Opinion ID: 3029917
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Creation of GS-148 and Armor Shield’s Appeal to

Text: the ASTM’s Committee on Standards Sometime after the promulgation of ES-40, the G-01 (corrosion) committee assumed control over the development of a permanent standard. It also appears that ASTM’s E-50 (environmental assessment committee) was involved in the development of the standards.5 While Rogers did not serve on the G-01 committee, Sharp not only served on that committee but also opposed the drafting of a permanent standard based on ES-40. Notwithstanding Sharp’s objections, in October 1998, the G-01 Committee and ASTM’s entire membership voted to create a permanent standard that was designated G-158. Like ES-40, G-158 recognized MTCF as a viable, non-invasive method for evaluating whether a UST could be upgraded via cathodic protection. During the above process, ASTM neither restricted nor suspended Baach or Rogers from participating in the task group or the E-50 and G-01 committees, and similarly did not tell either Baach or Rogers that his activities were either unwelcome or improper. Acting on behalf of Armor Shield, Sharp immediately appealed the decision to create the G-158 standard to ASTM’s Committee on Standards (“COS”) arguing, among other things, that ASTM members with a commercial stake in the creation of G-158 were overrepresented on the G-01 committee and that the process used in the creation of the permanent standard was inconsistent with ASTM’s standard-setting procedures. Sharp further argued that the G-158 standard would have anticompetitive effects and violate antitrust laws. The COS denied 5 We are uncertain to what extent, if any, membership in the task group and the E-50 and G-01 committees differed. 8 Sharp’s appeal, finding that the composition of the G-01 committee did not violate ASTM’s condition of balance6 and that the committee had followed both ASTM’s procedural requirements as well as its criteria for due process. Sharp appealed from the COS’s decision to the Board, raising many of the same issues he had argued previously. The Board, after hearing from Philip Schworer, Sharp’s attorney, Victor Chaker, chairman of the G-01 committee, and James Bushman (“Bushman”), a member of the G-01 committee,7 affirmed the COS’s findings, concluding that G-158 had been developed properly. Thereafter, the G-158 standard was officially adopted and released for publication.