Participate in
ANS Process

• Comments related to the portions of the standard that are available for public comment are required to be considered by the sponsoring ASD.
• Comments submitted on portions of the document that are not under consideration are not required to be considered in the current review cycle.
• Comments on a draft are considered by the ASD in accordance with its procedures. Some ASD procedures require the consensus body to review public comments, while others engage a task group, the chair of the consensus body, or a staff person – there is no one "right" way to consider comments. Communicate directly with the ASD if you have questions about this process
• An effort to resolve all expressed objections accompanied by comments related to the proposal under consideration is required. ASDs approach this process in different ways including in writing, by phone, at meetings, or other ways.
• If an objection is not resolved, then the objector is given written notice of the disposition of the objection and the reasons for the disposition.
• If the objector does not accept the disposition and either wants to be on record as objecting to the action or wants to pursue an appeal, they must let the ASD know by the deadline established by the ASD.
• Any unresolved public comments must be shared with the ANS consensus body through another voting cycle to allow the consensus body members to consider the unresolved comments, attempted resolutions, and any related substantive changes, and decide whether they wish to approve the standard as an ANS in light of them. Written notification of the right to file a procedural appeal at the standards developer level is sent by the ASD to unresolved public review commenters at some point in the standards development process, most often near the conclusion of the process but always before evidence of consensus is sent to ANSI for consideration.

• If you have a concern, speak with the staff of the ASD. There may be more information that could clarify the issue – for example, you may misunderstand a written communication or procedure.
• Additional opportunities to contribute to the standard may exist – for example, you may be able to join a drafting group or attend a meeting or some other option to pursue your comments further.
• So before you consider taking a formal action, like filing an appeal, please make personal contact with the ASD staff; a list of contacts is posted on ANSI's website at ansi.org/asd.

All of this said, understand that if you do wish to file an appeal, you always start with an appeal to the ASD directly. The ASD's procedures, deadlines, and format requirements govern the appeals process at that level, so you need to obtain the ASD's appeal procedures. There may be a filing fee.

If the appeal to the ASD is not resolved to your satisfaction, only then do you have the right to file a procedural appeal with the ANSI Board of Standards Review (BSR), but that right to appeal is not available until after the BSR approves the standard as an ANS. (Also note that some ASDs approve ANS without BSR approval, and are called ANSI Audited Designators. The right to appeal ANS approved by these ASDs is different, so be sure to talk to the ASD staff for more information or contact [email protected].)

Evidence that an unresolved objector completed the appeals process at the ASD level is part of the record that is reviewed by the ANSI BSR. You can learn more about the appeal process to BSR – but keep in mind that:

• Notice of the right to appeal an ANSI BSR decision to approve a standard as an ANS is issued by ANSI after the ASD has submitted evidence of consensus to ANSI and after the ANSI BSR has voted that the evidence reflects procedural requirements with ANSI's rules.
• The ANSI BSR considers procedural appeals only, not technical-content-related appeals.