Trade News Release
January 19, 2001
Contact: Lydia Kleiner
PHONE: (202) 693-1999
OSHA AND AMERICAN NATIONAL STANDARDS
INSTITUTE AGREE TO EXPAND INTERNATIONAL ROLES
In an agreement signed today, the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) and the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI) pledged to continue their joint
efforts to improve safety and health standards for workers
around the world.
"OSHA welcomes the opportunity to work together with
ANSI to strengthen the standards that workers worldwide
depend upon for protection of their health and well being, "
said OSHA Administrator Charles N. Jeffress.
The agreement was signed today by Jeffress and Mark Hurwitz,
president and CEO, American National Standards Institute.
ANSI promotes the use of U.S. standards internationally,
advocates U.S. policy and technical positions in international
and regional standards organizations, and encourages the
adoption of international standards as national standards
where these meet the needs of the user community. OSHA
and ANSI have worked together under mutual
agreements since 1976.
This cooperative agreement brings the technical resources
and support of the two organizations together to promote
safety and health standards based on openness, balanced
interests, due process and consensus. It focuses on
coordinating voluntary national consensus standards in the
U.S. as well as supporting ANSI in its role in the international
arena. ANSI will provide OSHA with proposed draft
international safety and health standards from these
organizations and OSHA will provide ANSI with comments
on the proposed international standards. ANSI will then
provide these comments to the Technical Advisory Group
developing the U.S. position on these standards.
ANSI and OSHA agree to work with the National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the National
Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1996 and
with the Secretary of Commerce under the Trade Agreements
Act of 1979 to coordinate Federal activities in voluntary
standards and to ensure adequate representation of U.S.
interests in all relevant international standards organizations.
The MOU signed today will be available on OSHA's
website www.osha.gov under "What's New" or through
the subject index under Memorandums of Understanding.
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This news release text is on the Internet World Wide Web at http://www.osha.gov. Information on this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: (202) 693-1999.
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