What difference does American National Standard approval make?
You can count on an American National Standard to be a consensus standard. This does not mean that other standards are not consensus standards, but you have to be the judge. First, you have to look at the composition of the voting body. Does it reflect a diversity of interests, or are the members all employees of one company or members of only one affected interest group? Are the members of the voting body from all over the regions of the world where the standard is claimed to be useful, or only from one nation, state, or region? Next, you have to look at the procedures. Do they allow comment and criticism from all affected parties, or only a select group; and is there an appeals process? Today most standards organizations put procedures and other basic reference documents on their website. You can find ESTA’s procedures on the Technical Standards Program part of the ESTA website www.esta.org/tsp/. You will find the ICC’s procedures and FAQs about them on its website www.iccsafe.org/cs
