that the presentations that were given were very informative.  And it will certainly help us as we move forward with making some of the decisions.
              I would like to open the floor up to questions again if you're registered as a participant.  Just to help control the questions, if you'd just raise your hand.  And Tom and Terrance will hand you a microphone.
              
              But I would like to throw out a hardball question here for you guys.  So one thing that OSHA has seen with regards to independent accreditation bodies, we have gone out to some of the NRTLs and will oftentimes hear that, oh well, insert an accreditation body name here, was just out here two weeks ago.
              They've just approved us for this particular standard.  And this is a standard that we have submitted to OSHA for consideration to add to our scope of recognition.
              While we're onsite, we start reviewing the NRTL's capabilities or the applicant's capabilities.  And we find that they do not have the necessary test equipment, they don't have the training records in place to support that an individual or that a laboratory has the capabilities to test and certify products to that.
              And this is something that we see fairly regularly.  And it's not just a minor issue.  These are major issues that speak to the capabilities.
              
              So I was wondering, what do you think could be done?  Or is there something more that could be done to help minimize the deficiencies that are seen out there?  And I'll open it up to anyone who want to tackle that question.
              MR. MOWRY:  Well, Kevin, let me ask a clarifying just to make sure we understand your question.  OSHA has requirements for in-house test capability, 17065 doesn't.  Is that the basis of your observation here?
              MR. ROBINSON:  Well, yes, perhaps.  You know, with 17025 you are required to have training records.  And not to the extent that the NRTL program goes, but you are, you know, we go deeper as far as what the capability requirements are.
              So if you have an independent accreditation body, and let's say that one of your laboratories is applying for standard for photovoltaic cells, new standard, new addition to that scope.
              
              What process do the accreditation bodies follow to have that standard added to their scope?  Is it just a paperwork process, reviewing procedures?  Or is it, you know, show me the money and move on?  Or what level of due diligence do the ABs do before adding a particular standard, or a set of standards or category of equipment to a laboratory scope?
              MR. NATHAN: I believe the question was addressed not to the CBs but the ABs.  And Keith can always support me.  He's very good with that.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Keith will join him whenever he wants something.
              MR. NATHAN:  Well, you know, no.  The process is very clear historically on these things.  It's really, it's a technical question as to, you know, what are the standards that could be added with what we call onsite assessment and what we term as desk assessments?
              
              And it all depends on the specificity of the standards.  If you're talking about a related standard where the technology is the same, the equipment is the same and the technical personnel have demonstrated competence to what I call critical methods within the current scope, then our technical team reviews that before we make a judgement whether we need an onsite or offsite.
              We have clear policies on our Website which says how do you do scope expansions?  There's a set of documents, records they have to submit.
              And once we get those documents, then we make the decision whether we can do an onsite or offsite.  So it really depends on the specific technical methods.  But it's fair to say that you have those options, both desk and onsite assessments.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Anyone else?  And I'll just remind everyone before you do speak if you can just state your name.  Keith, go for it.
              MR. MOWRY:  Well, Keith Mowry with UL.  Well, the North American accreditation bodies we work with, as a certification body, don't scope us by standard.  And so when we apply for a scope expansion, it's within the context of the scope mechanisms they use.
              Right now, that's ICS codes.  You know, we do have scope expansions for new ICS codes, because we're getting involved in new areas.
              But 17065 does not mandate that the certification body have an internal test lab.  It doesn't mandate that the certification body use an internal test lab for the testing that supports certification.
              There are other options.  There are plenty of examples where we certify products where we're going a lose our shirts if we actually go and buy the test equipment.  Because there just aren't any customers out there.
              
              There's only two or three manufacturers.  And the test equipment already exists someplace else, and frankly it's foolish for us to spend our resources on that when we could use those resources for other things that contribute to product safety.
              So the point is this, okay.  Oh, I'm sorry.  I'm puffing into the microphone again.  So the answer to your question is what do the accreditation bodies do to us, it depends on what we tell them in terms of how we're going to get the testing done to support that certification.
              If we're going to go out and witness the testing, and that's our plan, small category, market needs certification soon, we can't afford to buy the test equipment, we'll go out and witness it.
              
              And so the AB will expect us to be able to demonstrate that we have the technical capability to witness the testing.  And we're not going to qualify testing technicians for testing we're not going to do.  We're not going to give you equipment lists for testing we're not going to do.
              What we would tell the AB is, and this is usually the case, here's the technical capability we have in a very similar area.  The engineering capability and the technical qualifications for doing that work in certification easily qualifies to witness testing in this different area where we are not necessarily going to have the internal test capability.
              If we do have internal test capability, frankly it's very rare that it's anything terribly different than what we're already doing now, for the same economic and financial reasons.
              
              In order to invest in a substantially different and large new testing capability, you're going to have to have enough business to pay that off.  And those don't come down the pike all that often so much anymore.
              So that's how the ABs interact with us.  They expect us to be able to demonstrate competence that depends on where the testing is going to be done and how we're going to accomplish that.
              MR. NATHAN:  Four points that were raised, offsite witness testing, we have clear policies on what the offsite witness testing is.  And we have worked very closely with our certification bodies how this offsite witness testing is.
              You mentioned about training records.  Training records, again, the devil is in the details on what is the level of training records you need to see.
              If you go down and look at a particular technical person who has spent many years working on critical technologies, there is a level of -- because ultimately we are doing technical competence judgement.
              
              If you look at 17025, 6 (sic), it clearly talks about technical competence in the judgement.  So I think the details could be specified, for instance, in OSHA.  What is the expectation of the training records?
              I think we are very clear.  We are very comfortable when we accredit.  We feel that we have done a good judgement on that.
              Two other points, on the scope of the testing, remember that we look at this testing scope in it's entirety through what we call critical sampling methodology.
              So you need to understand all accreditation bodies in the world do that sort of analysis in terms of critical methods and critical technologies to arrive at the scope.
              Now, if you walk into a lab, and you find a particular equipment is missing and a scope is not there, that is obviously, there is something lacking there.  And I would then go back to the same question.
              
              The regulators need to provide us the feedback analysis.  Because we'll be on a flight next day to determine what went wrong there or what was the challenge.
              But again, the whole process of accreditation works by having that feedback loop between the regulators and accrediting bodies.
              We very rarely hear from regulators on what the issues are.  And we're waiting for them to join us.  We're waiting for them to let us know.  And we are very reactive, as I told you.  We are nimble, I mean, we can take a flight and head to China next week if we need to.
              So I think the process has to be used through that feedback and analysis.  And we're on standby to react to any regulator.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Mike?
              (Off microphone discussion)
MR. BUZARD:  Just a different accreditation body's perspective.  I know Keith had mentioned ICS codes for certification body scopes.

              A2LA will, on our scopes for the CBs, we actually list the individual schemes.  So the FCC's scheme, the EnergyStar scheme and then the individual products within, Water Sense, we have some scheme owners that are also certifiers themselves.
              So in those cases, they'll have their own certification scheme listed rather than 14 pages of an ICS code which kind of ties a little bit into the way the Standard 065 is written.  At the same time, we kind of feel that the way we had it will still work.
              Keith had hinted at, you know, he's brought it up a couple of times, the scheme.  The Standard 065 does say that if you're going to use what's called an external resource, most of us in layman's terms call it subcontracting where you're going to use an outside test lab to do the testing, they have to meet appropriate requirements of 17025, usually going to be laid out by the scheme.
              
              So from OSHA, if you guys go to write the scheme, do you want full compliance to 17025?  If so, do you want it validated through accreditation, or through the CB to go out and audit or through a Self declaration, things like that?
              Going back into that, if we were to expand a CB's scope into a new product type or a new product scheme, most of the time if it's not at all related to what they've already been doing with us, we're absolutely going out onsite, taking a look through thorough document reviews, interviews to determine CB competency to review these things, test labs.
              Raj just kind of mentioned what we do already with test labs.  Everything with the accreditation bodies at least begins with paperwork at a minimum.
              
              It's never hand me money, we're just going take your word on this.  It's always a minimum of do you have, from A2LA experience, do you have a copy of the standard you're claiming to be able to perform?  Do you have training records?
              If you needed to procure new equipment, is it calibrated in accordance with 17025 and the ILAC traceability requirements?  So we're at least verifying records, competence, things like that.
              Same thing with CBs.  For test labs, if it's something unrelated to what you've been doing with us for years and no other accreditation body has already seen you do it, we're going to be coming out onsite with our assessors.  But we don't know that until we get all that paperwork ahead of time.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Andrew?
              MR. EVANS:  Andrew Evans from GAMBICA.  We believe for accreditation to work the accreditation has to be separate from any conformity assessment activities.  Also that there's no competition and free from any commercial activities.
              
              The advantages of this are that, for example, in Europe you have an accreditation body in Spain, another one in Germany, because there's no competition.
              If the expertise lies in another member's state, they can cooperate with each other.  So one state can help another accredit laboratories within that state.
              So we see that as a major advantage in sharing resources.  Because there's no incentive there to hide anything, a completely transparent process.
              You could, for example, you could have a United States accreditation cooperation and have an accreditation body per state.  And then OSHA would be, say, a stakeholder in the advisory board for that cooperation.
              And then there's a cooperation between the different states.  So there's always the expertise there to accredit any type of laboratory.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Joan?
              
              MS. STERLING:  Hi.  Joan Sterling with Intertek, but today representing IFIA, our trade association, International Federation of Inspection Agencies.  There's probably six of our members here, Intertek, UL, CSA, SGS, BV and TUV.
              But, Kevin, I just want to get a little clarification on your question.  Were you asking about the veracity of accreditations?
              In other words, in the discussion you just had, the quality of accreditations that are being done, are they all being done, are all accreditors accrediting in the same way?  And can they all be trusted, essentially, to do what needs to be done for a particular scheme?
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yeah.  And the experiences that OSHA has seen, and myself personally going out to laboratories, it's hard right now for us to pinpoint exactly where the problem lies.  But it is something that is on our radar screen as we start considering moving into the use of private sector accreditation bodies.
              I'm not saying we're perfect.  But generally speaking, you know, some of the deficiencies that we have seen have been rather significant.  And so that is something that, a concern that we do need to address.  So, you know, geez, I put my hands up everywhere.
              MR. MOWRY:  Keith Mowry with UL.  I guess the question is are the deficiencies you've seen, in the context of the current OSHA NRTL requirements, are those deficiencies just as valid in the context of 17065 requirements?
              MR. ROBINSON:  I would put the deficiencies from the testing side of things on 17025, 17065 or Guide 65, which is really where most labs or certification bodies have been accredited against, not so much there.
              
              It's more, the obvious deficiencies that we have seen have been more on the testing side and not having proper training records, not having equipment, not calibrating the equipment.  And not just one or two pieces of equipment, but occasionally, you know, just across the board significant deficiencies.
              MR. MOWRY:  Keith Mowry with UL.  And these are for internal labs that the NRTL intends to use to --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Correct.
              MR. MOWRY:  Oh, well --
              MR. ROBINSON:  In OSHA speak, these are recognized sites or SNAP sites.
              MR. MOWRY:  Okay.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Or candidate labs.  So, and I look at it as, you know, I truly believe there is the luck of the auditor.
              You are, you know, if I'm going onsite, I can guarantee you that if one of the ABs that were here were coming in the week after us, sure, there are certainly things that we would miss.  And, you know, there's that random piece of equipment.
              
              But on a scale of one to ten, I would put these up there at about a nine as far as things that we have seen, just anecdotally.
              MR. NATHAN:  Again, Raj Nathan from IAS.  The issue of, and Pete Unger is here from ILAC and can speak at the international level on some of the so-called variabilities if not inconsistencies in ABs in approach to accreditation.
              Again, as I keep saying to other regulators, whether it's the EPA, or New York City or any of the organizations, an assessment, you know, they're well laid out processes.  And that's for years on what the requirements on 170 -- we also have a variety of specific technical requirements.
              
              Now, if your technical team is out there at a particular facility, and you're finding out that equipment is not calibrating, now the question, really again, we're going back a little bit past in the history in terms of how these calibration equipments are dealt with.
              And I looked at, for instance, your document which Section 4.6, which is interesting.  And I have comments separately which I'll feed through email.  4.6 lays out, for instance, certain specific ways in which OSHA is approaching how calibration verification has to be done.
              Now, we all understand how equipment calibration has to be done.  But there are various tiers in how you approach those calibrations.  You could do through obviously an internal verification process.
              Now, there can be a very good assessment based on trend analysis and others how that equipment is validated.  So I think the devil really is in the details, Kevin.
              
              But if you're finding, from what I am hearing, a particular lab or labs that have quite a bit of equipment that's not calibrated, that's really staggering.  Because I haven't in years.
              So I think what, again, I go back to the situation where the regulators need to -- within, of course, their confidentiality allows -- share that with the ABs.
              Because believe me, the feedback loop is very critical.  And we are very reactive.  And I'm speaking on behalf of all the ABs here.  We are very quick on that.
              So I think we have seen this happen time and again and the effectiveness of that type of system quickly having that corrective mechanism.
              And then of course you, as the ultimate authority, you have the ability to, you know, do whatever penalties or corrective actions you need to do from your point of view.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Terrance, we have a --
              
              MR. FIGUEIREDO:  Reinaldo Figueiredo with ANSI.  I'd just like to bring a point here in terms of this new approach that OSHA is going to take in the future and also for us to learn from other agents in the U.S., for instance the Federal Communication Commission, FCC, it starts its program in the year 2000.
              And on that time ANSI was evaluated by a very good program that exists here in the U.S., that's NVCASE that was already mentioned during the panel today.
              And I think if OSHA rely on NVCASE to assess the ABs, not only the ABs in the U.S. but outside of the U.S. as well, is going to give you much more credibility for your program.
              And another point is related to the OSHA as a scheme owner.  Because you are going to change your activity, you're going to -- because today you act as an accreditation body.
              
              And you're going to act in the future, if that's going to be your goal, you're going to be a scheme owner.  And then you need to learn how to act.
              You need to have meetings with accreditation bodies, because that helps your process.  This is a shifting of mind and shifting of process that you have to have in place.
              Because today you need to assess 20 labs or 100 CBs.  In the future, you have like five or ten ABs.  And you need to control them, you need to give guidance to those ABs on how to implement your process.  Thank you.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Keith?
              MR. MOWRY:  Keith Mowry of UL.  And just to take that one step further and save me from blowing my five minute limit on a future time, when you have those discussions with ABs, get everybody in there.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              
              MR. MOWRY:  Get everybody to hear the same thing at the same time.  It takes all the competitive, inappropriate competitive pressure out of competing, of NRTLs competing with each other.
              The ABs hear it, the CBs hear it, industry hears it, everybody hears it.  Everybody walks out saying, okay, we all know what the requirement is.  And we're not going to start trying to be clever with what it might mean for competitive reasons.
              So I agree with Reinaldo.  You interact with the ABs, you interact with all your stakeholders, interactively, collaboratively, as a group.  That's what scheme owners do.
              Because that is really cost effective in getting the scheme as consistent as it can be.  And it's a never-ending effort.  Being a scheme owner is a journey, it's not a destination.  You will always be clarifying, pulling people together.
              
              And you're going to be adjusting your scheme as conditions change.  So I'm fully onboard with what Reinaldo says, but get all the stakeholders in there.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  I've been beating these up.  Are there any other questions on different topics that we want to go?  Dave, oh --
              MR. UNGER:  Pete Unger,  A2LA.  I'm sorry, I'm going back to your original question.  The key issue is how well the assessors perform the assessments.
              If deficiencies aren't found, non-conformity's aren't found, the decision makers aren't going to know about it.  It's the assessors.
              I think, if you're going to rely on  multiple accreditation bodies, that OSHA could set up a scheme for, in effect, approving assessors, training the assessors, two-year particular requirements.
              
              This is similar to what the World Anti-Doping Agency does.  They rely on about a dozen accreditation bodies around the world that provide approximately 20 assessors or 30 assessors.
              They bring these assessors in and train them on their particular requirements, the particular test methods, how they want the assessments to be done, with a baseline being 17025.
              I think that model could very well be used by OSHA where the accreditation bodies pay for the participation of the assessors in that process.  And clearly, it's just not training records.  It's how well they actually perform.  So each AB really needs to watch how these folks perform.  Thank you.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Dave Loebach is chomping at the bit here.
              MR. LOEBACH:  We've been talking about all the different proposals that OSHA has.  And something I think that's been missing, Keith kind of touched on it a little bit, and that's what expertise, what kind of staff level is OSHA going to have to have for each of these programs.
              
              I think OSHA might be served well if some of these people would comment on that.  OSHA knows what they're jumping into.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.  And just to set the stage, before we got to this point with the assistance of NIST, OSHA did reach out to several federal agencies who are also operating conformity assessment scheme just to see what was out there, how our other federal agencies who face similar challenges as OSHA, how are they handling this?  How are they working with it?
              And we looked at everything from we just hand it over, and we've selected an accreditation body, they handle it, and we walk away and we're happy.
              
              And two things where there were, you know, the federal agency was hands-on and working with it.  There were some where the federal agencies were more involved than OSHA is currently right now, where the federal agency is doing the actual testing.  They're doing the onsite assessments.  They are the ones who are approving products.
              And, you know, OSHA is in a very unique position.  A lot of these agencies were setting things up for the first time.  We already have an existing program.  We generally know what is going to work and what doesn't, is probably not going to work.
              But Dave does bring up a point.  Certainly we were aware that there are going to be some resources that we need to have for this.
              But for the scope and size of the NRTL program, right now we have 15 organizations that have been recognized as NRTLs.  They operate about 160 sites on every continent except for Africa and Antarctica.  Please don't open a lab in Antarctica.
              
              Based on the applications that we see coming in, I anticipate that, probably by the end of next year, we're going to be pushing about 18 NRTLs and close to 200 sites that will be audited.
              So I guess, maybe sort of taking off what Dave said and what some of the presenters have said, roughly how many ABs do you think would be needed to handle that scope of work?
              And as well, what resources or how much resources, based on your work with other federal agencies, how many resources do you think OSHA would need to manage a scope of that size?
              MR. NATHAN:  Okay.  Again, I suppose the question is directed towards the AB.  I had a couple of questions for you, Kevin.  But I'll, in responding --
              MR. BUZARD:  I'm glad somebody else does?
              (Laughter)
              
              MR. NATHAN:  -- in responding to, as I mentioned in my presentation, I listed out all of the current certification bodies and testing organizations that we've already accredited.
              And that's a little over, I think, 55 sites which, one of my colleagues did the research, but we presume it captures the majority of your sites.  However, I haven't compared the scopes of what you have listed to the scopes we have listed or not.
              In terms of the resources, in United States it's safe to say that working in conjunction with all the accreditation bodies that the scope of work you're laying out would not be a challenge.
              And again, we are of course, to some extent, reactive.  But we do have current resources which we service.  So it's not that difficult.  I mean, if it goes from 100 customers to, let's say, 300 customers, then naturally there is a progression in how we can ramp up the resource.
              
              But speaking as an operations guy, we've handled these kind of things, you know, we've gone from a few hundred to almost approaching 1,000.  And we have done it reasonably well with enough resources.  So I don't think, within the United States, that's a challenge.
              But from your point of view or your staffing question, which the gentleman alluded to, I think those are requirements definitely, you know, can be laid out working with the ABs, what those sort of resources are.
              I take one small exception to what Pete Unger said.  Pete mentioned that OSHA may need to approve assessors.  And, Pete, respectfully, what I would simply say that OSHA needs to lay down the requirement for the assessors.
              I think the approving the assessors is a hugely complex task.  You may end up, you know, looking at resumes, and CVs and training records of several hundred.
              
              And I don't think, given just the ability to handle the assessments, you now take on the task of approving the assessors will be highly challenging.  I think if you lay the requirements out very clearly, that would be very useful.
              And one other speaker mentioned that you do need to lay out the guidelines and requirements for the ABs which you haven't laid out.  So I think the resource handling within United States, I don't see that as a challenge.
              One final point, international ABs, I am not aware of what their challenges would be.  Because they are governmental organizations.  They're not going to be as reactive to these type of resource issues.  So I think I can speak for the American ABs that we can easily do that.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Andrew?
              
              MR. EVANS:  Andrew Evans, GAMBICA.  If you had a cooperation of accreditation bodies, then OSHA would not need to accredit accreditors.  Because you'd have a peer-to-peer evaluation system in place.  That's the advantage of having the cooperation.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  And Mike, all right --
              MR. BUZARD:  Mike Buzard of A2LA.  Just kind of to expand upon Raj's comments and your question about, you know, in terms of the ABs staffing, I'll point back to the FCC/TCB program.
              We have 20 certifiers in the United States.  The FCC specifies your certification body has to be continentally located here.  Twenty certifiers, and I'm not quite sure how many labs -- I saw Gordon Gillerman out here somewhere, and maybe he's got a closer idea -- we might be at 200 plus for the individual testing site locations.
              But your numbers are certainly feasible.  Right now the FCC only recognizes three accreditation bodies to handle those.  And it's very little stress, at least on A2LA's part.  I know ANSI's one of the other recognized ones.  And is IAS the third?
              
              MR. NATHAN:  No, it's FCC, I think.
              (Off microphone discussion)
              MR. BUZARD:  They added one more  in maybe A Class last year.  But there's a third one that's recently been added.  Twenty CBs, close to 200 test labs.  I think it's not going to be an issue on the AB side of things.
              To the gentleman's question, what's OSHA staffing level going to need to be, how much handle do you want to have on the ABs and how much direct handle do you want to have on the CBs?  And if you chose to do so, accredited test labs or the individual NRTL SNAP sites.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Milton?
              MR. BUSH:  Yeah.  I would say that OSHA doesn't really need to worry about the private sector market, the ABs.  If there's a market there, the ABs will meet it.  They'll ramp up for it, they'll meet it.
              
              What OSHA needs to spend its time on is figuring out what model's going to work best for OSHA, okay.  I will tell you that ACIL is concerned, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, misunderstanding, is you intend to ramp up, internally staffing --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              MR. BUSH:  -- to meet the requirements of the new directive.  And generally speaking, in most government organizations, once you ramp up it never ramps down.
              So there's a concern on the private sector side that once you ramp up that it won't get privatized.  And we'll spend a lot of resources, will have spent a lot of resources and time on this topic.
              But at the same time, if OSHA focuses more, forget about the private sector ABs and focuses more on what's an appropriate role for OSHA, then that model will tell you what your resources are and what will be needed.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Keith?
              
              MR. MOWRY:  And, you know, it's a good question, because it gives us an opportunity to go to another level of detail about OSHA and what your thinking about doing, and how that's different than some of the examples we've heard so far.
              When the FCC/TCB approach came on stream, nobody was really certifying products for FCC regulatory compliance.  It was a green field.
              FCC came along and said, well, we don't want to do this anymore.  We'd like to hand it off to private sector.  Let's have accreditation bodies, let's have a model, let's do all this stuff.  And the private sector responded, and we built all that.  And that was all great.
              
              You are in a very different situation.  There are lots of other demand drivers out there for safety certification of the exact same products that you regulate. Those demand drivers are demanding certification too.  They were there before OSHA, in the 70's, decided to do NRTL, right?
              We, I can tell you that we already hold accreditations that cover probably 90 to 95 percent of compliance with OSHA NRTL requirements.
              For the accreditation bodies we work with, it's going to be a very small delta of what they're going to audit us against if, if they are accepted by OSHA to accredit us as a CB for operating the NRTL program.  Because we're already doing all those activities for the other stakeholders, for the exact same standards, the exact same certification processes, essentially the same scheme.
              So this is not as if OSHA is going to be handing the private sector a big new activity to take care of.  They're already doing it.
              
              Now, this is also going to come back and impact some of the future questions.  OSHA is not the only stakeholder for product safety certification for the products you regulate.  There are other demand drivers, there are other demands for certification.
              A certification body, for its clients, will want to meet everybody's demands with a single service to the extent that they can.  If the demands go so far apart and get so divergent that's it not possible to offer a single service, we'll still meet our customers' expectations as best we can.
              But it might not be through a single service.  It's just not possible.  So far, it's been fairly homogenous about what electrical safety certification for all the various stakeholders in the United States should look like.
              And so the manufacturers of those products have the benefit of coming into a single certification process and even have multiple providers to choose from.
              
              Like Milt says, you get competition, appropriate competition, appropriate competition to drive innovation and drive efficiencies.  But you can go to a variety of service providers and get through a single certification process, and local jurisdictions, and retailers, and insurance underwriters, and federal regulators.  And lots of people involved with electrical safety are happy.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Paul?
              MR. MOLISKI:  Thank you.  Paul Moliski, Intertek.  I partially agree with what Keith said.  I think if this remains domestic within the U.S., I think the delta will be very small.  I think there'd be adequate controls.
              But making a comparison in a slightly different form, if you compare with food safety, there are several large schemes operated globally in food.
              
              The food scheme owners had significant issues, similar issues that you raised regarding laboratory competency.  And the scheme owners went to the ABs.  They actually wrote their own guidance document for ABs to use.
              And acceptance of that document was met with resistance internationally.  Internationally, if you choose to use ABs from other countries, there is a risk that you'll see resistance in ABs adjusting their policies to meet all of the OSHA requirements.  So your selection of ABs will, I think, will be challenging should you choose to reach outside of the U.S.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Raj had a comment, question.
              MR. NATHAN:  Just to, as I said, there are a few questions I would also have OSHA staff consider.  For instance, and I would like the ABs here and certainly the CBs here to look at this.
              
              In the requirements document, draft document, Section 5.4 is an example that I'm looking at.  And it says here each test procedure shall adequately address all the applicable requirements to a particular standard.
              As an AB, we have CBs that have hundreds and hundreds of test methods.  I read into that, and I say every one of those test methods you need a corresponding written test procedure.
              Now, that, if you walk in and you don't find that, you're going to cite that as a nonconformity, from the AB perspective.  And we accredit labs.
              If a test procedure, if you're doing continuity testing, for instance, those kind of test procedures are very self-evident.  I'm sure some test technicians would disagree.
              They don't need a written test procedure, because the test standard is self-evident.  So that particular clause imposes, in my estimation, and the CBs can talk about it, thousands and thousands of dollars.
              
              Because I can guarantee you, you walk into a CB, you're not going to find test procedures, unless that test procedure is not clear.  And therefore, a written test procedure is needed too.
              So just that requirement itself would be -- and I'm reading literally into what you have written.  And I read this late night, 11 o'clock, and I'm going no way.
              (Laughter)
              MR. NATHAN:  I am just saying that the requirements you have, and I have a number of points which I'll share this document -- I unfortunately didn't have a chance to look at it -- one other final point I have, you have a requirement for annual assessments.  And the other ABs --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Sort of.
              MR. NATHAN:  -- need to look at it.  Because in the international scheme, typically it's once every two years for the ABS.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Our targets, targets in reality are a little bit different right now.  But our targets are for recognized sites about every 18 months for what we are calling our SNAP sites.
              We're trying to shoot for about every 24 months.  We have 160 sites, three assessors.  Do the math, it doesn't work that way.  But that's our target.  Paul, Shawn, rather?
              MR. PAULSEN:  Yes.  Speaking as an NRTL, I guess, that's located outside of the U.S., you know, when we look at our lab scopes it's not too much of a concern.  I mean, we can get a 17025 accreditation from a variety of different accreditation bodies.  And these can be recognized.
              Again, I think there needs to be variety there.  We certainly don't want to, again, be locked into only one or two ABs.  Potentially, that would be required now to pick up all this work.
              
              But when we look at the certification side, or our 17065 accreditation, again, being located outside the U.S., it'd obviously be nice to be able to use an accreditation body that's located, you know, outside the U.S. or locally, for us, in Canada.
              There are a number of NRTLs, or I guess there are NRTLs in Canada and, I think, applications for a few more.  So obviously, it'd be beneficial to see something local.
              That being said, again, you know, the question to OSHA, I guess, is how are you going to ensure that ABs located in other geographical areas, you know, will get, are capable of performing the assessments that you need to be done?
              MR. ROBINSON:  And I would say that is certainly a challenge.  And we are at step 0.5 of 20.  And we have a long way to go.  And this is really the first step in saying, you know, we are the SS OSHA.  Which way do we need to go?
              
              And, you know, the comments that have been given as far as the presentations are concerned will give us a lot of information to chew on.  Internally, I think we have had some of our own thoughts and probably share some of the opinions that have been presented here.
              But it's simply just a matter of taking everything that we receive today, analyzing that.  And then the outcome would be, well, we're going to go with Option X.  Let's hold more stakeholder meetings, let's hold RFIs, let's collect and gather some more information and move through it very methodically.
              You know, it's sort of a long term goal.  This is a long term process.  This is not something that we're going to turn on next week.  Keith?
              
              MR. MOWRY:  Keith Mowry from UL.  Obviously there's a lot of work and a lot of discussion left to be done.  Let me encourage you to start acting like a scheme owner now.  Start pulling together the stakeholders to develop your scheme now, regardless of the model you follow.
              Don't do it the other way around.  Don't decide the model in a vacuum and then start acting like a scheme owner to pull together and collaborate with your stakeholders.
              You're going to get a lot more resources.  Yeah, you're going to get different opinions from different folks.  But you're going to get your scheme defined and effective far faster if you start acting like a scheme owner now, even though you're still doing the assessments.
              You know, in effect you're the accreditation body.  That's fine.  But as you develop your new model, develop it using the model of a scheme owner, and make sure that you interact collaboratively with all of us as a group.  It'll get done faster.
              
              And there are people here in this room, and this is the whole reason you're doing this, who are going to offer services and generate income because of the changes you're making.
              They're incentivized to help you get it decided clearly as quickly as possible.  Because they want to realize that income sooner rather than later.  Take advantage of that.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Very good.
              MR. FIGUEIREDO:  On the other point also, is the experience that the accreditation bodies in the U.S. has, that they have, that we have with scheme owners.
              Like ANSI, we have memoranda of understanding with more than 36 scheme owners.  We have with EPA, EnergyStar, Water Sense, FCC, go on and on.
              
              And we got not only ANSI but other ABs in the U.S.  We got a lot of knowledge on how to deal with the scheme owners.  Because it was a learning curve for us in the beginning on how to deal with scheme owners.
              And also, you're going to see, in some regions of the world, that you're going to go there and you're going to put your requirements on the table.
              They're going to say, look, I'm not going to use this, I cannot use.  You're going to see this.  And then you need to be prepared for this type of situation.
              And another point on what Peter Unger brought about the qualification of assessors.  That is a key also, not only for your scheme, but all the other schemes that exist today, qualification and competence of the assessors, of the accreditation bodies.
              If it's going to be used, that's going to qualify them, or you're going to accept another certification body that do personal certification.  You need to start to think of that as well.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thank you.  I think  we've beaten this one up a little bit.  Are there any other questions?  There's a lot more information we need to get.  But I want to move on.  Are there any other questions that we have from out in the audience?  Yes?
              MS. MALAKHOVA:  Hi, Natalia Malakhova with ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board.  I just wanted to piggyback on what Reinaldo has said, is that we are in this business.
              We've been doing this for a long time.  We have experience, and we can help you set up the program any way you want to.  For example, you know, you've mentioned some of the factors that you were walking into facilities where, you know, there are 17025 accreditation, but they're missing X, Y and Z.
              The question that I would think about is like are they accredited for that specific test method under 17025 accreditation?
              
              Because under 17025 accreditation, we go out there to ensure that they have the calibrated equipment.  But it is focused for that specific test method.  So just because the facility is 25 accredited, doesn't mean that the facility can do anything under the world, under, you know.  It has to be accredited for that specific test method.
              And then we would ensure that it has the equipment to do that.  It has the trained personnel, it has the procedures, whatever you name, whatever you want us to verify, we would do that.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Any other questions.  Everyone's hungry.
              MR. NATHAN:  Kevin, I do have --
              (Laughter)
              MR. NATHAN:  I have one final urgent plea to you that please get involved as we are involved with you as a stakeholder.  Please to get involved with the international accreditation group, because they're looking for regulators to participate.
              
              And again, I keep saying that in APLAC meetings, Asia Pacific, that folks like you need to be on the table to talk about it.  Because there are a lot of international ABs that will get impacted by it.
              More importantly, you can get your message across.  It's too bad that last week you could not go to the ILAC meeting in Vancouver.  But please do get involved.  Because I think you will get much more robust feedback on this, not only from the international but certainly from the U.S. ABs.
              MR. ROBINSON:  And I would say I think we certainly appreciate that.  The challenge we face is, right now with a staff of three, four, I'm sorry, with a staff of four, our time is extremely limited.
              And we really have to pick which groups are going to give us the best value for our time.  And to that end, I would say if there are groups that anyone feels that we should be involved in, please let us know.
              
              Because, you know, we try to be involved, and we are trying to be involved as much as we can.  But we really do need to pick our battles and which is going to give us the best benefit.
              But oftentimes, we may not necessarily be aware that there are certain group meetings that are happening or, you know, that they might be beneficial to us.
              So I would call upon our stakeholders, if there are some things that you believe that we should be involved in, let us know.  Then we can certainly take that into consideration.
              Any other questions?  Okay.  I just want to thank our panel.  It is currently 10:45 (sic).  I would suggest, if you do want to grab lunch, that you run upstairs before the mass crowd hits at noon.  The cafeteria is up on the sixth floor.
              
              If you do want to go external, there are some restaurants around.  But you would need to go through security again.  So just keep that in mind.  And we'll meet back here, let's meet back here at about 12:00, about 12:40.  All right.
              (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 11:45 a.m. and resumed at 12:45 a.m.)

	A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N  S-E-S-S-I-O-N
	(12:45 p.m.)
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  As we are getting seated again, the next topics that we will be discussing are options that were presented for certification marks.
              The speakers for this session are Paul Moliski from Intertek, Shawn Paulsen from CSA, Todd Lucey from MCAA, Jorg Hartge from ZVEI, Keith Mowry from UL and Milton Bush from ACIL.
              Before we move into the topic, I just want to take a few moments to review the questions that we asked and the options that were being proposed.
              
              The first question we asked was is an entity owned by, or the option rather, was if an entity owned by an NRTL owns a certification mark, and the NRTL uses that certification mark for its NRTL certification, the entity owned by the NRTL could no longer use the mark for any other purpose, including marketing or advertisement.
              So it really comes down into the structure of ownership, and who is the actual owner of that mark and then what is it actually used for?  So that's one option that was being proposed and we're considering.
              The second option that we're presenting was OSHA's considering making the following policy change.  Any mark owned by an NRTL and used for its NRTL certifications would need to be clearly distinguishable from the mark of another entity owned or affiliated with that NRTL.
              For example, a mark used by an entity that is not a recognized NRTL would need to be clearly distinguishable from the mark used by the entity recognized as an NRTL. And a product certified by a non-NRTL could not appear to be a product certified by the NRTL.
              
              So in this situation, we have an NRTL mark, simply changing the color, making minor cosmetic changes would not be acceptable.  However, having a unique certification mark would be acceptable under this option we're proposing.
              And this third option which is based on some of the comments we received, I wanted to provide a little clarification for what OSHA's thought was when we were writing this and making this option.
              Under current OSHA policy, NRTLs need not add a unique identifier to the certification mark to signify work conducted under the NRTL program and compliance to particular product safety-based test standards.
              We're proposing to add a unique identifier similar to the C mark that is used in the 8 o'clock position to indicate compliance with Canadian regulations.
              
              Currently, this is a sampling of the NRTL marks that we currently recognize.  As you can see, some use a U.S. designation, some use an NRTL designation, some use no designation.
              The concept that we were thinking of when we were making this proposal was doing something like this, just simply adding on a small identifier, the external, the certification mark.
              I put N there, just because it's neutral for NRTL.  But the specifics are certainly open for discussion. But that is conceptually an identifier that we were considering.
              So there's the summary of all the questions.  And for this session, each presenter will have a total of about five minutes to speak.  And up on the block is Paul Moliski from Intertek.
              (Off microphone discussion)
              
              MR. MOLISKI:  Thank you, Kevin.  It seems that the two most sensitive areas that get discussed in scheme ownership are marks and the surveillance mechanism.  We're going to talk about surveillance after this topic.
              Thank you, Kevin, for clarifying those questions.  I was, myself, confused with the first item.
              We can talk about the identifier question.  I think, when you're comparing an identifier here in the U.S. with the C identifier in Canada, we want to make sure we're comparing apples to apples.
              I think the C is designated to show compliance with the Canadian standard.  And if we're thinking about an identifier with the NRTL program, if we're just showing a designation with a U.S. standard or the U.S. consensus standard for that product area, I think most of the NRTLs, well, from my recollection, are already using the initials US to show designation with a U.S. standard or designation with a Canadian standard.
              
              I think when we started applying the C, the mark looked a little naked without the US.  So we're, you know, we're including that designation to make it very clear to the authorities, retailers, buyers, that this product meets both a U.S. standard or a Canadian standard.  We can talk more about that as we get on with this.
              The marks, this first question, a little complicated to understand.  We took our best shot at it.  We approached it from, I think as you would expect, from our program perspective and tried to think of what other NRTLs would be doing and what our customers would be thinking that we should be doing.
              A lot of NRTLs have offered their marking, their marking schemes for 50 plus years.  To make a change to that could have long lasting effects that really need to be sorted out prior to making any change.
              
              The markings have been developed closely with industry, and we never make a change to our mark without first understanding what our customer and the industry needs.  So prior to making any change, we really want to evaluate what the next step would be.
              I can speak for Intertek when it comes to our mark.  That is one of our most valuable assets.  We applied tight controls over the use of the mark, and we expect our customers to do the same.
              So, you know, if part of the intent in changing is trying to find a tighter enforcement mechanism over the marks, I think most NRTLs would already be doing that.
              Our marks are registered.  There's a U.S. trademark law, Lanham Act, that governs the use and protection of our marks.  I mentioned that it's one of the most valuable assets we have.
              We are spending significant time, resources in protecting the mark.  We participate on Interpol counterfeit programs.  A change to the marking scheme, again, could have long lasting effects over the control and implementation long term.
              
              Next item, any mark owned by the NRTL and used for its NRTL certifications would need to be clearly distinguishable from the mark of any other entity owned or affiliated with the NRTL.
              We thought that creating additional marks or new marks could add to some confusion in the market.  The marks now are recognized in principle by electrical inspectors, retailers, some consumers, industry.
              To make a change would have a ripple effect.  And believe me, it's difficult enough to get a group of inspectors in Southern California or Los Angeles to understand what marks you need to recognize.  If we should say -- right, oh, we have five minutes, we only have five minutes?  Okay, got it.  To make that change could, you know, could not only cause significant trouble for the NRTL but for our customers.
              
              Unique identifier, I touched on that.  We're not, you know, I think your explanation cleared up some of the questions as to why you would want to have this identifier.
              And if it's something as simple as a US to signify testing to a U.S. standard, fine.  But again, if you're looking for a mandated NRTL marking, there could be other issues with real estate or with control of the mark.  So we would, again, caution against implementing additional marking requirements, because it's complicated enough.  Okay.
              MR. ROBINSON:  And next up is Shawn Paulsen with CSA.
              MR. PAULSEN:  Thank you.  I guess after Paul's presentation I could probably just say ditto.
              (Off microphone discussion)
              Anyway, again, looking at the request for the information that OSHA was seeking for this particular item, we weren't really sure on what was being proposed, I guess, for the first part.
              
              So we're focusing primarily on two of the items, which is basically the use of a clearly distinguishable mark for NRTL certifications.
              And then the second one is a unique identifier that would be used for the certification mark related to the NRTL program.
              So again, just looking at some of the comments that we had put forward, basically accreditation bodies utilize the ISO/IEC 17065 for accreditation and certification bodies.  And that standard also covers marks of conformity.
              So marks of conformity are also covered in a number of other international standards, such as ISO/IEC 17030 and also Guide 27 for corrective action in case of misuse of the mark.
              
              So it's interesting to note as well that ISO/IEC 17065 also mandates that certification bodies have a directory of certified products.  And that directory has to include basically the identification of the product, the standard or standards, and other normative documents to which conformity has been certified and also identification of the client.
              So we certainly feel that a, you know, well maintained certified product listing would be a valuable tool, not only for the regulators but also for OSHA to be able to identify standards that are used for the certification, and also the intended program that it's intended to cover.
              So we really don't see any benefit to requiring a unique NRTL mark or an identifier on a product in order to prove the NRTL coverage.  Again, we think it can be covered through the certified product listing.
              So the marks used by certification bodies is their identity in the marketplace, and I think Paul is alluding to this, you know, with consumers, with retailers, with regulators.
              
              And it's often used by industry to promote their products and also for industry to promote their products by acceptance of the regulators.  So basically, our certification mark is our identification, is our identity.
              There are many NRTLs with international operations, and these international ops may be certifying product for the U.S. market using the certification body's mark.
              I guess in the end it could result in multiple marks from a single certification body being applied.  You could have one mark for the NRTL mark and one mark for the non-NRTL mark basically on the same product, and even using the same evaluation data, possibly certified in different locations but certainly coming to the U.S.
              As Paul mentioned also, multiple marks can create a real estate issue on products and create confusion in the marketplace with the regulators.
              
              When we look at labeling costs for the NRTL and retooling cost to the manufacturers, these could be substantial.
              So another concern is when a product is being certified to binational standards.  And I think Paul alluded to this as well.  We could have product where the standard is a binational standard.  It's got the C designation and the U.S. designation.
              And now do we have to introduce another designation or another mark on the same product?  We don't see any real tangible benefit for this.
              So we feel that the country identifiers should be sufficient for the marking and where product is certified for the U.S., such as with CSA, we would have the U.S. designation on it.
              
              Now, the product has been found to meet the applicable requirements of the specified product standards.  So this does not change whether it's certified under OSHA or under a 17065 program.
              So certification bodies have invested heavily in the programs for mark recognition and mark acceptance related to the registered marks.  And, as Paul mentioned again, introducing new marks will add considerable cost to the NRTLs.
              So looking at the resource and cost implications, again the costs associated with registering new marks are considerably high and very time consuming.
              There are also considerable costs to the NRTL to develop, maintain and monitor additional marks or labels.  And again, with any new mark the NRTL is responsible to obtain the acceptance of those marks and recognition by regulators and by industry.
              So this could, you know, often this is done through, either through direct contact, through notices, external training, which again is all considerable cost to the NRTL.
              
              With any new marker indicator, manufacturers would be required to retool for new or added requirements, again, a considerable cost.
              So in closing, we certainly aren't supporting any of the changes related to the certification marks for the NRTL program.  We feel that certification bodies already have a well established process in place.
              And other methods can be used to indicate compliance to the NRTL program, again, such as the certified product listing if needed.  Thank you.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thank you, Shawn.  Next up is Todd Lucey from MCAA.  Todd?
              MR. LUCEY:  Okay, so coming at it from again the manufacturer's perspective, and I'm going to give a couple examples from a customer standpoint, our perspective is a little different than the first two speakers.
              
              Realizing all the things that have been said, we certainly respect and understand those assets.  We feel the same way about our brand and our imagine so we're respectful for that in trying to find a way to address that concern along with what we see in the customer side is what we're trying to shoot for.
              So first and foremost we want to make sure that we reduce the amount of confusion that already exists today in the customer base.  Today the customer base, and I'll just give you an example, is we have customers like BSF, like Dow Chemical, like DuPont.
              When they're specifying hazardous locations approvals, they will actually use the trademark or the name of the nationally recognized testing lab as that in their specifications.  I.e., in other words, we need it to be FM approved, Class 1, Division 1.
              
              We're working as manufacturers to educate the end-user base, that it doesn't have to be FM, it could be CSA, it could be UL, it could be ETL.  However, the customer base is confused because they get different messages from the people that are going out and assessing and auditing their plants.
              So if they have FM as a insurance carrier and the FM inspector states that they won't approve that installation with a CSA mark, only with an FM mark, now we talk about the cost to the manufacturers is even higher because we got to get multiple approvals, even though we shouldn't, under the NRTL program.  So it is already an issue for us, it's an issue for customers.
              And specifically from a cost standpoint, it actually increases the cost.  Especially again from the end-user perspective.
              
              And we go back to what I said earlier this morning is that when we're really looking at safety, we're not looking at safety just at the component level, i.e. what we manufacturer, we're looking at safety from the customer perspective.  And if it costs them more to implement these kind of things, then they have to make decisions on whether they do that or not.  And so by default we're creating that dynamic for them in the field.
              So we do support a unique identifier along with the asset.  So, and we already saw some examples that were put up by Kevin that show the asset identifier but also the NRTL designation on that mark as well.
              Cost to us, as a manufacturer to make that change, is reactively speaking insignificant.  The way software programs are today to etch the labels to make that change, yes there is some change, but relatively speaking it's not a huge change from a manufacturing perspective.  So we have a little different opinion and view on that.
              
              Another example I can give you is a company called Gilbarco.  Many of you may know they make dispensers.  Pretty much any gas station you go to have Gilbarco fuel dispensers with the whole implementation of diesel exhaust fluid, DEF.
              They manufacture this dispenser and it was using one of our products.  Our product had the designation of FM approved Class 1, Division 1.  Which was the hazardous location approval.
              Their particular factory was getting certified by UL.  And the UL inspector came back and said they would not certify that dispenser for use under the UL name unless that product, our product, our flow meter, got recertified with the UL mark instead of an FM mark.
              Now under the NRTL program, to us that shouldn't happen.  We should be able to have a UL inspector accept the unit as a FM identifier and be able to accept that and put it under the UL.
              
              So what it meant to the customer, nine months delay and almost a $100,000 between their cost and our cost to implement that solution.  We had to go back and get that product recertified through a UL label versus a FM label.
              So I think what we see, again, from this morning and what we're seeing here now, is there's a difference between, let's say the internal world, which is the accrediting bodies AB to the certification bodies, and when you turn it around and say from a demand side certification bodies out to the market, to us as manufacturers and ultimately the consumer, you get two totally different pictures.  So I find it interesting that we're, you know, think that's where these discussions are good.
              So again, last point is, clearly we know that there's still education that has to happen.  So if we introduce the NRTL identifier along with the assets label, that's what we're proposing to start with as a first step, ultimately we would like to see just one identifier.  NRTL as an example.
              
              Just like ATEX.  So the ATEX, they can go anywhere, get the approval and have the ATEX stamp on it.
              What we ultimately want to get to is a global perspective.  It goes far reaching in this situation.
              I was just with Proctor & Gamble last week, they're manufacturing skids in China that they want to ship anywhere in the world and know that it meets the proper hazardous locations approval.  And today, the way we as manufacturers designate that is we've got probably ten, 15, 20 different options codes that they have to select, depending on where that skid is going to.
              If it's going into the U.S., they have to establish the FM code or the UL code that's going for the U.S.  If it's going into Brazil they have to specify that option code.
              So for them it's very confusing, it's very time consuming and it's a big expense for them to engineer these products all the way through.
              
              So coming up with a universal identifier is ultimately where we'd like to go.  Thanks.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thank you.  And going to ask our next speaker to, if I mispronounce his name, to please correct me.  Jorg?
              DR. HARTGE:  Jorg.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Jorg, thank you.  Jorg Hartge from ZVEI.
              DR. HARTGE:  ZVEI, yes.
              MR. ROBINSON:  ZVEI.
              DR. HARTGE:  It's the association of German electrotechnical and electronic manufacturers comprising about 1,500 companies and 22 sectors and having many companies, German based with American subsidiaries and vice versa.
              
              So when we look on certification marks we see all over the world three meanings go these marks.  This product fulfills certain technical requirements, this product has been tested by an independent party and this product fulfills certain legal requirements.  These are the main meanings.
              And the tasks of the mark is not, to assure the safety.  We just talk about an element in the mark, in the market.
              It's in general to show retailers that they can supply the product in certain areas, to show users that they can use the product in certain purposes and show authorities or supervising parties this product is okay and shall indicate responsibilities concerning the conformity.
              And there are some special interest, which have nothing to do with the regulation.  It's to create confidence on the customers side or to permit the surfaces of the specific certifiers, as you mentioned before.
              
              When we look in the world we find four types of marking systems to fulfil these tasks.  The first one is, each certifier uses his own mark.  This, in the system is what is actual in the NRTL system.
              The other option is to have a totally unified mark for the system.  This you have with the Gost-R mark in Russia or the CCC mark in China.
              The third one is you have the unified mark but with an indication of the individual certifier.  This is for instance CE mark with a number when there's third parties involved in Europe.
              And the next one is you have a unified mark combined with the individual mark of the certifier.  This you have in Germany with the GS or the ENEC mark in Europe.
              When we look on these systems we find advantages and weaknesses.  The individual certification mark system has the advantage that you have a strong connection to the certifier and strong self, interest of the certifier to work against misuse and counterfeiting.
              
              But there are also some weaknesses.  There's a lack of knowledge, you mentioned it already about the marks which are in the system, difficulty for new competent certifiers to enter the market because the market is not known and unclarity for customers, which legal area, this certification and the product is accepted.
              When we look on the total, the unified mark, you have advantages as everybody knows the mark because there is only one.  And new competent certifiers can enter easily the market.
              On the other hand there is no indication of the individual certifier and therefore acting against misuse is very difficult.
              
              But we can combine both systems.  We have a unified mark, an NRTL mark for instance, and combine it with the mark of the certifier on other identifiers of the certifier then we see, we get all the advantages of the systems.  And not very much disadvantages.  We don't see them.
              So at the end our position is, if you have a certification mark in the system, this should be clear and unambiguous in its meaning.  It should be easily recognized in the market in its meaning, not create unnecessary barriers for new certifiers and show the individual responsible certifier and engage certifiers to act against misuse.
              And this leaves for us, what would be assessed best solution to have an unified NRTL mark with an individual identifier, maybe the individual mark of the certifier.  It is going in the direction of Option 3 and answering some questions of Option 1 and 2.
              It's what you mentioned in your slide, not a small N, but create an NRTL labeled combined with ZVEI certifier.  Thank you very much.
              MR. ROBINSON:  And next up is Keith Mowry from Underwriters Laboratory.
              
              MR. MOWRY:  Five minutes isn't much time so I'm going to have to go pretty quick.  This is where we get into acceptance of 17065 as one of our positions.
              Also two notes, 29 CFR 1910.7 doesn't actually require the use of a certification mark.  You can be an NRTL without a certification mark.
              We all have them because we're serving other stakeholders in the market that demand certification marks.  But right now you don't even need to have a certification mark to be an NRTL.
              Second, the Federal Register notice for this stakeholders meeting has a serious typo.  It says you can only use your certification mark for NRTL activities.
              They transposed a couple words and that is not true.  The current directive and the current regulations don't mandate that.
              
              So there are three topics that OSHA has raised.  The first is, what happens when a subsidiary owns the mark and the NRTL uses it?
              This seems frankly like a silly question.  Why isn't the subsidiary the NRTL?  That takes that problem away.
              Oh, well the reason is because OSHA has, what I would call, archaic and ineffective requirements about legal ownership as a means of control for sites operating NRTL activities.
              17065 doesn't have anything like that.  Embrace 17065.  There are very effective requirements for a certification body which is a single legal entity, in 17065, to control certification activities that you don't have to rely on legal control for.
              In that context, for item Number 5, the subsidiary that owns that mark and that's embedded in a family of companies, could be recognized as the NRTL.  Problem goes away.
              
              Item Number 6, differentiation of marks.  NRTL mark, an NRTL has a subsidiary, they each have a mark, what do we do about that?  17065 has a very clear requirement that you must deal with misleading use of marks.
              If those two marks are so similar that they're misleading, the only way to fulfil 17065 is to resolve that, rely on that, embrace, adopt 17065.  It's going to give you what you want.
              You don't have to mandate how that's going to be done, you just have to mandate compliance with that.
              The last, and really the message is very similar on the NRTL identifier.  It is perfectly legitimate that OSHA and lots of other people will want to know, is this certification under the scope of NRTL recognition?  That's what any scheme owner is going to ask for.
              If it's not clear that it's under the NRTL scheme, then you could consider it misleading.  We need to solve that.
              
              Don't tell us how, we've got lots of other stakeholders involved that are demanding our certification marks.  We will satisfy you, you are the scheme owner, we will fulfil 17065.  We may find a better way to do it then an identifier.
              In particular, an identifier that's the same for all NRTLs is in effect or does in effect have the same problems as an own owned and a uncontrolled mark.
              Let's say the identifier is X23.  That's the now, the magic identifier that signifies it's under the scope of NRTL recognition.  Who's going to take action when a certification body registers a mark at the Office of Patent and Trademarks that embeds X23 in it?  Has nothing to do with the OSHA NRTL program.
              
              Who's going to take action with X23 appears on a product all by itself?  Who's going to take action when X23 appears beside the manufactures trademark from another country because they haven't quite figured out the regulations they think that's what they're supposed to do for NRTL compliance.
              Those things happen.  So until you're ready to deal with those issues, you're not ready to deal with a common identifier.
              So don't labor under the impression that unique identifier is somehow different than an unknown and uncontrolled mark.  They're exactly the same.
              In my view you, as the scheme owner, have every right to expect an NRTL to make it clear to you and the market which marks fall under their scope of NRTL recognition.  Demand that, let us figure how.  You get to be in the driver seat about whether we succeed or not.
              MR. ROBINSON:  So we should adopt 17065?
              MR. MOWRY:  There's an idea.
              MR. ROBINSON:  That was just too easy.  Sorry, Keith.  Next up is Milton Bush from ACIL.
              
              MR. BUSH:  Has OSHA taken a position on the Redskins name?
              MR. ROBINSON:  I don't follow football so I don't care.
              MR. BUSH:  Oh, no, no.  I can't really add much to what's already been said, we support everything that the certification bodies have stated regarding certification masks and requirements of 17065.
              I will say some, you know, my joke about the Redskins name is not without some merit.  There is a reason why Dan Snyder is fighting for use of the Redskins name.
              It's the amount of time, effort, money that's gone into creating something unique and valuable and OSHA needs to think real, think this thing really through seriously.
              And of course I know it will go through legal, but before they decide to make any changes here.  That's it.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  I wasn't expecting that.  So with that, do we have any questions?  For the Panels or comments that we want to discuss? I guess just because the presenters aren't saying anything.  I won't always, but.
              MR. WITT:  My name is Steven Witt, former director of Tech Support and responsible NRTL program in the late '90's.  It seems to me that the Panel has lost sight of something.
              They all express some very clear vested interested, whether it's in NRTL or a manufacturer, as to how a change would affect them.  But we seem to have lost sight of the purpose of the NRTL program and OSHA's mission.  And that is safety of workers in the workplace.
              
              I know you all have a vested interest of maintaining, especially, let me give credit to Keith, to UL, maintaining and have clear recognition for your particular mark.
              But the purpose of the NRTL program is to ensure the products that are used in the workplace, under subpart (s), have been certified and are safe and the workers in those workplaces are protected.
              One of the problems OSHA has had for many years, with the NRTL program, is compliance officers who are, who's role is it to inspect, identify hazards and hopefully protect employees, employees by their actions, have not really focused on the NRTL program.
              The only, if you ask most OSHA compliance officers they have no idea that the NRTL marks are listed on OSHA's web page.  And when they look at products in the workplace, they're to take that list of NRTL marks and confirm that those products in the workplace have been certified.
              
              I think if we focus on the purpose of OSHA and OSHA's mission, the purpose of the NRTL program, I'm pleased that from a financial standpoint many labs and associations and manufactures have been able to sell their products and benefitted by the program.
              But if we focus on safety, what is the best way to ensure that products that are required to be tested and certified under subpart (s), for use in the workplace in this country, have a clear and understandable mark that owners of those workplaces can confirm that their products have been tested and have certified and OSHA compliance officers can readily confirm that the products have been tested and certified.
              It seems to me, and now I'm an outsider, it seems to me the most reasonable way to pursue this and proceed is a unified mark and to protect the interest of the labs to have a specific identifier for those labs that want it as an adjunct to a unified mark.
              
              For purposes of safety, enforcement of standards and recognition and acceptance of products in the workplace, something that is clear, easier to understand, and in this case, possibly would be followed and more attention paid to those products and their certifications.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Any other questions or comments?  Yes.
              MR. LUCEY:  So I appreciate, is this on?  I appreciate the remark there and I think coming back to the discussion and the point that we made earlier this morning is that speaking from a manufacturer's perspective, this is all about safety.  And we really take this seriously.  The industry is taking it seriously.
              You saw some of the example with Nexeo, how much money they're spending on safety initiatives and safety issues.  And I can tell you, coming back to Brandon, imagine and these kind of things, it's very critical for us as manufacturers.
              
              If there's a plant explosion or a plant fire or anything that goes on, no matter if our product was the cause or at the heart of those matters or not, we still get brought to the table.  Everybody comes in, you have to walkthrough, you know, step by step what was the issue.
              So if we find that for some reason we're not using appropriate, let's say testing agencies, we talked about that this morning, there's no advantage for us to try to circumvent going to a testing organization that's not doing the proper testing procedures, that's not taking it seriously.  We can sense that.
              If an assessor is coming in and they're not doing their job properly, we don't want to use those agencies.  It's not worth it for us to save a little money or to save a little time only to expose ourselves.
              
              You talk about risk, certainly the NRTLs have risk.  There's no question, okay.  But first and foremost, we have risk as manufacturers.
              We will get brought to the table with lawsuits and legal issues.  And that's not even the worst of it.
              The worst of it is brand and image that our product, and then I can say from an Endress+Hauser perspective, the company I work for, we're a privately owned company.  And Klaus Endress, the CEO of organization, has stated from the very beginning that they can't separate the family from the business.
              The name of, the family name is on every product that goes out the door.  It's on every business card we pass out, it's on the side of every building that we build.  And therefore if we have a product quality issue that actually caused a safety problem, that's a huge problem for us as a manufacturer.  So we're all about safety.  We're all in.
              
              I think we speak for all the manufacturers in being able to do that.  However, having said that, is we need to make the system a lot less complex and a lot less convoluted than it currently is.
              Because right now the customer base, the point that you're making, that's what we're here to protect.  They are confused.
              And they're doing things and making decisions everyday that's causing safety issues as a result of what we're sitting here talking about.  So I think it's very critical to your point that we address this issue and find the solution to that problem.
              But we absolutely 100 percent behind this being a safety issue first and foremost.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Keith?
              MR. MOWRY:  Yes, just to go back to this morning.  This is what scheme owners do.  Get everybody around the table, get all the perspectives.  You can't get into all the details in a situation like this.
              
              How prescriptive do you be, how general do you be?  The more general you are the more you allow innovation.  Two words, Apple Pay.
              The more prescriptive you are the more consistency you're going to get.  It's a balance.  Always has been, always will be and it will need to be rebalanced on an ongoing basis.
              The only way to achieve the balance effectively, in any kind of timely manner is, get us altogether as a group, we come together as a group.
              You got to the Federal Register notice process, you have no choice.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              MR. MOWRY:  But that's not what I'm talking about.  And you can't do hub and spoke communication, just interacting with each individual stakeholder, because that, then you lose the synergy of everybody talking at the same time.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  The challenge that we have with that is that there are certain legal requirements that do not allow us to go in and create that.  But yes, certainly appreciate it.
              MR. MOWRY:  I understand that.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Any other questions or comments?  Mr. Buzard?
              MR. BUZARD:  Mike Buzard from A2LA again.  I know we've had a lot of direction and suggestions going towards the unified mark, and we had also, one of the presenters mentioned earlier about keeping a database of certified products available.
              Now some of the systems currently in place in other regulators agencies, the FCC grant program, the FCC owns and holds maintenance over the FCC mark that we have, you know, within our iPhone's and the Galaxy's and everything.  And there's a unique FCC id number to every single product.  All those you can find on a FCC database.
              
              EnergyStar, very similar thing.  EnergyStar or EPA holds the mark for that.  They give permission to use the mark directly to the manufacture after the CB submits evidence of certification.
              And then the EPA has their database of certified products.  And I think, it's been a couple weeks, couple months since I've looked at that particular thing, but I think they also include the CB that certified that particular product.
              Now we get into some of the other schemes where it's the individual CB who's going to keep their database, use their mark, things like that.
              So going in the direction of the unified mark, is OSHA prepared to take ownership, take the legal responsibility behind it that's been discussed?
              
              Do you guys want to hold onto the database or if you use that unified mark but expect these guys to have the database, you get your end-user, which of these 14, 20, 30 in the future CBs do I go to to check and see, did they certify this correctly or not?  So there's a little bit more to consider on that as well.
              MR. ROBINSON:  And I, you know, I don't want to speak for all of OSHA but I would simply say that we have had those discussions internally.
              We are aware and, you know, having a OSHA owned mark that is used in conjunction with the NRTL mark or used by the NRTLs or however would end up being worked, has a whole slew of challenges associated with it.  And I will just leave it at that.
              Anything else up front?  And if not I'll go to the back just because the observers are having more questions than the presenters.  I'm going to have to switch you guys next session.
              
              MR. REGO:  Well it's more of, it's a statement, maybe a rhetorical question of the Panel as though, on the subject of unified marks --
              MR. ROBINSON:  I'm sorry, before you begin --
              MR. REGO:  Oh, I'm Charlie --
              MR. ROBINSON:  -- can you just state your name please?
              MR. REGO:  Yes, Charlie Rego from UL.  And the idea of a unified mark, my question really is, is what would a unified mark actually be declaring?
              You know, any of the CBs that put their mark on a product will tell you they're not quality assurance for that factory or manufacturer.  It's the manufacturer putting the mark on their product that's declaring they meet the requirements.
              So if you go to a unified mark, is it OSHA declaring the manufacturer meets their requirements and do we really want to go down that path?
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.  And --
              
              MR. REGO:  It's, we're a piece of the puzzle but we're not the whole, I always like to tell people, the certifiers and ULs are a piece of the puzzle, but they're not the whole puzzle.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.  And which is partially the reason why historically OSHA has always had the NRTLs utilize their certification marks.  Because historically we've not wanted to touch that with a 1,000 foot pole.  Yes?
              MR. LUCEY:  So maybe I'd like to just ask the CBs real quick as kind of playing off of that because it's absolutely right.  Is, you know, we see the benefit if we go down what we were talking about as a first step to have a, you know, an NRTL unique identifier with the assets, the FM or UL mark in association with that.
              
              So from a customer base they can understand now that I don't have to specify UL or FM or CSA, I just need to specify NRTL Class 1, Division 1 and whoever the approving agency is then is there.
              So if I ask the question, because we had this example, as I mentioned earlier with Gilbarco, is it, does it make sense from the CBA perspective, or I guess even OSHA, to weigh in that you would expect that if an NRTL has approved a device for Class 1, Division 1 and it's marked with that assets, in this case it was FM, and we went into a UL situation where the UL inspector said they would not accept the FM stamp as, you know, being able to then say that this is going to be a UL certified complete dispenser, is that something that you would expect the NRTL program to account for?  Because we would as a manufacturer.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Keith, don't answer yet.  You can respond after I say something first.
              MR. MOWRY:  Yes.  Well your question.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  I would simple say that it's important to realize why the NRTL program exists and how it's being used in manners in which it was never expected or never designed to function.
              The NRTL program exists to satisfy OSHA.  That is it.  I don't care about anything else.  It is designed to satisfy OSHA.
              It is being used however by retailers.  It is being used by local AHJs, it is being used by distributors, it is being used by marketing folks, it's being used by everyone.  It was designed to satisfy OSHA.
              MR. MOWRY:  Yes.
              MR. ROBINSON:  And for that reason, because OSHA is not concerned about trade, OSHA is not concerned about competition, there are other federal agencies that are concerned about that, OSHA is concerned about worker safety.
              MR. MOWRY:  Right.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  And it is for that reason why we do not have the authority to require one NRTL to except testing certification marks or testing the certification from other NRTLs.  We certainly allow it.
              It is in out regulation, or rather not in our regulations, it is in our directive and is being clarified in our new directive that we are proposing.  But it has to do with what the NRTL program was designed to do and what it is doing.
              And what it was designed to do is a much smaller subset that what it's actually doing.  So we get that question a lot.
              MR. MOWRY:  Yes.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  And it's simply, OSHA doesn't have that authority to make that mandate.  But we recognize that it is advantageous to manufacturers and we therefore do allow it because we believe that it is, we consider NRTLs equal, but ultimately it is the NRTLs decision on what to do and how to do that to control their certification mark.
              Now you can answer, Keith if you want.
              MR. MOWRY:  About what I was going to say.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Any other questions or comments?  Wow.  Okay, next up, we were scheduled to go to a break but we are way ahead of schedule so I'm just going to move right in with the next topic which are Options for Factory Inspections.
              The speakers for that topic are Todd Lucey, from MCAA, Stina Wallstrom from Orgalime and Keith Mowry from Underwriters Laboratories.
              
              And as they are getting settled in, the questions that OSHA was asking, as part of the Federal Register notice were essentially, we were considering modifying our policy regarding the frequency of inspections to allow each NRTL to adopt its own risk based approach to determine the frequency with which OSHA, with which it performs its factory inspections.
              This question was largely initiated by one of our NRTLs.  And the NRTL posed this question to us and it happened to be about the right time frame so we've decided to push it out there just to see what sort of comments and feedback we would have on that.
              The second question that we asked was, OSHA is considering modifying its policy regarding factory inspections such that OSHA may specify the activities NRTLs need to perform during each factory inspection and delineate how documentation should occur.  And I think that's it, so --
              MR. MOWRY:  Field inspections.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Oh, field inspections, yes see, you know I jump around.  The third option was --
              MR. MOWRY:  Different.  Different issue, right?
              MR. ROBINSON:  It is.
              
              MR. MOWRY:  But you lumped it into --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Oh, I did.  Yes I did because there were two separate issues.  But yes.
              The third issue is with field inspections.  Field inspections, just to clarify, NRTLs are required to have procedures to conduct field inspections.
              And when we say field inspections we're not talking what many of you may be familiar with, for uncertified equipment that's out in the field and a testing certification body comes in and evaluates and tests that product.
              When we say field inspections we are actually meaning going to retailer shelves, going to distributor shelves, pulling a sample back and having it tested or verification of products after a product has left the factory.
              
              The regulations require that the NRTL have procedures to conduct field inspections, but they don't actually require that NRTLs conduct field inspections.  So we were posing the question, should we eliminate that requirement that was in the regulations?
              So with that I'll turn it over to our presenters.  Each speaker will have five minutes, the first presenter is Todd Lucey.  Todd?
              MR. LUCEY:  Thank you.  Okay, this is the last time I'll be up here, so sorry about that.  But we do, again, we appreciate this open discussion.
              It really feels good from an overall, you know, industry standpoint as manufacturers to get a voice maybe that we haven't necessarily had in the past.  Partly I'm sure because of our actions or inactivity in that area.
              
              I would say that we, as manufacturers, have been trying to work these issues as individual manufacturers and now coming together under MCA as a total umbrella, with 160 of us pulled together, I think we kind final get an opportunity, as a gentleman from UL talked about, to get all stakeholders around the table and get this things, you know, figured out.
              Okay, so we look at the last component option or Item C and what we state overall is we do support the idea of risk based opportunities to look at how often the CB comes in to do an audit of our factories.
              So by the rules and regulations today, recommendation is four times a year.  Worse case or minimum is two times a year.
              And we do have some NRTLs that come in and look at us four times a year and we have other NRTLs that come and look at us two times a year.  So there is a difference depending on that.
              
              Where it gets difficult, from a manufacturing standpoint, is this is a per product, of course, and per factory.  So if we talk about four times a year, we manufacture level and pressure products in four different locations.
              We manufacture flow products in three different locations.  And you can see that when you start to do the math on this and start to talk about it, when we have to go to more than one NRTL.
              So again, going back to the example I had before, is if we have to have FM inspectors come, if we have to UL inspectors come in, we have to have CSA inspectors come in, we have three different NRTLs, depending on who we use, four times a year for all those manufacturing sites, it's a huge burden for us.
              And it's not so much the raw cost of the inspection itself that's an issue, it's the time.  It's the time and the energy to prepare for the inspection, to get ready for the inspection.
              
              And to do that, literally we have sub-manufacturers that have a NRTL inspector in one of the factories every single day which gets to be overwhelming burden for us.
              So what we would support is not only a risk-based assessment of that, but also looking at the option and idea that we look at the inspections also as a standalone service and that if an NRTL comes in, like we do for ISO 9001, we happen to contract out with FM in that case, they come in, they do an audit, they do an assessment, they do the same kinds of things with training records and calibration records and these things, and then they specify that we pass and meet ISO certification.
              
              Now realizing ISO certification 9001 is, you know, quite a bit different than safety, but nonetheless concept is the same.  We would like to contract out with one NRTL to come in either two or four times a year and have that NRTL be able to stamp that this is a certified facility without having to go to each and every NRTL that we use for that statement.
              So therefore that's kind of our position as manufacturers.  So again, if FM came in they would actually be able to certify that we're meeting the standards from an NRTL perspective and that the other NRTLs then would recognize that a proper audit and assessment has been done for the manufacturer.
              Okay.  So last thing, again, just to take the time, so that's our position to restate all three positions that we have.  We do believe in separation of the testing and certification components with the caveat that standards have to be developed for the testing agencies and that the test reports and the testing information would be recognized by any of the NRTLs in the equation.
              
              We do understand that there sometimes are benefits to going to one NRTL that does testing and certification, but there's also many, many benefits to separating those two.  So we want to make sure that the test data is recognized and share then with all the NRTLs.
              Unique NRTL identifier, along with the asset, we think is a great place to start.  So we've talked about that just here a little bit ago, and making sure customers understand that that means safety NRTL.  Putting it on there means that they're meeting the safety standards and that know what that all means.
              And we allow trying to continue to work to get fewer certifications than are required.  You know, right now as I said we've got probably 12 to 15 different option codes in our product.  Each one has to be maintained, depending on where the product is going to end up.
              
              So you complicate that by having to use different NRTLs, back to the previous discussion.  If we have to use UL and FM because of the dialogue that we just had, it gets to be even more complicated for our customers to specify.
              And then clearly Number 7 is one of the things, competitiveness.  Right now other manufacturers outside the U.S. are able, because of their certification systems and how it's setup, to get products to market quicker, faster and more reliably.  And that's an issue for us that we have to deal with, so that's why we're glad to have all these discussions.
              And then the factory audits we just talked about, to summarize that.  And then ultimately, if I listen to what our customers are telling us, again I used Proctor & Gamble as an example, they would like to have ultimately one global mark that could be recognized as safe and meeting all the safety criteria, no matter where that product ends up in the world.
              
              Like they said, they want to build the skids in China, and they want to ship anywhere in the world and they don't want to have to order six, or seven or eight different model codes to be able to do that.
              Ultimately that's what the customer base wants to do.  That's where they want to go.
              Our job, as an industry, is to figure out how to do that safely and reliably to make sure safety is not circumvented.  Okay, thank you.
              MR. ROBINSON:  All right, thank you.  Next up is, again all ask, please correct me if I mispronounce it, Stina Wallstrom from Orgalime.  
              MS. WALLSTROM:  Thank you.  So I'm very happy to be here.  My name is Stina Wallstrom representing Orgalime, and I will try to give you European perspective on the purposed new OSHA regime in general and on the factory surveillance in particular.  And I stand here now representing Orgalime.
              
              We are the European engineering association and representing about 100 to 30,000 companies employing 10.3 million employees.  In addition to that it seems like I am representing the female race on this stage, so I have a heavy burden on my shoulders.  But the burden is considerably lightened by Todd, who has said everything that I would want to say.
              So obviously even if the systems in the U.S. and in the E.U. are very different, the companies suffer under the same kind of pressure.
              We have walked before into the globalized world.  And what we think is needed is more cooperation.  You have to cooperate a lot more, authorities to authorities and NRTL to NRTL.
              And even in standardization, we have to cooperate a lot to make sure that there is one standard for one purpose.  Because if you have 100 standards for one purpose you don't have a standard anymore.  It's not standardized anymore.
              
              And today that is almost the case for some of the companies.  They can be, as you told us earlier on, they can inspected by several different authorities by several different standards and several different regimes.
              And everybody wants the same thing.  They want safety products, safe workers.  So there has to be a way to find common ground.
              And one issue, where it is a real difference, is factory inspections.  In Europe very few products need factory inspections to be accepted on the market while in U.S. it's a very common demand.  So perhaps you could start your discussions there.
              We also need more trust.  NRTL said need to trust other NRTLs.  We have to be able to rely on the data we have.
              
              I mean I appreciate that OSHA doesn't have the power to force your NRTLs to accept one another's test result, but maybe with a little bit more cooperation with the bodies that past that force, talk to the other buildings in Washington and make sure that there is a demand to accept one another's test results.  Because we trust that OSHA only nominates NRTLs that are good enough to be trusted.
              You should also trust the businesses more than you do today.  I mean to stipulate that you were four inspections per year is needed, that doesn't give benefits to companies that show themselves time after time to be trustworthy.
              If you have a solid quality management system, if you show, perform well in several inspections on the road, maybe there is no need for inspections every year.  And if you perform poorly maybe you should be inspected more often.  We trust that NRTLs can't tell the difference between a trustworthy company and a company that you should not trust.
              
              We also think that you should trust your NRTLs in knowing what to be expected.  If factory inspections are needed we want them to be re-spaced.  We don't want them to be a form filling exercise.
              So even if some guidance from OSHA could be needed to guarantee that everybody get a fair and equal treatment, do not over detail your instructions to the NRTLs prior to a factory inspection.  Because then they might be forced to checked things they know has no impact on safety just to check the form.
              We also believe strongly in flexibility.  Today we need to be able to very quickly use another production facility.  We changed the design of our product and changed the NRTL we are using.
              Today we cannot allow the OSHA procedures to slow this down.  So if you have shown to be a trustworthy company, it should be very, very easy to change production side, change your product and it has to be easy to change which NRTL you are using.
              
              Today many of our companies say that we don't have, we cannot change from this NRTL to that one because it cost us frankly too much effort.  We don't like them but we have to stick with them.  That is not a good way of doing things.  We want the best NRTL to win.
              So the key message is, more cooperation, recognition between governments, promote regulatory cooperation, use ISO/IEC standards.  We are very happy that you use ISO/IEC standards as a basis for this new regulation.  It's a great step forward, we thank you for it.
              Trust the factory of quality management.  The test laboratory expertise.  And make sure there is flexibility in kind of product side, product design modifications and the choice of test laboratory.  We need it if we want to keep riding the global wave.
              So warm thanks, keep in touch.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thank you.  And Keith Mowry from UL.
              MR. MOWRY:  So we have three topics.  By now you're well about into adopting 17065 of course, and then you discover it tells you nothing about surveillance because it doesn't.  It doesn't even require surveillance.
              That's what a scheme owner does.  One of the biggest jobs of the scheme owner is to decide if surveillance is needed and what it should be.
              Now I have good news, bad news and old news.  When you use certification bodies as NRTLs you get all the resources of the private sector and all the competitive pressures that come with it.
              That's the good news, it's also the bad news.  It's also the old news.  It's always been this way.
              
              With regard to Item 8 on risk based frequency of the inspections, if you put no parameters around that, competitive pressures will be a dive to the bottom.  You'll just see risk, you'll just see the frequency of inspections go up, up, up and up.
              But we've been talking about this all morning.  This is what a scheme owner needs to do.
              A scheme owner needs to design the scheme so that there's appropriate competition but competitive pressures don't degrade the scheme.  That's the scheme owner's job.
              Just throwing out risk basic frequency isn't enough.  You're going to have to put some content around that.
              And in the end, and maybe I'm wrong, I hope I am, how do you do that without putting in a floor?  I don't know, maybe there's a way to do that.
              So that's risk based frequency.  In the end it's going to be risk based frequency.
              
              The way the scheme owner defines and describes risk based frequency, again, balancing specificity so there's consistency, but not too much specificity so you don't kill innovation.  I suspect we're all doing factory inspections differently today than we were in 1988.
              Item 9 was standardized inspection processes and forms.  You know the answer to this by now already, it's just the balance.  How far do you go, how far do you go in specifying a process, or a content of inspection or forms to use so that you get consistency and yet you don't constrain everybody to the point where they can't innovate and improve?
              On another angle on this, I'm frankly, you know, I'm trying to envision a single form or process that would be equally applicable to a factory inspection of a wire nut and a nuclear magnetic resonance imagining equipment for, as a medical device.  At some point, if you have a single process that covers both of those, you got to question what value that single process is going to provide.
              
              It's probably, surveillance is the toughest place to strike that balance between general and specificity.
              If you don't specify anything, and this applies to the risk based frequency as well, if you don't specify anything, and you literally just go out and say every NRTL should do the smart thing and what it thinks is best, then in effect what you're saying is the market will decide, and we are not going to engage in trying to change whatever the market arrives at.  We want to have a scheme then.
              The last is field inspections, which is Item 10.  And again, this relates to oversight of the use of the mark.
              This is another opportunity where we do go back to 17065, because 17065 has clear requirements about protecting the use of the mark, addressing misleading and unauthorized uses of the mark.
              
              So Item 10 is along the lines of something more specific in the scheme about how to do that.  17065 simply says a CB has to do that.
              When they are assessed to 17065 they have to provide evidence and convince the assessor that they are doing something reasonable in relation to those requirements.
              It's completely up to OSHA as a scheme owner to say, well in addition to 17065 we want a little more detail, we want these characteristics to be embodied in the activities of the NRTL.
              So I'm back to where I started.  There's a lot of ramifications to embracing 17065.  There are a lot of ramifications to being the scheme owner.
              I think they'll both serve you well if you go down that path with all of us together as a group.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  All right, thank you.  All right.  Okay, here's where I am going to ask for a consensus.  Do we want to take a break or do we want to continue with discussions?  Continue, all right.  Is this yours?  Okay.
              All right, so I'll open the floor up.  Are there any questions that anyone has after hearing the presenters on this topic?
              MR. MOLISKI:  Hi, thank you.  Paul Moliski with Intertek.  Getting back to the question about modifying the policy regarding the frequency of inspections to a risk based approach, the question about workplace safety has come up a couple of times in the discussion today.
              I think from our perspective, Intertek's perspective, adopting that approach could degrade the NRTL program.  The program has had a great deal of success using the methods that they've had.
              
              There are clear instructions as to when you can reduce a factory inspection from four to two or even increase two additional inspections other than four.  So those guideline have been in place for a number of years.
              One, going back to the question about adding an identifier or an additional OSHA mark, there are countries that, several countries that employ additional marks.  For example in Mexico we add a country mark, the NOM mark, to our own certification mark.
              The level of safety does not change.  You still get the same level of safety with the certification mark whether there's a country identifier with it or not.
              I don't think we would say that system in Mexico is safer than the U.S. because we use a NOM identifier.
              So again, all of these things need to be taken in balance and need to understand keeping the end goal in mind of how we're going to maintain and improve the workplace safety.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Question for Stina?
              
              MS. WALLSTROM:  Yes, if I can respond to your question or statement that it's important that OSHA give clear guidelines on how often factory inspections shall be had or, I think that of course there need to be a clearly statement in the OSHA guidelines.  But to equalize a clear statement with a number of inspections is a bit raw I think.
              I mean you should really try to encourage companies to have solely the quality management systems.  And I'm sure, I'm certain that you will be able to see both Intertek and UL.
              You can see if a quality management system is a good one or a bad one.  And you should reward good quality management systems by fewer inspections.
              
              And also you should, if you say that, okay, we have to inspect you more often because of your bad quality management system, then it's an incitement for the company to actually make better to the next time.  So it would be good for safety as well, not only for us as companies, that it doesn't have to have one or another nation in our facilities every day.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Now we'll, if you can just hold your thought I do have one question.  For the NRTLs that are here, just a question just to help me put things into perspective.
              When you are conducting factory surveillance, would you say that the rate of compliance is greater than 50 percent or where you can go in and find no non-conformances or is it less than that or maybe between 50 and 75?  I'm just trying to get a feel for how good or bad manufacturers are.  That's worded wrong but --
              PARTICIPANT:  We get it though, that's --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              
              MS. STERLING:  Thanks, Joan Sterling with Intertek but representing IFIA today.  IFIA has done a number of studies on product compliance.  And we're in the middle of another for the U.S. and we've shared those results with a number of groups, and OSHA is one.
              And the compliance projects that we've undertaken have primary been in the E.U. at this point in time because the system is very different.  In the U.S. the requirement for third-party certification of course drives the level of compliance.  In the E.U. there is, in most areas, not a requirement for that.  So there's been many difference.
              Those studies have produced some startling results and it doesn't have only to do with factory surveillance it has to do with products on the market that are non-compliant.  And those studies are public and as I said OSHA has seen them.
              
              To further address your question, I mean those are very difficult questions.  You know, manufacturers, and I don't have the answers --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.
              MS. STERLING:  -- to the question you just --
              MR. ROBINSON:  And that's fine.
              MS. STERLING:  Yes.
              MR. ROBINSON:  I'm not necessarily expecting anyone to have them.
              MS. STERLING:  Yes, I don't have the answers to that but I do want to address the idea of quality management systems.
              And as we all know, sitting in this room, quality management systems, while they can be effective in helping manufacturers do a very good job at what they do, at the end of the day quality management systems means you build the same product the same way theoretically all the time.  And that could either be a very good product or a very bad product.
              
              Quality management systems do not address that.  The difference was the factory inspection programs are really looking at product to see if it continues to comply.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay, and then we have a question over there.
              MR. TALKA:  Yes, I'm Don Talka with UL.  I think we're maybe mixing up the what and the how.
              You know, the first question that needs to be answered by OSHA, the scheme owner, is what should a surveillance program do, what are you trying to accomplish with a surveillance program.  And then leave it up to CBs to figure out how they're going to accomplish that and allow their innovation to take root.
              And there's many variables that they have to consider as they're going through that.  They're dealing with what's the risk associated with the product, what's the characteristics of the manufacturer I'm concerned with.
              
              And so there's never going to be a one size fits all solution to your surveillance answer, but it's all going to be founded on what am I trying to do in the first place.  And without that you're just picking spots in space and hoping that's right.
              To get back to the second part, and Keith touched on it with, I referred to it as market surveillance going out and picking up product.  Not only does it assist in the counterfeiting piece, but it also serves as a check and balance to your surveillance program.
              It allows you to see how well your surveillance program is doing, what your intending it to do.  So I would really suggest that you don't, you know, discard that because it is a very important aspect.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay, thank you.  There was another question I think in the middle somewhere, yes.
              
              MS. MALAKOVA:  I just have a couple comments to make, just to continue what Paul was saying.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Can you state your name, just --
              MS. MALAKOVA:  Oh, I'm sorry, I apologize.  Natalia Malakova, ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board.
              Just want to make a comment on what Paul mentioned about the safety of the use of NOM mark in Mexico as well as the use of C identifier in Canada.  I don't think the issue is really as much as safety but as much as identification of products on the market.
              So as a consumer when I pick up that mark, the product and I see the NOM or a C, I know that it's been certified under that program.  But it also tells me that that organization is qualified for that scope of accreditation or recognition, whatever you call it.
              
              Because as we know, let's say for certification body 17065, I'm going to use Canada as an example.  You can be qualified for electrical, you can be qualified for plumbing, you can be, whatever you want.
              FCC mark tells me that their certification body is actually accredited by FCC for that specific scope of accreditation, for that specific accreditation.  And it becomes their responsibility if they, you know, somehow that got misplaced or whatnot.
              So as a consumer I would like, I feel comfortable knowing that this identifier is on a market.  And as for the inspectors it's easily identifiable.
              For the factory inspections, although I understand with, there is base approach, I agree a hundred percent it should be used.  However, I do believe, again, as a consumer that there is some kind of oversight.
              
              And what you're going to get with, currently I believe there's 15 NRTLs that if every single NRTL is doing their risk based approach, Approach of A is not going to be the same as Approach B and it's not going to be the same as Approach C.  And what you're going to end up is with a huge difference between how one NRTL handles their inspection program to another.
              That's one of them.  Also there's so many changes in the manufacturing process that's happening constantly.  And, you know what, there's a lot of great manufacturers out there, and I agree, but manufacturer changes, could change within, you know, weeks if not days.
              The only way to really eliminate that risk is by having those mandatory X amount of inspections out there.  One way of that you might consider actually looking at the program, if you really want to take program, inspection program as a separate kind of activity, is looking at the requirements of ISO 17020.
              
              So Keith was a hundred percent right.  17065 kind of very vague about what you have to do in that area.  And it's up to each individual certification body to determine what they want to do and how they're going to do it.
              But it does reference ISO/IEC 17020, which is actually an inspection as a standard.  So you can look at it and take a look at some of the key elements that that standards calls out.
              Such as, you know, what has to be in a report, how you qualify your inspectors and so on.  And there's also accreditation programs that are available by their accreditation ABs for that, for that standard.
              That also could be used as basis for what you were saying for recognition.  So right now if you don't have the equality, maybe under 17020 you would have that equality between the NRTLs where they would be implementing the same type of program and that could aid in accepting a result.  Similar as we see right now with 17025 under 65.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  All right, thank you.  Yes?
              MS. WALLSTROM:  Thank you for raising all these very valid comments and I totally agree with you.  And I just wanted to add, I only had five minutes, so I had to be quick.
              But on the fact that, I can understand it was perceived like we don't want OSHA to meddle with the NRTLs inspection, that they shouldn't be given guidance.  But what we really want is that they are given enough guidance but not too much.
              So if OSHA could provide NRTLs with some general guidance and criteria to follow, we think that would be really good.  We think it be necessary even.
              
              And we want these, we want to challenge you because we would want these guide and the instructions could be used, not only by the NRTLs but also by the factories, to understand the priorities of the NRTLs and maybe perhaps even question them from time to time.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Yes?
              MR. EVANS:  Andrew Evans from GAMBICA.  Just a quick, the UL comment to my right, whose industry totally supports improved market surveillance.
              And, you know, most manufacturers are conscientious, they're putting safety first, as Todd was saying.  We need a level playing field so that products, which haven't even seen any kind of conformity assessment, are taken off the market so that, yes, I think that's the wider issue, for public safety.
              And in terms of non-compliance or non-conformity with factory inspections, there's got to be some differentiation between a non, an administrative non-compliance and an actually safety critical non-compliance.
              Because you could find lots and lots of administrative details which aren't quite right that takes in the wrong vote sort of.  But it's not actually safety critical.
              
              We feel the bigger issue is the growing number of products on the market that have no conformity assessment at all with counterfeit products.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay, thank you.  Keith?
              MR. MOWRY:  Well maybe a truism but it's, I think pretty obvious that the strongest advocates for NRTLs or any CB to go out and police their mark the people who legitimately are authorized to use it and don't want to see it used in an unauthorized manner.
              And if I wasn't, you know, again only five minutes --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Sorry.
              
              MR. MOWRY:  You know, given the shrinking world and technology and all the other challenges we face, counterfeiting, unauthorized use of marks, you know, I don't see how you can take away that requirement.  And I would think you would actually, again, in line with 17065, not just expect people to have procedures to do it but to do it.
              Because the people who are authorized to use anybody's mark are, I'm sure, very anxious to see that mark monitored so that people who aren't authorized don't use it.  That's probably more important to the manufacturers who are authorized to use it than anybody else.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Paul?
              MR. MOLISKI:  Paul Moliski, Intertek, just to get back to your question, Kevin, about the numbers or percentage of errors we find during factory inspections, I don't have those numbers for you.  We did do a calculation on initial project submittals, what the level of errors were for that.
              
              I'll agree, and I'll go back to our followup services department see if we can get one quarter, get a snapshot and we can exclude administrative errors and see what the serious errors are on a factory inspection to see if we can get some type of percentage that you can use.
              MR. ROBINSON:  That might be helpful to us as we look into factory surveillance.
              MR. LUCEY:  Just a comment to add there too, is that from a manufacturer's perspective we want that too.  Because credibility of the program is everything.
              When we put that mark out there and we say it meets Class 1, Division 1 approvals, whoever, whichever NRTL we use, we want the program to be credible so that the end-users do know that it is a safety product going into that installation.
              So if we got manufacturers that, you know, like everything is going to be in a wide gamut, in a wide bandwidth, we want to be able to make sure that we're flushing out, you know, manufacturers that maybe don't have compliance on a product.
              
              So just to reiterate again that we're not sitting up here saying looking, we don't want any oversight, we don't want any inspections, that's not it at all.  What we're trying to do now is, again, going back to Keith's point about balance, is keep in mind that the whole, one of the benefits of the NRTL program is that it's a competitive landscape and we as manufacturers can go out to any of the NRTLs to do the certification and the testing.  Keeping in mind that these factory inspections do limit the ability to make those decisions.
              
              So if we're already using, let's say two NRTLs, FM and CSA as an example, for us to then say we want to go to UL or we want to go to Intertek, but now you opened up that we got eight more audits that have to take place because each NRTL is doing those inspections, we have found that manufacturers make the decision, I think as you said earlier, they make the decision to stay with who they got because the cost to invite more NRTLs in.
              So I go back to, is there a mechanism to balance the recognition of those factory inspections from one NRTL to another?  Right.  So we go back into some of those kinds of thoughts and processes.
              Because now all of a sudden what was a competitive landscape is now no longer competitive due to the pure financial and economics of the situation.  It's not an issue of whether we want to degrade safe, we absolutely don't, but we're trying to figure out how to balance those issues.
              MR. ROBINSON:  And to that I will simply say, OSHA does allow one NRTL to accept the factory surveillance from other NRTLs.
              MR. LUCEY:  Okay.  And then does it happen?
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  That's left up to the other individual NRTLs.  And again, each individual NRTL needs to take these steps that they believe are appropriate to control their certification mark.
              MR. LUCEY:  Right.
              MR. ROBINSON:  OSHA allows it.
              MR. LUCEY:  Yes.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Beyond that, Keith.
              MS. WALLSTROM:  But there has to be somebody in Washington that can force them.  I mean Obama must be having some powers --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Sorry, we're laughing because --
              MR. LUCEY:  That's a whole another --
              MR. ROBINSON:  We're all getting loopy.  All right.
              MR. MOWRY:  I think we're ending up at a point where we agree if we, well maybe we agree.  There's another balance.
              You know, and from the industry perspective, you get real benefits from competition among NRTLs.  You get real downsides from competition between NRTLs.  There's a balance.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes, that's true.
              MS. WALLSTROM:  But a little bit more is needed.
              MR. ROBINSON:  I will, go ahead.
              MS. WALLSTROM:  Sorry.
              MR. MOWRY:  Now as you travel around to different customers and industries, of course you get different perspectives.  I'm just saying that we all recognize there's a balance.
              Industry gets benefits from a competition between NRTLs.  Industry suffers from competition between NRTLs.
              One of the primary, this is a very fundamental question and I don't think it's purely up to OSHA, I think that because it really has to do, I think, I'm not an expert, but I think it more has to do with your legislation that your authority derives from, is whether OSHA has the authority to regulate NRTLs to effect that balance?
              
              I don't know the answer to that, I'm not sure Kevin knows the answer to that.  I'm sure there are smart people in OSHA who know the answer to that.
              MR. ROBINSON:  We're all looking at Lee because he's like --
              MR. MOWRY:  I didn't look at anybody.  So you know, but that's irrelevant.  I mean that makes all these other minor things we've been talking about today irrelevant.  The basic question of, of how much regulation in the competition between NRTLs is OSHA authorized to invoke and what should they do about that is not related to the scheme or 17065.
              MR. ROBINSON:  And as we are discussing my mind is racing about a million miles an hour about just different ideas that we might be able to do to take this forward.  But I'm trying to keep myself out of legal trouble here so I'm going to keep them to my, in my head for now.
              
              MR. GRABEL:  Just as a general manner, it all comes down to safety.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              MR. GRABEL:  You know, that's where we have to start and that's where we have to end.  That's OSHA's regulatory authority.
              MR. ROBINSON:  And Lee Grabel with OSHA's Office of the Solicitor.
              MR. GRABEL:  I'm --
              MR. ROBINSON:  And I'm just thinking there's some ways that we might be able to, you know, leverage, have to work out the legal aspects, but again, working out leverage, you know, getting some different groups together and trying to work out some of these issues but that, I'll leave it at that for now.
              All right, any other questions, comments?  In the back.
              MR. REGO:  Todd, just for time --
              MR. LUCEY:  Yes.
              
              MR. REGO:  You know, asking the NRTLs to accept each other's factory inspections, but are the manufacturers willing to go on the hook then when NRTL one is asked to accept NRTL two's inspection that they don't control?
              MR. LUCEY:  I mean --
              MR. REGO:  Because I think you get back in this loop is, who's going to end up taking the responsibility then that they don't have any control over what goes on during that inspection.
              MR. LUCEY:  Right.  And I think, I mean it's understood.  I mean that is, again, going back to this balance and understanding that perspective, I mean it goes back, again, my colleague said here too, is figuring out how we can still from, again, risk mitigation side of the equation, how can we figure out to trust other NRTLs in this situation that don't minimize, that don't absorb risk or take away risk or add risk to the equation, like you're discussing.
              
              And we as manufacturers are on the hook no matter what.  I mean quite frankly we can put a stamp on the device and it's recognized in the marketplace, UL, FM and whether the NRTLs has it.
              But we are still on the hook.  I mean there maybe, as a result if something happened from a safety standpoint, there's a financial offset by the carrier, right, UL, FM or whoever, but we have additional costs well above and beyond that anyway.
              Again, we go back to imagine and assets and reputation and all those kind of things.  We have every vested interest to make sure we're doing this in the right way.
              And so, again, we go back to trying to get everybody together to figure out, how do we solve these problems because they're solvable.  They are solvable.  And not only from our perspective, the internal perspective, but the external perspective.
              
              Because one of the things that, you know, we don't have represented here is the end-user, is the customer.  We're all speaking on behalf of the customer, but I can tell you all these things that we're talking about internally, as complex as it is maybe for us, we're closer to the situation.
              Those customers out there really are confused because they're getting all, I can tell you all kinds of different messages.  We go back to not one NRTL, the messaging that even those people, those employees that are out there representing the NRTL, from one territory to the next, from one customer to the next, they get completely different messages.
              
              And so these are all things that we have to deal with.  And again, Proctor & Gamble, we have one representative in the room that said the NRTL told them that they have to use that particular NRTL for certification and you had another Proctor & Gamble person said, no, no, no these NRTL programs means you can go anywhere, which is correct, but you've got differences based on the people that are actually communicating it.
              So these are real issues and I'm glad we're talking about them and I think we'll find answers to that.  So I don't have an exact answer to your question but I think we got to figure that out.  We got to figure out how we're going to do that.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  About half way down from Terrance.
              MR. BUZARD:  Mike Buzard with A2LA again.  Kevin, this question is kind of be, going to be more directed to you.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Great
              MR. BUZARD:  It's okay, it's quick and simple.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.
              MR. BUZARD:  When we're speaking about surveillance, and you've tossed around the idea of both a factory inspection as well as a market surveillance or I guess a field inspection --
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              MR. BUZARD:  -- it's called currently, what is the reasoning, or maybe I'll start off, has there been consideration moving more towards a lot more weight on the field inspection of the final product where the product type permits?
              Like you give the example of the MRI machine, you're not going to find those on the Home Depot shelf but --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              MR. BUZARD:  -- you can find hard hats and 9 to 5 masks and all those on the shelf and pick them up anywhere you go.  If you have considered that, why has it not really been brought up as an option to shift more towards that, which would alleviate probably a lot of the burden on both representative groups that are up at the Panel right now, instead of focusing more on the factory inspections?
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  And I think, you know, having worked in an NRTL and watching what the NRTLs are doing, I would say that as far as controlling the certification mark you, I think that you can get a better look at what is going on when you're actually going in the factory.  And in some situations I believe that there is a market for both and a need for both.
              You know, when you get into, while it's not directly OSHA requirements you get into everyone's favorite product, holiday lighting strings.  They are sometimes used in the workplace so therefore they would fall under that.
              I'm sure that, it's my understanding that several NRTLs have said we will not touch them because they come with such a high risk.  Others have taken that on just because that's what they feel they want or need to do.
              
              In a situation like that I think, I would suspect that many of the NRTLs are, who are certifying holiday lighting strings, are going to the dollar stores, you know, the Michaels, the Targets, the WalMarts and doing what we would consider a field surveillance.  Just simply because that's the nature of the product and sometimes it's the only way that you can get out and see the product.  You get a accurate representation.
              But when you get into MRI machines, you know, it's low volume you're not going to walk into, you know --
              PARTICIPANT:  Costco.  Walgreens.
              MR. ROBINSON:  You never know.  You're not going to walk into Johns Hopkins Medical Center and, you know, they're going, excuse me Mr. Patient, would you mind while I inspect this product.
              You know, so I think it does need to be balanced.  And each NRTL, generally looking, they tend to cater to, towards a niche market in some cases.
              
              Some are geared very heavily into the consumer products or consumer type products.  Others are very high end in, very complex, very costly industrial equipment.
              So I don't think there's necessarily a one size fits all.  I think it does need to be looked at with, looking at the type of product and then how best to control that certification mark.  Joan?
              MS. STERLING:  Thanks.  Joan Sterling from Intertek representing IFIA.  Todd, I think some of your issues are probably specifiers issues where they've written in particular NRTL into a specification as opposed to the actual standard that's recognized under OSHA.
              MR. LUCEY:  Yes.
              MS. STERLING:  And that's something that NRTLs really can't fix.  I mean that has to come from the manufactures who work with the specifiers.
              MR. LUCEY:  Yes.
              
              MS. STERLING:  So I mean those issues are really sort of outside what we maybe talking about today, but they certainly do exist.
              MR. LUCEY:  Yes.
              MS. STERLING:  If in fact and NRTL gives you, gives someone bad information about, less than truthful information, I would assume that there's a process for complaint to OSHA to handle that and hopefully fix that particular problem.
              MR. LUCEY:  Right, right.  And you're absolutely right.  And we have quick forward issues as we confront them in the field where we do have an NRTL employee or individual making statements that are not factual around this program because that's where the customers get confused.
              And it goes even steps further where you get into some of the NRTLs are broad insurance carriers, that if they're the insurance carrier for that plant.  
              
              So Dow Chemical Freeport has FM as their carrier and now we get into, okay, so I specify NRTL Class 1, Division 1 doesn't matter.  But if it comes in with some other than FM, the inspector, again going back saying flag it, I've got a problem with this as an insurance carrier.
              So all of these issues are what, this is a specification issue, it's a messaging issue, it's a training issue, which is we take very seriously to do that.  
              And customers want us because their view is on the same position OSHA does on the other side, is they say, look, it's not our problem, the industry, you guys need to fix it.  You know, the industry needs to fix it, the manufacturers need to fix it, because we just want to specify products and make sure that they work, and make sure that they're safe and do all those kinds of things.
              
              So that's where it gets dicey or it gets more complicated for the customers when what is true, what do they believe, what do they know.  And if we don't take a position in total as an industry on both NRTLs and OSHA and the manufacturers, I think that's what hurts the customer base.
              And then I go back to safety as a broad issue.  They have to spend a lot more money to be safe and they start making decisions on how much money are they willing to spend versus how safe can they be versus the economics.
              And that's a bad, that's a very bad place for putting some of these customers in to make that decision.  We shouldn't be doing that.
              So it's a safety on a component level but it's a broader issue in terms of safety in total.  And if they believe that they're not safe because the inspector has told them it doesn't have the right NRTL stamp on the product, then it's a bigger issue and there's more cost.
              
              MS. STERLING:  Right.  And, you know, secondarily I mean there are mechanisms within the OSHA programs for example that reflect the CB scheme where NRTLs have had a history of sharing the data and you can obtain other marks.  And I think the Ex is being considered in --
              MR. LUCEY:  Very good.
              MS. STERLING:  -- your particular industry and in some future work that's being done at OSHA.
              MR. LUCEY:  Yes.
              MS. STERLING:  So I think there are other mechanisms that can help alleviate some of the concerns that the manufacturers have raised.
              MR. LUCEY:  Yes.
              MS. STERLING:  And help, you know, promote an easier path to workplace safety and making more --
              MR. LUCEY:  Yes, we welcome that.  Absolutely.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay, any other questions?
              MR. SULLIVAN:  Hi.  Dan Sullivan, TUV Rheinland, talking about the surveillance and the report acceptance.
              If I look at the new draft requirements the two, the report acceptance from one NRTL for another one to maintain their certification, the requirements seems to kind of contradict themselves.  Or there just seems to be some misunderstanding, because if I have to be, me, as the issuing NRTL, use another NRTL's report and they have to evaluate all the components in that particular product as part of my surveillance activities, then how does that other NRTL receive the critical components list and things like that?
              So that's my first question is, or just bringing that point up --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              MR. SULLIVAN:  -- there seems to be a contradiction.  Maybe it's my misunderstanding.
              
              Second thing I wanted to bring forward is, it's probably more for the manufacturers to alert them to the fact that the new draft requirement, when scheduling a factory or a surveillance inspection, has done away with the word, minimal notice.  It is now, it is, shall be no notice.
              And I just wanted to raise those couple of points for possible discussion.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  And your first point, we'll hit that on the next session.  So don't let me forget.
              MR. SULLIVAN:  (Inaudible).
              MR. ROBINSON:  That's fine.  And if there is no other comments or question I think we'll take a break.  It is, call it 2:30.  Let's say 2:00, let's go 2:45.
              And we'll hit fees really quickly and then talk about the new directive.  So meet back here at about 2:45.
              
              (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 2:29 p.m. and resumed at 2:53 p.m.)
              MR. ROBINSON:  All right, so before we move onto the last section, which is the directive update, I did want to discuss the last topic that was in the Federal Register notice, which was the subject of fees.
              PARTICIPANT:  Abolish them.
              MR. ROBINSON:  What?
              PARTICIPANT:  Abolish them.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Abolish them. So earlier, actually last year OSHA initiated payment through pay.gov.  We finally moved into the 21st Century and started accepting credit cards.
              
              The question that was proposed, which based on the comments we received I believe may have been misinterpreted about what we were proposing.  But the question was basically looking for, should OSHA no longer accept payments from NRTLs for services by means of check and just use the pay.gov system, which allows for credit cards payments and electronic fund transfer?
              And if we were to cease the use of accepting checks, what hardship would that cause the NRTLs that are currently in the program or anyone who's currently think about applying?
              So with that I'll open it up to see if anyone has any comments or questions or wants to convince us not to do that?  As I said, this was only going to take about two minutes.  So okay, I think that's it.
              The final topic on the agenda for the day is the much anticipated NRTL Directive Update.  Before I begin I just need to extend an enormous thanks to the folks at NIST and everyone on the NRTL team.
              
              We started off, we started off the last year actually after the stakeholder, the last stakeholder meeting intending to put a few bandages on the NRTL directive.  And we quickly moved into, let's just rewrite the whole program from the ground up.  And we did it in record time.
              The fact that we are at this point where we actually have a solid working draft, in our opinion, less than 18 months after we started this process, speaks volumes.  So just thank you to Amy from NIST and everyone else who is on the NRTL team who has probably read this document about 2,000 times combined.  So with that let's get into it.
              Hopefully it will work form here.  Of course not.  Okay, I'm going over here.  It wants me to stand at the podium.  Or not.  Or it's not working.  If you want to work on that I'll just read.
              
              So just as we had for this morning we're not looking for consensus really, all we're doing right now is just looking to get some thoughts and opinions on the document.  And the document that was posted up on our website and is also included in your folder is simply for information purposes only to give you an idea of the current thought process for OSHA.
              We will be publishing a preliminary Federal Register notice, as I mentioned earlier this morning, probably early spring for posting it for public comment.  And then wrap-up those comments with the final Federal Register notice.
              Try it now and see, yes, all right.  So just a history of how we got to this point.  The NRTL program was established in 1988.  Eleven years later we published the NRTL directive.
              So for 11 years we were running pretty much off the regulations which are really a very high level overview of what an NRTL actually is in the requirements that they have.
              Since 1999, over 15 years, we've done only minor updates to the directive.  So it's been long overdue for update.
              
              In combination with the NRTL directive we also have the NRTL application guideline, which are really meant to help guide an NRTL through how to apply to become an NRTL.  But over the years it's sort of developed a lot of policy in that document.
              So what we started to do, as a result of a GAO or Government Accountability Office study of the program in 2012 is we really looked, took a very hard look at the program and the documents that we're using to control and manage the program.
              As I mentioned, we held a stakeholder meeting in March of 2013.  The initial plan was to just simply stop the bleeding.
              At the time we had a multi-year backlog of applications and we just simply needed to implement some very quick fixes to get the program moving in the forward direction, moving in the right direction.
              
              So we initially started off trying to make some very quick fixes to some major problem areas.  But we very quickly decided that it was going to be better for everyone to take a few extra months and rewrite the directive, aligning it completely with ISO 17025 and ISO 17065.
              Some of the major proposals, in addition to the alignment with the ISO standards that we're going to be discussing today, and then we'll open up to more general discussion, Number 1 is the, we're looking to revise OSHA's policy on independence.
              Second we're looking to revise OSHA's policies on supplemental programs and the use and acceptance of the IECEx scheme.  Currently we do a lot, we do a lot of NRTLs to accept data through the IEC-CB scheme, but the IECEx scheme has, we have not yet formally adopted.
              
              We're also looking at making some changes on our policies for equipment and calibration.  And we're looking at implementing a revised definition for a recognized site and eliminating what we are currently calling as SNAP sites.
              With the alignment to the ISO standards we are proposing to accept or to adopt, rather, and that's going to be the wrong term, sorry Lee.  We're looking to integrate ISO 17025 and 17065 as the minimum level of performance for NRTLs.
              And along with that providing some NRTL specific requirements and interpretations.  And that, those specific NRTL specific requirements and interpretations and policies are what's contained in the blue folder and what's been posted up in our website since late August.
              And wherever possible we're looking, we took the approach to change NRTL specific terminology to align as closely as possible with ISO terminology.  Which should hopefully make everyone very happy.
              
              Policy on independence.  OSHA required or actually requires that NRTLs and applicants be completely independent of employers that are sub, employers subjected to OSHA's tested equipment requirements and any manufacturers, vendors of the equipment and materials that are being tested for these purposes.
              The NRTLs must be free from commercial, financial and other pressures that could comprise the results of testing certification process.
              We presume that these conflicts existed if there was a substantial relationship between the NRTL or the NRTL applicant and the manufacturer, a vendor or major user of products that must be certified.  Which could comprise the objectivity and impartiality of that NRTL.
              It was a very, very tight requirement.  And in today's society not many NRTLs could actually meet those requirements.
              To address this we are proposing to align our existing independence policy with ISO 17025 and ISO 17065.
              
              You'll notice in the specific NRTL requirements that all we've done is provide some clarification on what we mean.  We're not adding any additional criteria which should hopeful make everyone happy.
              So with that, that's the first proposal on independence.
              Supplemental programs.  Under the NRTL program, back in '95, we created what are, what we call supplemental programs.
              But essentially what supplemental programs are is they allow an NRTL accept evaluation and test data from external sources or outside sources.  Which could include independent laboratories, it could include manufacturers through the CB scheme and also SNAP sites.
              Under our current policies NRTLs apply for recognition to these specific policies.  Or these specific programs rather.
              
              Under our new proposal, and with the proposed adoption of the ISO standards, supplemental programs or at least the concept of supplemental programs would disappear.
              It was our belief that the ISO standards actually addressed and wrapped up all the requirements in the supplemental programs.  And they provided some clarification on how to accept data from external sources.
              Under our proposed policy, rather than having an NRTL opt into a supplemental program or accepting data from outside sources, we would presume that every NRTL had the policies and procedures in place to accept that data.  Or if they chose not to accept data, say from manufacturers or they chose not to accept data from external independent laboratories or did not want to participate in the acceptance of data under the CB scheme, they're policies and procedures would simply state, we will not do this.
              
              And along with that is the IECEx acceptance.  Manufacturers have been asking for this for years.
              The first step was actually recognizing the IECEx scheme or harmonized standards for equipment intended for use in hazardous location.  So since we adopted those standards or recognized those standards earlier this year, this now sets the stage for allowing acceptance of data under the IECEx scheme.
              Equipment calibration.  Under our current directive an NRTL must have an adequate calibration program in order to meet the capability requirements of 29 CFR 1910.7.  This is contained in the current NRTL directive.
              What we are proposing to do is implement a new policy.  OSHA is proposing to include new requirements that require the NRTL or applicant to use an accredited calibration laboratory for the calibration of its test equipment.
              
              Additionally if calibrations are conducted by the NRTLs internal calibration laboratory, that laboratory must be accredited for the scope of calibrations it conducts with certain exceptions.
              The certain exceptions are detailed in the draft directive that you have, but it's essentially physical measurements, things that are unlikely to change, things that do not require a high degree of accuracy.  So that is proposal for calibration.
              Next is the definition of a recognized site.  How we got to this point was, in sort of a roundabout way, I mentioned that we had a great involvement with NIST.  Over the past 24 months our current directive and our current policies have been reviewed by people who've worked in laboratories, people who've worked in NRTLs, people who've been experts in conformity assessment systems and development of those systems.
              
              Absolute novices.  People with absolutely no knowledge of the program, no knowledge of conformity assessment schemes.  And every single one of those people offered an extremely unique perspective on our directive and got us to take an extremely hard look at our policies.
              And this was one of those things that came around.  The question was asked, as we were reviewing things internally, what's the difference between a recognized site and a SNAP site?
              And for those of you who don't know, a SNAP site is a program we implemented about five, six years ago.  It greatly summarized and greatly simplified, it basically is a program where NRTLs can apply to OSHA that will allow them to conduct their own review an assessment of their own laboratories to conduct NRTL specific activities.
              
              It was really developed as a work around for certain policies in countries that conflicted with OSHA requirements.  Certain countries required that the testing organization be owned by a locally based company that was very difficult to do under the NRTL program requirements so we developed the workaround.  That was SNAP.
              So the definition of a recognized site is one that is legally, a legal entity recognized by OSHA that the NRTL must wholly own, either directly or indirectly, or organizationally encompass the NRTLs laboratory and certification sites and have administrative and operational control over these sites.  Very restrictive.
              What we're proposing to do is to change the definition to a site that is administratively and operationally controlled by the NRTL that performs testing inspections and certification decisions and/or accepts data or inspections in accordance with the NRTL management system.  So effectively we are removing or proposing to removal the wholly owned requirement.
              
              The definition, the proposed definition of a recognized site closely matches that of a SNAP site.  And along with that we would propose, because now we would have a recognized site and an SNAP site, which are effectively the same thing, we would propose to eliminate the use of SNAP sites.
              And we would then develop, likely develop a process where currently NRTLs that have existing SNAP sites could easily convert those SNAP sites over to recognized sites to be integrated into the program under a recognized site scheme.
              So those are the proposals, the major proposals that we are presenting in the current draft directive.  And with that I'm just going to open the floor up to any questions, comments, concerns about anything on that directive.
              So I'm going to sit down now.  Press on the bottom.  Yes, you got to hold it for a second.  There it goes.
              
              MR. BLAIS:  Thank you Kevin.  Steve Blais with Appleton Group.  I'm here today as a, I'm a NEMA member so I'm participating under NEMA today.
              As you know NEMA has been working with OSHA through a task group, their codes of standards committee for about 30 months now to try to get OSHA to allow NRTLs to, under client test data programs, to allow NRTLs to allow non-independent test laboratories, such as manufacturers, to have the NRTLs be permitted to accept the hazardous location test data.
              MR. ROBINSON:  We're doing that.
              MR. BLAIS:  I figured that, I just wanted some clarification.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              MR. BLAIS:  Because of the shift in the supplemental program, unless the NRTL of course comes out and says we're not going to do it --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              
              MR. BLAIS:  -- we understand that.  So I just wanted to get clarification.
              MR. ROBINSON:  So that is under the draft directive and, you know, the parts that have been released and the parts that we're still working on internally, that is something that we are going to be proposing in the Federal Registry notice to put out.
              DR. HARTGE:  Planning to propose at this time.
              MR. ROBINSON:  What?  Yes, we do need to --
              DR. HARTGE:  You're planning --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Oh, planning to proposal, I'm sorry.  See this is, this is where I'm going to get into trouble.
              MR. BUZARD:  Mike Buzard from A2LA.  My topic is going to be related to the calibration proposal change.
              
              A recommendation would not be to enforce accreditation under a calibration scope for the NRTLs that want to calibrate their own equipment.  Instead I'll leave out the assumption you're going to accreditation, but take a look at ILAC P10.
              This is ILAC's policy document that deals with traceability of measurements and deals with calibrations.  All the accreditation bodies here have to have our own policy that we enforce over test labs that essentially allows them to calibrate their own equipment.
              We still go in during a testing lab assessment, we assess them the same as we would a calibration laboratory essentially, but they are not getting a calibration scope because they wouldn't be offering those calibrations --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              MR. BUZARD:  -- to any customers.  It saves laboratories sometime, but it also saves them a lot of money in terms of that extra accreditation.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  So the, and there was, I like E, as in elephant 10?
              MR. BUZARD:  P, as in policy.
              MR. ROBINSON:  P, as in Paul.  Okay.
              MR. BUZARD:  Yes.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thank you.
              MR. BUZARD:  Yes, P10.  It's towards the end, each accreditation body has to have a policy that allows testing laboratories that want to calibrate their own equipment, only for themselves, to do so.
              We still go in, we still look at training records, reference standards for the calibration, the records of the calibrations of themselves, uncertainty budgets, all that, the whole list of things that 17025 would generally require of a cal lab, but because the test labs don't want to give these calibrations to the customers --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              
              MR. BUZARD:  -- no sense in having them pay extra fees every year for a whole separate field.
              MR. ROBINSON:  So a question, and we're looking at this, you know, sort of short-term today or next year assuming that we implement this, this policy when OSHA would still be conducting the assessments.  OSHA does not have the expertise to look at calibration laboratories.
              So for the short-term, that's an issue we would need to address.  Long-term, if we do decide to move into looking at third-party accreditation bodies in a situation like that, you as an accreditor, would you need to know ahead of time if an organization was doing calibrations internally to then, so then you could have, bring in the expertise to look at that calibration?
              MR. BUZARD:  Speaking only from A2LA's view --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Correct.
              MR. BUZARD:  -- yes we do --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.
              
              MR. BUZARD:  -- actually require laboratories to go in brand new labs or renewal laboratories to send us an equipment list so we know if they are doing any in-house calibrations.
              Can we send just a testing assessor who's familiar with, for instance calibrating a power meter, or do we have to send one of our very highly knowledgeable high level calibration assessors if they're doing three quarters of their entire scopes worth of equipment on their own.  So it's going to depend on the individual laboratory.
              Can we send in, you know, the smart technical guys who've had 30 year's experience on a bench, they know how to do an oscilloscope on their own or are we sending in a fourth, fifth, second, maybe third assessor to combine with the testing team.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay, thank you very much, that's very informative.  Any other questions?  Keith, of course.
              
              MR. MOWRY:  So the draft directive looks like a scheme to me.
              MR. ROBINSON:  That's the intent.
              MR. MOWRY:  That's the idea.  Okay, I'm going to hammer away at this again.
              If you're going to use 17025 and 17065 you have got to get on the terminology that's used in those documents.  The draft directive doesn't do that yet.
              I'll give you one example.  In the draft directive that corresponds to 7.4 in 17065, you talk about evaluation of the test data.
              That's not what evaluation is in 17065.  You're really going to confuse the bejeepers out of us if you don't stay disciplined on the use of the terminology.
              Today the word laboratory has been thrown around to mean at least four different things.  A legal entity at NRTL.
              
              I mean in terms of 17025 the laboratory is a physical space with a controlled environment where you have test equipment and you conduct tests.  So that's the only thing you should call a laboratory, okay.
              The other thing that I will say about this as a scheme document is it, I think it reflects a lot of what the current scheme is, but it is accurately restated.
              There are, I mean Raj brought up just one issue this morning in our Panel about the questions and the demands that just one sentence in the draft directive raises.  I've got those kind of notes on every page of this draft directive.
              My strong plea is, please don't write this and take it out for a test drive as you assess NRTLs yourself.  That has got to be the most time wasting ineffective way to figure out what the directive should be.
              
              Please get us together as stakeholders.  If there's a way to do it, I know there's constraints, but please get us together as stakeholders so people like Raj can come and say, what in the world were you thinking when you wrote this because what these really means to me as an assessor is, duh ta duh ta duh ta duh.
              Because as a matter of fact Raj and I had the exact same reaction, we didn't compare notes.  And we think it would be far preferable, and frankly take no more time, to sort through those issues before you go to Federal Register notice publication than afterwards.  Thanks.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay, thank you.  Raj?
              MR. NATHAN:  You know, it's like Keith when he's diplomatic about his comments.
              MR. MOWRY:  Except for today.
              MR. NATHAN:  Expect for today.  No, thanks, Keith.  Yes, this certainly, that sentiment, you know, I spoke to quite a few people during the breaks here.
              
              Speaking for myself, you know, and I apologize, I was remiss and not able to review this document.  For whatever it went to a colleague of mine and yesterday when I looked at it my first reaction was, oh my God, why we were not involved much earlier than this.  And that certainly, it does not, it reflects on our not being actively engaged.
              But having being involved in this process with many regulators at many levels, including recently with Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, has approached this process and for whatever it's worth, NRC has gone, not only with the U.S. ABs while their formulating this process, they actually accompanied me.  Six of them came down with me to an ILAC process in Japan.
              Six of the NRC individuals.  And they've been to two other international evaluations to see how this process works, not only in U.S. but across the world.
              
              The reason that's important to them, for instance, is because given their needs, they have significant reasons to be involved with other economies.  Their test data and, well I guess certification results and so forth, feed into the NRC evaluation process.
              I was quite impressed with not only NRC but the industry group, which is NEI, the Nuclear Energy Institute, whatever it's called.  And they've done this thing several times.
              So again, one of the things is to step back a little bit and see the process from that point of view but also see from the outside.
              And just to add a couple, again, just to give a couple of flavor, I didn't have a chance to talk during the discussions, discussion session.  For instance there are requirements for accrediting internal calibration in one of the sections.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              
              MR. NATHAN:  That's a huge undertaking.  And the gentleman from A2LA pointed out, if that happens from an AB's perspective, do we need a metrologist to accompany and what is the mechanism of that?  It brings up a whole lead of secondary and tertiary questions.
              You have, for instance, a calibration interval.  I think Section 5.5(d).  You know, typically it's not incumbent on testing labs.  In fact to some extent it's prohibited for testing labs to specify the calibration intervals.
              And, you know, I mean there are certain technical challenges in 5.5(d) how that should be implemented and how it should be enforced.  And there are terminologies, like Keith alluded to, list of management personnel.
              Typically I believe you're talking about organizational chart, which is the terminology, organizational structure is another term that's used.
              
              So there's a lot of that stuff and again, I apologize that we haven't been engaged to provide that kind of feedback, but I certainly expect to do that working management colleagues.
              One last plead, again, Kevin, in your discussion questions you alluded to the fact that when you folks have been to a variety of CBs and NRTLs you've seen situations which are in variance with what the ABs have seen.  And I again urge you, request you to do two things.
              One, please have, join us when we do assessments.  Or if that, let us join you in those NRTLs we acquire.  Neither one of that is happening and we have an open process and I presume within your limitations you have some ability.  Because after all, it is our NRTLs in a sense.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              
              MR. NATHAN:  So then all these questions could be answered.  And by God, you have an opportunity to tell us where we are messing up and what we need to do.
              So there should be no surprises because the more you let time elapse on this, then, you know, it become as a shock to both you and us.  Why is there a gap, why is, so please let us know, we are open, we will let you know if you develop a mechanism how do, who do we correspond with, say we're going to this UL lab, of course, you know, UL lab, UL CB I'm sure will be open to that joint process.
              But it will answer a lot of those questions and bring this document into a more tighter and narrower constraints of 17025 and 17065.  Thank you.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Thank you.  And Dave Loebach had some questions.
              MR. SICKLES:  This is Douglas Sickles, sorry, from IS.  It'll be short.
              
              I do a lot of assessments, I used to work at UL years ago.  I just suggested, perhaps you could invite the assessors from the ABs to join OSHA on an NRTL assessment so that we can observe how you do it and learn from you and maybe vice versa, that one of your staff could join the ABs on some assessments.  It could be coordinated to be local, reduce expenses and that way we could collaborate.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Pass it right behind you.
              MR. LOEBACH:  I'm a little bit confused by OSHA's process.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Could you please state your name?
              MR. LOEBACH:  Oh, Dave Loebach.
              MR. ROBINSON:  And the organization you're representing?  Himself.
              MR. LOEBACH:  Yes myself, somewhat affiliated with ANSI.  Formerly of an organization within OSHA called the NRTL program.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Hi.
              
              MR. LOEBACH:  You're talking about transitioning to a different kind of program where you're going to be contracting out using third-party ABs.  What are you going to be doing, how are you going to be operating between now and then and why is there a delay?  Why wouldn't you just make the decision which one and do it now instead of --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              MR. LOEBACH:  -- X years downstream?
              MR. ROBINSON:  So --
              MR. LOEBACH:  What's going to be gained by doing that?
              MR. ROBINSON:  So the thought process is, and what the draft directive that you have in front of you is really the step to or the, basically what, it's taking the old directive and converting it over to something that accreditation bodies could actually read and understand.
              
              Formerly as an assessor I'm sure you would agree that there were a lot of confusing sections in the current directive that we are currently using.  So to hand that over to an ANSI an A2LA, IAS, whomever, they would quite honestly be lost.  They would not know how to read that or interpret that.
              So the first step that we needed to do was get it into a common language.  And this is the first step at that.
              Getting it into, as closely as possible so that we can start, you know, making edits and revisions to it.  Getting it into a common format or something to the common format and then it makes it a little easier to get it into the hands of the accreditation bodies.
              As for why we are not moving into, directly over to an accreditation body, we don't have the authority to do that.  We can't just hand this over to an accreditation body and have them do that.  It's not allowed under the rules.
              
              So in order to implement that change, we need to go into a rulemaking.  So the, sort of the process that internally we have been looking at is, get this directive out, get it in line with international standards, start talking with, if this is the route that we ultimately decide to go, start talking with the accreditation bodies.
              As we are fixing the program internally, let's start talking with them about how we are going to utilize accreditation or external accreditation bodies in the future, hold whatever stakeholder meetings, RFIs, Federal Register notices we need to do that to legally meet our obligations.
              
              But in the meantime continue to revise and development the directive so that when it is time, when we can legally hand it over to third-party accreditation bodies, we have the best document that we have available.  If that's ultimately the route that we decide to go.
              So, you know, I think it would be nice if we could just hand things over to the ABs, but right now we just need to address the legal aspects of that and put that out for, you know, public notice and comment and see if that is ultimately the route we want to go and change the regulations if, you know, as necessary to allow us to do that, allow us the freedom to work with the ABs in a manner that's going to be most conducive to all of us.
              MR. QUINLAN:  Barry Quinlan, TUV SUD.  What is OSHA's definition of operationally controlled, if that's the right word?
              MR. ROBINSON:  Oh, come on, Barry, it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
              MR. QUINLAN:  Well I think we've given you a pretty easy time so far.
              MR. ROBINSON:  I'm tired.  Where specifically are you looking?
              
              MR. QUINLAN:  I'm looking at recognized sites.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Oh, recognized --
              MR. QUINLAN:  It's in my, yes, in the back.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.
              MR. QUINLAN:  I had, administered as being operational controlled.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Those, that terminology, those definitions we're still working out.
              MR. QUINLAN:  Oh.
              MR. ROBINSON:  As far as exactly what that's going to mean.  But basically what our, sort of what the working definition is or is being proposed is essentially that the NRTL is controlling or has control over what is going on at that site.
              MR. QUINLAN:  That's very vague.
              MR. ROBINSON:  I know.
              
              MR. QUINLAN:  Well I'm just trying to think if, are you suggesting, say in my organization the TUV SUD America could no longer be recognized, it would have to be TUV SUD AG to demonstrate operationally controlled.
              Because I don't know, I'm trying to get an understanding --
              MR. ROBINSON:  No --
              MR. QUINLAN:  -- how you see the lines.
              MR. ROBINSON:  You know, you brought yourself up so I'll --
              MR. QUINLAN:  Yes.
              MR. ROBINSON:  -- use you as an example.
              MR. QUINLAN:  And no, I'm using myself as an example.
              MR. ROBINSON:  I think in a situation like that where you have your parent company, who is effectively also an NRTL --
              MR. QUINLAN:  Yes, I know that complicates things.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Kind of sort.
              
              MR. QUINLAN:  Yes.
              MR. ROBINSON:  But yes.  So you are an NRTL and your parent company is an NRTL --
              MR. QUINLAN:  You are not correct, no.  TUV product service is an NRTL.
              MR. ROBINSON:  I'm sorry, okay.
              MR. QUINLAN:  And they are lead on by TUV.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes, okay.
              MR. QUINLAN:  So it's AG.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.  So in effect since you, okay, so yes, since you have a common parent among both NRTLs you could have your parent become the NRTL and then each one of the TUV Product Services and TUV sites could in theory, under this definition, become recognized sites under a common parent.
              MR. QUINLAN:  Meaning could only be one NRTL under TUV services?
              MR. ROBINSON:  Could.
              MR. QUINLAN:  Yes.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Could.
              
              MR. QUINLAN:  Okay.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Not saying you have to.
              MR. QUINLAN:  No, okay.  That was the first question, I had a second quick question --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.
              MR. QUINLAN:  -- actually tied on with the previous one.  So this is going to be a two stage process, initially OSHA is going to adopt 17025 and 65 and run with it themselves, that's the first phase of this directive, and then you spoke very early this morning about a revision to the, another revision to the directive 2017, '18 period.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              MR. QUINLAN:  So we wouldn't even be, you're not even entertaining third-party creditors getting involved until that period, 2018, and beyond?
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Quite honestly because it will take that long to affect a regulatory change.
              MR. QUINLAN:  Okay, I just wanted to make sure that everyone understands --
              MR. ROBINSON:  You know, if we ultimately decide to go down the route of involving accreditation bodies, there's going to be, I would suspect there's going to be a lot of discussions, more stakeholder meetings, more discussions with the ABs to determine how best to make use, make use of their resources and how best to get them to accomplish what we want and need to accomplish.
              MR. QUINLAN:  Okay.
              MR. ROBINSON:  So it's, while I could say that if we ultimately do decide to go down the route of utilizing external accreditation bodies, before that would be fully implemented we're looking, you know, three, four, five or so years down the road.
              
              It's not to say that we're going to ignore that for the next three to five years, we're going to be working on it and working on, you know, basically studying everything we need to to in place the laws to move forward with that when we're ready to go.
              But in the meantime we anticipate that there's going to be at least two revisions to the directive before ultimately it gets handed over to the accreditation bodies.
              MR. QUINLAN:  Okay.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Just as part of our process to close things out.
              MR. QUINLAN:  Well honestly I think most of us would like it to be far sooner but okay, thank you, Kevin.
              MR. HILL:  John Hill, FM Approvals.  Kevin, in your discussion you mentioned that the directive will be released about a year from now, fall 2015?
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.  In its final format, that is our current target is fall of 2015.
              
              MR. HILL:  Okay, and do you anticipate what the implementation period would be?  Especially like when you see that 17021, you know, 25, 65 --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              MR. HILL:  -- more recently, I think it's, what was it, two or three years to begin compliance?
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.  And I think to that, as we move this forward, I would go to the NRTLs and ask them and say, here's what we're proposing, you know, what's in here now absent of, you know, some of the terminology issues that Keith has brought up?
              You know, here's the preliminary directive that is, in theory, pretty darn close to hopefully final, how long would it take you to implement these processes?
              
              And that's where we're going to start getting into discussions with the NRTLs to see how big these changes are because in our read of it, I would say we probably changed the text of about 90 percent of our current directive.
              As far as procedural changes, I would guess probably less than ten percent of your procedures would need to change to meet this directive.  Is our guess.
              And quite honestly I don't know.  And that would be something that we would talk with the NRTLs to see how big of a change this really is and how long, you know, it would take to implement this.
              There, I suspect that there would be some period of where we would be doing gap analysis.  We've already started doing that to some extent informally, just letting people know if there are some proposed changes that we are, there are changes that we are proposing when we do on sight assessments.
              
              We're just letting the NRTLs know to keep an eye out for it.  But once we do get the directive published and finalized, there is certainly going to be some period of a gap analysis where we're running under the old requirements but starting to audit against the newer requirements just to help bring everyone up to speed.
              MR. HILL:  Well I think that one of the biggest changes that will effect the NRTLs will be the requirement for in-house calibration.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              MR. HILL:  Because like a lot of the NRTLs, we don't have that accreditation in place.  We use accredited 17025 lab calibration providers.
              MR. ROBINSON:  And that would be fine.
              MR. HILL:  Right, right, we already have that in place --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              
              MR. HILL:  -- to do all of the, you know, the 90 percent or more than that of our equipment.  But it's those other one off type pieces of equipment that we calibrate ourselves using the standards that we have calibrated by the 17025 provider.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              MR. HILL:  So, and that takes time because if we have to go down that path then there's procedures changing all of the, you know, QA manual probably and everything else.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              MR. MAYNARD:  Hi, I'm Martin Maynard from SIEMIC Laboratories.  I just had a short comment and then a question.
              I think Keith from UL had brought up, compared those to the TCB Program with the FCC and I've been very involved with that for a longtime and I see a lot of similarities.  And I'm just going to throughout that, yes, I know that the OET office at FCC runs the TCB Program, would be glad to, you know, share best practices on this an how industry and the government agencies could work together because I mean I'm sure your agencies is just like the FCC, they aren't going to double their staff and so --
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              MR. MAYNARD:  -- industries got to support this and we've got to trust each other and also maintain our integrity with the public.
              But anyway, the question was, so say a organization is going through their initial NRTL submittal application and we, I know we had talked informally about this --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              MR. MAYNARD:  -- that there would be a grandfathering period, you know, because we don't have a, I mean this is still a draft and it will be a draft potentially for another year --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.
              MR. MAYNARD:  -- how will that grandfathering be documented or can be referenced or whatever?
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.  So any organization that worked, if they were to apply today, we are going to be evaluating them against our current requirements.
              And as we've been doing with our current NRTLs is whether our major policy changes that we are proposing, we're just simply informally letting the laboratories know so they can be aware of, you know, an issue such as the calibration proposal that we've put out.  So any organization that would apply today is going to be evaluated under our current existing policies and guidelines.
              Once the new directive comes out they would run, you know, any new organization coming in would be subject to the same phase in process that we've established for all existing NRTLs.
              Where it could get a little messy is if we happen to roll out the new requirements as we're smack dab in the middle of an investigation of a candidate laboratory.
              
              So if we propose to, if we stick to the time line that we proposed of getting the directive out in the fall of 2015 and an application is submitted sometime in the summer of 2015 and we succeed in getting the new directive out and now we're sort of midstream, in that situation we generally know well ahead of time of when the directive would be coming out.  So in the summertime we would generally know, yes, are we going to hit this target or are we going to delay it.
              If we get an application in the summer of 2015 for a new NRTL, we would probably recommend that we just hold back on that application and wait until the new directive comes out.
              But that's where the conversations begins.  And I've had this conversation with several organization who are, have applied or are thinking of applying, of the pros and cons of applying now versus waiting until we roll out the new directive.
              
              And that's an answer that OSHA can't answer for any organization, that's more of a, here's the information, you as an organization who are looking to become an NRTL need to answer for yourself, what are the advantage versus this, advantages of doing it now versus waiting.
              So while we have a very aggressive schedule, fast for the federal government is slow by private sector means.  So there is sometime built into the process.
              MR. MAYNARD:  Thanks.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.
              MR. MOWRY:  Thanks, Keith Mowry from UL.  Just one additional comment about the directive in a general way.
              We've been talking all day about 17065 and 17025.  And, you know, the directive text is based on those two standards.
              But it gives me a little bit of concern that the view is that all the evaluation work done, evaluation in 17065 terms, is somehow testing.  Because it's not.
              
              So 17065 says, use 17025 or 17020 or 17021 as requirements for evaluation activities.  And then the certification body basically has to scratch his head and say, okay, which one do I use for which activities, which makes the most sense.
              If you're going to embrace 17065 and not modify that, do you have any thoughts or additional things to say about 17020 or 17021?
              Now 17021 is management systems and that doesn't necessarily really come into play, maybe in the NRTL scheme.  So that one is kind of off the table, and I recognize that.
              But 17020 is not just about factory inspections, some people would say when you do a construction review it's a lot more to look, that looks a lot more like an inspection than it does a test.  And so you might think that the applicable 17020 requirements would apply to the activity of a construction review, a literature and marking review and that kind of thing.
              
              So an idea is to make sure you don't give the impression that 17025 is a requirements for everything going on in an evaluation.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.  And to that I would simple say that what is missing from this directive is an entire section of more the administrative requirements where a lot of that will start to come into play.
              So this is really addressing, the intent here was to address a lot of the technical requirements where the majority of the changes are going to be taking place and the more administrative aspects of the program are something that in the background we're still working on developing and it might help to fit some of those puzzle pieces together.  But absolutely yes, we are looking at those, we are considering those.
              
              MR. SOILS:  Kevin, this is Joel SOILS with the National Electrical Manufacturer's Association.  I just want to express certainly our pleasure at OSHA for taking the action that they're doing today.  It is really wonderful to see movement occurring to revise the program.  I think we're very appreciative of that.
              But I'd like to ask a little bit about Section 3.  I know the requirements aren't well defined in there yet, this is the recognition process and, you know, it gets into applications and renewal of existing NRTLs status.
              And the one question I have, and you spoke a little bit earlier, that currently anyone that's applying will have to comply with 1910.7 and you think that there's probably about ten percent policy change.  I'm just wondering, regarding applications and renewal, whether they'll be any policy changes there?
              
              And specifically really trying to hit at is, in 1910.7 there is one unique requirement for foreign based labs and it concerns OSHA's principle regarding equal treatment.  Just want to make sure that that's going to continue going forward and that it not just apply to initial NRTL status but follow on renewals as well that if a foreign body does apply, gets recognized, that if there are laws in their home country do change that we should be able to take a look at that and make another determination whether or not the principle of equal treatment is still in place.
              And we've heard from GAMBICA a little bit earlier on, talking about 765.  It was very interesting to hear the concerns from industry there.
              But the one thing they didn't discuss was openness.  And we are a very open process here and we've been open to others to come in and attend the stakeholders meeting.  We just want to make sure that that remains in place.  So you could talk to that I would certainly appreciate it.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Any changes to that are going to be more regulatory changes.  Because the requirement for, just loosely what we're calling reciprocity and equal treatment, that is contained in the regulations.
              You know, so with the directive the directive can simply provide interpretations and policies, interpretations is wrong, more policies on how OSHA is implementing the requirements that are in the regulations.
              So for the short-term, absolutely nothing will change with respect to the impartiality aspect because there is a requirement in the regulations that dictates how we are to look at impartiality or I'm sorry, impartiality, equal treatment, it's been a long day, equal treatment of foreign based organizations.  And then the directive provides additional clarification and policies on that, on that requirement.
              
              Long-term, it really is a question of whether or not we go into rulemaking.  If we go into rulemaking then it opens the door possibly to taking a hard look at other aspects that are out there.
              You know, if we do ultimately go into accepting, if we ultimately decide to look at utilizing third-party accreditation bodies, and then we ultimately need to go into rulemaking, then it sort of opens the door to comments in other sections, I would believe.  Is that correct?
              Okay, but those are things that, you know, we would need to look at in the future, but any significant changes to the regulations would have to come in under the regulator aspects of it, so.
              (Off microphone comment.)
              MR. ROBINSON:  Correct.
              (Off microphone comment.)
              MR. GRABEL:  No, that's a regulatory --
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  It's a regulatory change.
              MR. GRABEL:  Yes.  Which OSHA is not considering.  At least in the short-term.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Short-term, that's not there.  And that's --
              MR. GRABEL:  Not on the table right now.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Correct.
              MR. SULLIVAN:  Dan Sullivan, TUV Rheinland.  A bit of clarification on the, for lack of a better word, the transition from SNAP Program to recognized site.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.
              MR. SULLIVAN:  I understand the change in the definition and maybe I didn't understand it or hear it clearly earlier that administrative an operational control that's currently under the SNAP Program, would the same basic criteria be held to the new recognized sites?
              
              Because basically the definition of the recognized site has only changed in terms of ownership.  But that operational and administrative control, would that be equal to the SNAP Program in the new definition of recognized sites?
              MR. ROBINSON:  And a lot of that is unfortunately is in the section of the directive that we have not yet released, but right now as it stands, yes, we are, the current draft that we are working on is as close to the current definition of SNAP as we can make it while, you know, still keeping things there.  So that will all get pushed out when we ultimately push it out in the Federal Registry notice.  So current plans, yes.
              MR. UNGER:  Kevin, Peter Unger, A2LA.  First of all I'd like to applaud you and OSHA for adopting or working with the 17,000 series of standards and your consideration of the existing accreditation infrastructure, if you will, and the possibility of using accreditation to support your program.
              
              And of course if you do this, for calibration, the question comes up, what are the qualified accreditation bodies that are going to offer accreditation of calibration labs?  If you do it for other types of accreditation you'll have the same question.
              I believe you have to explore the idea or the, my suggestion would be to make sure the NRTLs have the option of perhaps using their existing accreditation body so that they don't have to change bodies or get an additional accreditation.
              
              And that would, might require you to work with several accreditation bodies.  And as I suggested this morning, the way you control the consistency is to have a system for training the assessors, pulling the assessors together from the accreditation bodies where you have input to that training on a periodic basis and then rely on the accreditation bodies to carry out and oversee and monitor their assessors on a periodic basis.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Great, thank you.  Any other comments or questions?
              MR. HILL:  John Hill, FM Approvals.  With respect to the follow-up audits, surveillance audits, you mentioned in the directive that it's going, this shall be unannounced.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              MR. HILL:  What promoted that and can you conceivably see all the issues that are going to come up with the auditors, the customers and so forth being available?
              Our auditors a lot of times to drive long distances out to the middle of nowhere, takes half the day to get there, contact person isn't there, plant's shut down for some reason or another, vice versa, you go out there, person isn't available, there's a meeting going on or something like.  How strict is that enforcement going to be of that requirement?
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  So the policy or the clarification is actually just a clarification.  The intent, when the current directive written was always for unannounced inspections, except in certain circumstances when it's seasonal or you just have gone out there and you can't get in to the facility.
              Generally speaking, about half of the NRTLs are doing unannounced inspections.  Half are doing some level of pre-announcement.
              Whether that's, hey, it's 8 o'clock in the morning, I'm going to be swinging by there sometime today, are you guys there?  Great, okay.  Or how's next month say the 23rd of November.  You know, it ranges based on what the policies are.
              
              Of the NRTLs that are conducting unannounced inspections, in the informal conversations I've had with them during onsite assessments, it's not a problem.  As far as getting onsite, seeing if there are products there, making sure that the right people are there.
              Every once in a while there are some concerns, there are some, you know, you, they're trying to do some cost saving measures or they have a company picnic and you happen to show up on that day that it was completely unplanned, you run into that.  But generally speaking, based on the conversations we've had with the NRTLs, the manufacturers not being available and not being able to meet is not an issue.
              MR. HILL:  Okay.  Okay, with that being said, would it be more preferable to not have shall or will or mention with exceptions or whatever, because that's the path that we would follow if we had to change our procedure?
              MR. ROBINSON:  Right.  So the, I believe that the draft directive attempts to provide some clarification there and it, it's essentially saying that inspections should be unannounced, or shall be unannounced rather.
              
              However, under certain circumstances you can provide some minimal notice.  At least that was the thought process.
              And it's been about three months since we've actually looked at the directive.  But as we were writing it, that was the process that we wanted to put into place.  And if it doesn't say that, then that's something where we would need to provide some additional clarification.
              So Page 21.  Okay, so Page 21, 7.9(b), certification body personnel shall conduct factory surveillance at manufacturing facilities without advance warning or notice to the manufacturer except in situations where there is limited seasonal production or when production has not been available for factory surveillance for a period exceeding 12 months.
              
              So if it's a seasonal production or production that is just very hit or miss, go ahead and arrange it.  Or if you have been to the factory multiple times over a course of 12 months and you haven't seen a product, go ahead and arrange it.
              And how each NRTL, again just based on the informal discussions we've had with them, many of them will do a, you know, a very casual phone call or a email or whatever, hey, we're thinking, you know, we've got our inspection coming up over the next two months, are you guys planning any major shutdowns or time off or are there dates that would not work for you?
              You're not announcing when you're going to be there but you're trying narrow down the specific dates on when it would not be advantageous to not show up.  So in that situation that type of a conversation, that type of an arrangement with a manufacturer would be perfectly acceptable.
              
              What we don't want to happen is, and what we were trying to stop with this language was, hey Mr. Manufacturer, we need to come out and do our factory inspection, how's 8 o'clock next Monday.  And giving them two, three, four week's notice.  Or, you know, how's January 15th?
              That type of advanced notice is something that we felt was, you know, could lead to some cleaning of the house that we were trying to prevent or trying to stop, so.
              MR. HILL:  With that being said, it still appears to us, at FM approvals, that the word, shall, is still too strong.  Because I think of that as test standards codes shall, no if ands or buts.
              But at the same time you mentioned about having them, the availability to clean house and everything, we don't see that.  I mean if places have systemic problems or whatever, they're not going to rid of it in a week's time or a couple of weeks.  We see there are ISO 9000 audits and our surveillance audits.
              
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.  Dave, not unless there was another one, okay, sorry.  You're next.
              MS. WALLSTROM:  Stina Wallstrom, Orgalime.  We have really enjoyed this discussion and it's a very good approach from OSHA's side to be so open and available so thank you for that.
              And I've heard plenty of times during this discussions that the NRTLs they want to be consulted before this new regime goes out for another round of tests.  And perhaps that's a good idea because there seems to be that they have a very good input.
              What I want to make sure is that if you invite NRTLs, please make sure that the industries are represented as well around the table.  Because NRTLs, they are very good at what they're doing but they have invested interests and somebody has to be in the room telling you what effect the decisions you make have on the industry.
              
              So we hope that we can continue this open process and that the industry can still be a part of it in the future.  Thank you.
              MR. ROBINSON:  All right, thank you.
              MR. LOEBACH:  Dave Loebach, I had a comment on unannounced surveillance audits.  Some of that is going to change industry by industry and maybe niche product by niche product.
              And the thing that came to my mind was a company might be manufacturing five super widgets.  That's all they're going to make.  They're going to make them in one batch.
              There's not too much, not too many options other than --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Absolutely.
              MR. LOEBACH:  -- arranging it.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes.
              
              MR. LOEBACH:  But it goes on and on.  I give this one example.  So I think you need to have a lot more opening in it than what you have.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Okay.
              MR. MOWRY:  I don't know, I'm looking down here, I thought we had something so.
              MR. NATHAN:  I just want to reiterate the fact that your certification body document, definitely look into the 17020:2012 version.  Because for instance, in 6.1 Section A, Subsection 4, where you talk about certification body needs to have personnel trained to conduct factory surveillance, and then further down in other sections you talk about personnel.
              17020 certainly addresses those.  In fact it has certain specific requirements of monitoring of those personnel and so forth and so forth.  So it gives you that flavor.
              
              Some reference to 17020 would be good because, again, that goes back to Keith's point to consider that in some fashion.  And there are some specific requirements which will be helpful to strengthen the certification program.
              MR. GRABEL:  I guess I just want to point out that the ISO documents themselves will reference these.  These --
              MR. ROBINSON:  yes.
              MR. GRABEL:  Yes, so these are meant to bolster or sit on top of the ISO documents.  So from that standpoint perhaps your needs are addressed, I don't know.
              MR. ROBINSON:  And that's I think, you know, we debated whether or not we wanted to release this directive now because there's major portions of it that aren't ready yet for public viewing.  But the decision was made, let's put out what we've got understanding that there might be some confusion.
              And I think that some of those, the comments we're hearing, will hopefully, hopefully be addressed by the portion of the directive that we have not yet released.  So.
              
              Any other questions or comments?  Way up in the corner.  Welcome to the NRTL program, Terrance, it doesn't get any better than this.
              MR. MARQUEDANT:  Kevin, Jim Marquedant from FM.  Just a quick question on the second statement on the top of Page 19, related to the IECEx scheme.
              Can you describe what you expect of the NRTLs when you talk about retaining control and responsibility for the scheme itself?
              MR. ROBINSON:  Hold on.  So it gets into how we were, how we were, you know, historically the NRTL program consisted of the testing and the certification body under, you know, when you look at 25 and 65, they become very different entities.
              So really what we're saying here is that an organization that is accepting data under the CB scheme, it's presumed that that would be handled under the certification body.  Yes, I don't know.
              
              MR. MARQUEDANT:  And is there some similar --
              MR. ROBINSON:  Look at this requirement, okay.
              MR. MARQUEDANT:  Is there some similar language around NRTLs accepting NRTL data?  So non-IECEx related?  I didn't see anything in there that was complementary that way.
              MR. ROBINSON:  Yes, and I think, yes, so I'm just backing things up here, so the same text also exists under --
              MR. MARQUEDANT:  CB.
              MR. ROBINSON:  -- under CB scheme --
              MR. MARQUEDANT:  Right.
              MR. ROBINSON:  -- which is, I think, a carry-over from what's in the current directive.
              
              Good point, I'll have to look into that.  And as well we'll take a look at that and see if that is, exists there under accepting data from other NRTLs.
              MR. MARQUEDANT:  Okay, thanks.
              MR. ROBINSON:  So I don't have an answer right now.  How's that for an answer?  Any other questions or comments?
              Okay, so I just want to say thank you to everyone.  As I mentioned this morning, we are going to continue to develop sort of the administrative, what we're calling the administrative sections of the directive, pull all that together along with some of the comments that we've taken here, take those into account, review those and take the appropriate steps.
              The complete directive will also be published in a Federal Register notice for public notice and comment.
              
              If anyone has any comments that they would like to share with us now, informally or, you know, in writing after the fact, we certainly are open to receiving those.  That will help us to identify things that you may find confusing, things that you may find as being contradictory, either within in our document or contradictory with the ISO standards.
              From a timing perspective, probably beginning in November we're going to start internally working on these documents.  If you can, if you are interested in providing comments to this informal, to this informal draft, if you could provide them by the end of November as a target that would be greatly appreciated.
              Again, you will still have an opportunity to provide comments under the formal notice and comment period, but we'll probably be looking at revising this document throughout December, January and the first part of 2015 preparing it for the Federal Register.
              
              So we certainly welcome any comments that you may have, criticisms and requests for clarification and questions.  With that, unless anyone has anything else, I just want to thank everyone for their time and I'll see you the next time.  Thank you.
              (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 4:08 p.m.)