A Call to Support a New Public-Private Partnership In U.S. Standards Development

"Why consequential? To begin with, one could count on one hand the occasions upon which the federal government has undertaken an assessment of the efficacy of the ill-defined public-private partnership that constitutes the U.S. standards development infrastructure. And yet, since the passage of the Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995, the government has by law put almost all of its standards-related eggs in that single basket.

"It is also consequential because the decision to issue the RFI reflects the recognition by policy makers that our existing standards development process, both on the public as well as the private side, was never designed to address challenges that involve multiple industry sectors. Indeed, the United States Standards Strategy, developed by representatives of government, industry, standards developing organizations, consortia, consumer groups, and academia, stresses that the development of standards can best be addressed through a "sectoral approach," and calls upon "Stakeholders in the U.S. standards system[to] seek … to reinforce the sectoral approach to standards development in regional and international forums and highlight the benefits of this approach."

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