FPE Corner Continued from page 26
after the meeting. The results of the formal ballot are
published in a second document called the Report on Comments (ROC), which, like the ROP, is posted for pub- lic review. Step 4. Association (NFPA) techni-
cal meeting: After the required review time the document is brought up for
acceptance at the association technical meeting held at the NFPA Conference & Expo each June. Here the document revisions can be further debated. Anyone wishing to submit a motion must provide the NFPA standards council with a Notice of Intent to Make a Motion (NITMAM). Allowable motions include motions to accept pro-
posals and comments in whole or in part as submitted or as modified by a technical committee action. Motions are also available to reject an accepted comment in whole or part. Also, a motion can be made to return an entire technical committee report or a portion of the report to the technical committee for further study. You do not have to be a member to make a motion or speak in support or against a motion, but you do have to be an NFPA member for at least 180 days before the meeting in order to be allowed to vote. The votes on motions are approved or rejected based on a simple majority vote. Step 5. Standards Council issuance:
The court of last resort, after the Association technical meeting, the NFPA Standards Council meets to hear appeals to any action on a document during the process. Documents clear- ing this hurdle will be issued by the Standards Council and will become effective 20 days after the date of issuance. NFPA 13 is currently in Step 2 of the
process. The various committees have held their ROP meeting and are await- ing the formal ballot. A condensed ver- sion of the revision cycle schedule for NFPA 13 next edition is as follows: Notification of intent to enter the
revision cycle, 07/09/2010 ROP proposal closing date,
11/23/2010 ROP published and posted,
06/24/2011 Closing date for comments on the
ROP, 08/30/2011 ROC published and posted,
02/24/2012 NITMAM closing date, 04/06/2012 Association meeting, 06/15-16/2012 Issuance of documents by Standards
Council, 07/26/2012 Based on this schedule the next peri-
od for public input will occur on June 24, when the ROP is posted. Check out the ROP at NFPA’s website. Get involved and make a comment. Sometime in August, the 2013 edition of NFPA 13 will become effective, and it will be a document which you helped write. n
Circle 17 on Reader Reply Form on page 65 Page 28/Plumbing Engineer
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not reflect those of Plumbing Engineer nor its publisher, TMB Publishing.
March 2011
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