Adoption, Reference and Use of Standards in the United States
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Jul 26, 2016
Adoption: An agency may adopt a voluntary standard without change by incorporating the standard in an agency's regulation or by listing (or referencing) the standard by title. For example, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration adopted the National Electrical Code by incorporating it into its regulations by reference.
Strong Deference: An agency may grant strong deference to standards developed by a particular organization for a specific purpose. The agency will then use the standards in its regulatory program unless someone demonstrates to the agency why it should not.
Basis for Rulemaking: This is the most common use of externally developed standards. The agency reviews a standard, makes appropriate changes and then publishes the revision in the Federal Register as a proposed regulation. Comments received from the public during the rulemaking proceeding may result in changes to the proposed rule before it is instituted.
Regulatory Guides: An agency may permit adherence to a specific standard as an acceptable, though not compulsory, way of complying with a regulation.
Guidelines: An agency may use standards as guidelines for complying with general requirements. The guidelines are advisory only: even if a firm complies with the applicable standards, the agency may conceivably still find that the general regulation has been violated.
Deference in Lieu of Developing a Mandatory Standard: An agency may decide that it does not need to issue a mandatory regulation because voluntary compliance with either an existing standard or one developed for the purpose will suffice for meeting the needs of the agency.
