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.Stationary Source Audit Sample Program (SSASP)
Stationary source testing is a field of environmental monitoring that measures the emissions of air pollutants from stationary sources, such as factories and power plants. To gauge the accuracy and effectiveness of this testing, the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) administered a Stationary Source Audit Program (SSAP) that provided free audit samples to state and local agencies. Due to the increasing need for such samples, and the emergence of a number of private providers for these samples, EPA decided it was inappropriate for it to compete with private entities. Therefore, in December 2007, the OAR and The NELAC Institute (TNI) initiated discussions to establish what role TNI might have in transitioning the SSAP administration to the private sector.
In August 2008, TNI formed the Stationary Source Audit Sample Expert Committee to develop consensus standards to establish the specifications for a new privatized SSAP. The standards provide for the continuation of the SSAP by addressing the roles and responsibilities of program participants, the manufacture of audit samples, the oversight of audit sample providers, the management of audit sample results, and the establishment of acceptance criteria. Three standards (i.e., for Providers, Provider Accreditors, and Participants) have been adopted by this program.
TNI Suspends Stationary Source Audit Sample Program
July 25, 2022
On July 25, the SSAS Expert Committee Chair, Program Administrator and TNI Executive Director met with several individual with the EPA Office of Air. ERA had announced that they will cease to provide to Stationary Source Audit Samples effective March 31st, 2022 and will cease reporting returned results from Audit Samples on December 31st, 2022.
With ERA no longer manufacturing or selling Audit Samples, the Audit Sample Program no longer has any Accredited Audit Sample Providers.
In this July meeting, EPA indicated no willingness to change any aspect of the program and thus, at this time, the SSAS Committee's operations have been suspended and the Committee would cease functioning as the Program's Voluntary Consensus Standards Body as of December 31st, 2022. This course of action would result in the SSAS Program having no Providers and no Consensus Body.
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