[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 75 (Friday, April 18, 1997)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 19041-19042]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-10208]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Institute of Standards and Technology
15 CFR Part 280
[Doc. No. 960726209-7088-02]
RIN 0693-AA90
Implementation of the Fastener Quality Act
AGENCY: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),
Commerce.
ACTION: Extension of implementation date.
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SUMMARY: The Director of NIST, under authority delegated by the
Secretary of Commerce, and pursuant to Section 15 of the Fastener
Quality Act (Act), (Pub. L. 101-592 as amended by Pub. L. 104-113), has
determined that by May 27, 1997, the current implementation date of the
Act, there will not be a sufficient number of laboratories accredited
to conduct the level of required testing. Accordingly, the Director is
extending the implementation date of the Act by one year, to May 26,
1998. NIST will amend 15 CFR 280.12 to reflect this new implementation
date in a future document. By May 26, 1998, NIST believes it will have
completed the approval/accreditation of a sufficient number of
accreditation bodies/laboratories to implement the Act. The total
number of laboratories to accredit by the new date of implementation is
estimated to be four hundred twenty-five. To accomplish the task of
getting these laboratories accredited prior to May 26, 1998, NIST
requests all accreditation bodies seeking approval under the NIST
Accreditation Body Evaluation Program (ABEP), all laboratories seeking
accreditation under the NIST National Voluntary Laboratory
Accreditation Program (NVLAP), and all laboratories seeking
accreditation from accreditation bodies approved or pending approval by
ABEP submit their completed applications to the respective programs by
August 1, 1997, in order to be given full and fair consideration for
approval/accreditation by the new implementation date.
DATES: The date of implementation of the Act is May 26, 1998.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Subhas G. Malghan, NIST, Building 820, Room 306, Gaithersburg, MD
20899; Tel. No. 301-975-6101; Telefax 301-975-2183; E-mail
malghan@nist.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Fastener Quality Act (Act), (Pub. L.
101-592 as amended by Pub. L. 104-113), requires that certain fasteners
sold in commerce conform to the standards and specifications to which
they are represented to be manufactured and have been inspected,
tested, and certified. Inspection and testing mean that the
manufacturer of a lot of fasteners shall cause to be inspected and
tested a representative sample of the fasteners in such a lot to
determine whether the lot of fasteners conform to the standards and
specifications to which the manufacturer represents it has been
manufactured. Such inspection and testing shall be performed by a
laboratory accredited in accordance with the procedures and conditions
specified by the Secretary under Section 6 of the Act.
In accordance with Section 15, the requirements of the Act shall be
applicable only to fasteners fabricated one hundred eighty days or more
after the effective date of final regulations implementing the Act
(November 25, 1996). The Secretary may delay the implementation date
upon a determination that an insufficient number of laboratories have
been accredited to perform the volume of inspection and testing
required.
In 1991 NIST requested the Fastener Advisory Committee to address
the issue of determining how many laboratories are needed to be
accredited to implement the Act without adversely affecting commerce. A
task force of members studied the issue and prepared a report to the
full Committee which was accepted by the Committee and by NIST. The
report concluded that between three hundred twenty-eight and four
hundred fifty-seven accredited laboratories would be required to
implement the Act.
Both NVLAP and ABEP began their review of applications for
accreditation on November 25, 1996, the effective date of the
regulations. There has not been a great volume of applications to date.
NIST believes there are several reasons for the initial slow response:
(1) Laboratories wanted to wait and see which laboratory
accreditation bodies would receive approval under ABEP before
determining whether to apply to NYLAP for accreditation or to another
accreditation body. The cost of becoming accredited and the fact that
some laboratories already have been accredited by a body applying to
ABEP for approval were factors in their decision process.
(2) With the amendment to the Act that allows raw material
suppliers to certify the chemistry of the metal used to manufacture
fasteners, fastener manufacturers are now urging their metal suppliers
to become accredited even though the Act and regulations do not require
the raw material suppliers to do so. The reason is that a large number
of fastener manufacturers rely on a ladle analysis of the metal and
this can only be obtained while the metal is being manufactured at the
mill. The metal suppliers have been slow in applying for accreditation
because their customers, the fastener manufacturers, did not initially
request them to do so.
At present forty-two laboratories have applied to NVLAP to be
accredited and four laboratory accreditation bodies have applied to
ABEP to be approved. NVLAP expects to complete accreditation of the
forty-two by September 1997. Approximately another fifteen laboratories
have indicated they will apply to NVLAP, and these applications will be
processed by January 1998. ABEP intends to complete approval of the
four laboratory accreditation bodies by September 1997. Once approved
these bodies will be working on accreditation of their populations of
laboratories. These four bodies, plus NVLAP, already have approximately
three hundred twenty-five laboratories that have either been accredited
for fastener testing or indicated that they will seek accreditation.
NIST estimates that the accreditation bodies will finish their work on
this population of three hundred twenty-five laboratories by April
1998. Based upon expressed interest to ABEP, three additional
accreditation bodies are expected to apply for approval soon and will
bring an additional seventy-five laboratories whose recognition and
accreditation will proceed simultaneously and be completed by May 26,
1998. In addition, the four accreditation bodies undergoing approval
process now are expected to add at least twenty-five more laboratories.
If these estimates are correct, the total number of accredited
laboratories by May 26, 1998, would be four hundred twenty-five. This
number is sufficient to implement the Act, based upon estimates
provided by the Fastener Advisory Committee and accepted by NIST.
The Act requires that NIST indicate steps being taken to ensure the
accreditation of a sufficient number of laboratories. Accordingly, the
following
[[Page 19042]]
steps have been taken or are in the process of being taken:
(1) NIST will continue to work with relevant industry associations
(foreign and domestic) to make them aware of the requirements of the
Act and the need for accreditation of laboratories; and
(2) NIST, by this announcement, is requesting a cutoff date of
August 1, 1997, for accreditation bodies and laboratories to send their
applications so that they can be given full and fair consideration for
approval/accreditation prior to May 26, 1998. Applications received
after August 1, 1997, will be considered only after completing work on
the pre-August 1, 1997, submitted applications.
Dated: April 15, 1997.
Elaine Bunten-Mines,
Director, Program Office, NIST.
[FR Doc. 97-10208 Filed 4-17-97; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-59-M
