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Use of Building Codes in Federal Agency Construction (1989) / Chapter Skim
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Federal Actions Related to the Question
Pages 19-22

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From page 19...
... The committee recommended that, wherever possible, federal agencies should purge their design criteria of provisions that needlessly duplicate provisions of the model codes and specify by reference the use of one of these codes. Executive Guidelines on Federal Participation in the Development and Use of Voluntary Standards The federal government, as a whole, has recognized that standards for describing required characteristics of many products or services used by the government may be adapted from or used as stated by private voluntary standards bodies.
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From page 20...
... Supreme Court opinion and international treaty responsibilities as bases for federal government agencies to encourage voluntary standards groups to give open consideration of all relevant viewpoints and interests, and to remain wary of the possible anticompetitive impact of broad adoption of standards set by private groups without adequate involvement of existing and potential industry participants and consumers. The Secretary of Commerce, given responsibility for reporting progress under Circular No.
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From page 21...
... The committee asserts that there is still a benefit to be gained by reducing the overlap of some agencies' criteria with the principal model codes, but that a laborious point-by-point comparison would be largely unproductive, because of both the large number of nationally recognized codes and the typically equal or higher requirements set in federal design criteria. However, the committee suggests as well that such a comparison may evolve with development of computerized building code and design criteria databases and that such evolutionary development is worthy of encouragement.
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From page 22...
... Many builders and local governments found the imposition of a second set of code-like requirements, on top of local codes, to be burdensome and possibly contributing to costs and management problems in many projects. Responding to these concerns, HUD adopted a policy that compliance with nationally recognized model codes or local codes that HUD staff deemed to be comparable would be considered acceptable for program eligibility, and substantially curtailed the scope of the MPS.
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  • local codes
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  • encourage voluntary
  • standards set
  • plan review
  • sound transmission

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  • construction design

  • propose voluntary
  • adequate involvement
  • followed closely
  • standards setting
  • standards influencing


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