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).
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.Information on TNI's Stationary Source Audit Sample Program
Date Posted: 9-22-2010
On August 26, 2010, the EPA issued a final rule to restructure the EPA's Stationary Source Compliance Audit Program. The final rule was published in the Federal Register on September 13, 2010, and will take effect on October 13, 2010.
TNI has adopted standards to operate as a Voluntary Consensus Standards Body as defined in the final rule, and is currently awaiting EPA's review and approval of those standards. At this time, TNI has not been given an estimate regarding how long the EPA review will take. TNI is also conducting its own review to ensure that the standards comply with any changes in the rule that may have occurred between draft and final form.
Once TNI's SSAS Program has been approved by EPA, TNI will make information available on the TNI website (www.nelac-institute.org) regarding accredited Audit Sample Providers. Additionally, per the final rule, information re. accredited Providers and the available audit samples will be posted on the EPA website. As stated on the EPA website (as of 09-20-2010), "currently there are no accredited audit sample providers, and therefore no audit samples are available. If samples are not available, then audit sample analysis is not required for the EPA methods used for compliance testing." The EPA will update their website as accredited providers and samples become available. Visit www.epa.gov/ttn/emc/email.html#audit for more information.
For questions, please e-mail Maria Friedman, chair of the TNI SSAS Expert Committee, at [email protected] or call 714-656-4311.