develop consensus standards for use by TNI's programs. This group has a support role in assisting other programs with activities such as guidance and standards interpretation.
fosters the generation of data of known and documented quality is through the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program, or NELAP. The purpose of this program is to establish and implement a program for the accreditation of environmental laboratories.
is to establish and maintain a national PT program to support TNI’s National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program, and other activities.
Field Activities Program (NEFAP) Executive Committee is to establish and implement an accreditation program for field sampling and measurement organizations (FSMOs).
Audit Sample Program is to develop consensus standards for the manufacture and analysis of audit samples for source emission testing.
on a variety of topics of interest to the environmental measurement community. TNI also hosts two regularly scheduled meetings per year, typically in January and August. Both are a week long and involve open meetings of TNI committees as well as training courses and other special sessions.Notice of Proposed Expert Committee Formation and Standards Development
Date Posted: 10-31-2010
Published: 10-30-2010
TNI, under a cooperative agreement with EPA, is planning to develop measurement tools to improve the quality of method information, understanding, and flexibility. This effort will include measurement tools for the calculation of limits of detection, limits of quantitation, calibration curves, and other related values with the most common and diverse techniques. This will require the formation of a new Expert Committee in the Consensus Standards Development Program. This committee, the "Environmental Measurement Methods Expert Committee" will create consensus standards to support a strong technical approach to quantitation, detection and calibration.
Stakeholders likely to be directly impacted by this standard are environmental laboratories, government regulators including accreditation bodies, and users of environmental testing data.
Pursuant to Section 3.2 of the TNI Procedures Governing Standards Development (SOP 2-100):
If TNI receives written comments within thirty (30) days from the publication date of this announcement, and said comments assert that a proposed standard duplicates or conflicts with an existing consensus standard developed by another recognized organization, TNI will discuss the proposed effort with representatives from the relevant stakeholder groups before TNI will initiate any development work. The purpose of the deliberation is to provide the relevant stakeholders with an opportunity to discuss whether there is a compelling need for the proposed standards project. If another voluntary consensus standards body is in the process of developing or adopting a voluntary consensus standard that would likely be lawful and practical for TNI to use, and would likely be developed or adopted on a timely basis, TNI should not be developing its own unique standard and instead should be participating in the activities of the voluntary consensus standards body. The outcome of such a deliberation shall be conveyed in writing by the TNI Consensus Standards Development Board and commenter (ideally as a joint submission) to the TNI Board of Directors for final resolution.
Any written comments should be submitted within the 30-day time frame to [email protected].
Nominations for membership of the proposed expert committee are also welcome. The nomination form can be obtained from the TNI website: www.nelac-institute.org/committees.php.