We then seem to come along and appoint a consumer advocate whose job is apparently to monitor the Commission. Is that true? Mr. WILLIS. I believe that is the proposal and it would represent duplication of effort. We agree with the previous witness that public bodies and the industry themselves probably represent a better overview type of organization than just one more layer of Government which would be represented by the consumer advocate in addition to another Government organization which has the responsibility. We think in essence this represents a duplication and that the consumer advocacy function is done much better by public consumer groups unrelated to Government. Senator Cook. Thank you very much. Senator SPONG. Thank you very much, Mr. Willis. We have appre ciated your testimony. (The appendixes to the statement follow :) AMERICAN GAS ASSOCIATION, ARLINGTON, VA., AND AMERICAN GAS ASSOCIATION LABORATORIES, INDEPENDENCE, OHIO APPENDIX A THE BLUE STAR CERTIFICATION PROGRAM Since 1925, a star has steered consumers to safer, more dependable gas appliances. It's the Blue Star of the American Gas Association's certification program. In the pioneering Blue Star certification program, prototypes of gas appliance and accessory models are tested for compliance with national safety standards. If the prototype is certified as complying with these standards, its manufacturer is authorized to display the Blue Star Certification Seal on production models. The seal is a five-point blue star on a white background with the inscription: "Certified-Design Complies With National Safety Standards—American Gas Association, Inc." Inspection of production models of certified appliances is made periodically to make sure of continuing compliance. The Blue Star program, initiated by the gas industry to promote appliance safety, was launched on a modest scale in two rooms in Cleveland, Ohio. The American Gas Association Laboratories quickly earned recognition for its preeminent voluntary effort in the best interests of consumers. From the beginning, the certification program was warmly received by gas customers, utilities and appliance manufacturers. Within three years after the A.G.A. Laboratories opened, testing services had been extended to the Canadian Gas Association, and a two-story facility was built in Cleveland to accommodate the increasing demand for gas appliance testing. By 1931, a branch of the Laboratories had been opened in Los Angeles to serve West Coast manufacturers, and in 1969 the Laboratories moved to spacious well-equipped new quarters in Independence, Ohio, near Cleveland. The new home of the A.G.A. Laboratories is as modern as the appliances it tests and certifies. The handsome building on wooded acreage of a new industrial park is served by an automated gas total energy system which provides all the testing center's heating, cooling, lighting and power needs. ALL ARE WELCOME The A.G.A. certification program is strictly voluntary. A gas appliance is not required to have a Blue Star Certification Seal to be on the market. However, many communities require that all appliances installed must comply with exist. ing national standards. Most manufacturers of gas equipment seek the Seal for the same reason the gas industry launched the appliance testing program back in 1925-to inform the customer. In an average year more than 2,000 basic appliance and accessory models are submitted to the Laboratories for testing. SETTING STANDARDS Standards for gas appliance safety are set by a national committee operating under the rules and procedures of the United States of America Standard Institute. USASI is an organization which supervises the development of national standards in many fields. (In the Fall of 1969 consideration was being given to changing the name to American National Standards Institute, Inc.) Gas appliance safety standards are developed painstakingly with the cooperation of consumer-oriented groups, governmental agencies, engineering societies, product manufacturers, gas utilities and others. Participants include, for example, U.S. Public Health Service, National Fire Protection Association, Federal Housing Administration and American Home Economics Association. Once a safety standard has been developed by a committee made up of members of the various groups it must be approved by USASI before it becomes effective. In granting this approval, USASI must be satisfied that a consensus of all the national groups concerned has accepted the new standard. KEEPING UP TO DATE Blue Star safety standards are changed frequently. To keep the program up to date, the Seal is granted for each appliance design only for one year at a time. Each year for five years it can be renewed for that design by factory inspection. At the end of five years, the appliance must be retested at the Laboratories under updated standards if its design is to continue to be certified. Revised standards are issued for the major product lines on an average of every two years. That means an appliance almost always has to have design improvements before it can meet the new safety standards when it goes back to the Laboratories for its five-year retesting. Standards are continuously being upgraded because the gas industry is constantly developing new manufacturing techniques and new features such as selfcleaning ovens. Changing consumer demands affect the standards, too. WINNING THE BLUE STAR When a manufacturer has developed a new gas appliance, accessory or component, or has changed a model that already has qualified for the Blue Star, he submits a prototype, or sample, to the A.G.A. Laboratories for testing. If the prototype passes every one of the many safety tests specified by the standard, and is representative of a production model, it is awarded the Blue Star Certification Seal. The Seal then can be attached to all models that are structurally the same as the certified sample. To win its Blue Star, a gas appliance or accessory goes through a long series of rigid tests. They range from simple inspection to "torture" by machines that subject appliances to high winds, heavy weights, and exhausting wear. Test engineers accumulate detailed test data, including a descriptive record, of each design submitted. Major safety tests include a careful analysis of flue gases, fire hazard, durability of components and general construction. There are standards-and tests for all kinds of domestic gas appliances, including ranges, clothes dryers, water heaters, incinerators, furnaces, air conditioners, outdoor grills, gaslights, infrared and other types of heaters. Appliances are tested with the various types of gas found throughout the United States and Canada-natural, manufactured, mixed, liquefied petroleum, and liquid natural gases. Accessory devices, such as gas valves, regulators and other controls are tested under their own standards prior to being reexamined as part of an appliance. On a gas range, for example, valves are tested on a machine that cycles them on and off as many times as a homemaker would turn them in ten years. A giant wind machine tests the stability of pilot lights, and an indoor rainstorm falls for hours on outdoor equipment such as air conditioners and furnace flues to test their weather resistance. Even informative labels and rating plates are checked for accuracy of informa tion as well as for legibility and adhesion. As technology and practice progress, new tests and testing equipment are developed in response to new standards. Innovations which require such new standards include rooftop furnaces for commercial heating, outdoor incinerators, and complex circuitry involving electrical components and controls. NO EXCEPTIONS If an appliance fails even one test specified by the national standard, the Blue Star is withheld. Sometimes adjustments can be made on the prototype at the Laboratories so that it can qualify. Often, however, the equipment must go back to the manufacturer for redesign and further development. KEEPING THE BLUE STAR The Laboratories has an extensive inspection program. Unannounced checks of certified appliance models are made by A.G.A. engineers. Usually they are made on factory production lines or in warehouses, sometimes in salesrooms and occasionally in homes. If a test engineer discovers that the production version is not built exactly like the prototype that met all the Blue Star requirements, certification may be withdrawn and the manufacturer compelled to remove the Seal unless the defect is corrected. A.G.A. inspection engineers travel 200,000 miles a year to make more than 4,200 factory inspections, some at the request of manufacturers and some unscheduled. LOOK FOR THE BLUE STAR Every piece of equipment whose design has met stringent standards and has been certified by the Laboratories bears the Blue Star on the appliance rating plate, together with the model number and manufacturer's identification. In addition, each piece of equipment certified by the Laboratories is listed in a directory published twice a year and updated monthly. NO QUESTION OF COST The Blue Star is not an indication of the cost of an appliance: it certifies only that the design of an appliance on which it is affixed meets or surpasses national safety standards. Thus, families can buy low-cost appliances that have met the same safety standards as higher-priced models. NATIONAL SYMBOL OF SAFETY The Blue Star Certification Seal is the symbol of the only widely recognized national testing program for gas appliances. The program is as contemporary as it is venerable. It has often been commended for its role in the continuing improvement of gas equipment. The Blue Star is the guiding star for more than 40 million American families who use gas appliances. APPENDIX B AMERICAN NATIONAL STANDARDS COMMITTEE ON PERFORMANCE AND INSTALLATION OF GAS-BURNING APPLIANCES AND RELATED ACCESSORIES, Z21 (AS OF JULY 1, 1971) Scope: Establishment of minimum or basic standards for installation, performance, safe operation and substantial and durable construction for gas-burning appliances and low pressure (not in excess of 2 pound per square inch or 14 inches water column) gas piping extending from the outlet of the meter set assembly or the outlet of the service regulator when a meter is not provided, to the inlet connection of appliances, together with such laboratory methods of test as are necessary for determining compliance therewith. This committee exercises general supervision of the preparation and revision of such standards for gas appliances and their accessories by direction of activities of 23 subcommittees, this covering initiation of assignments, supervision of operations and final disposition of all standards developed. Chairman, E. O. Mattocks; Vice Chairman, Joseph Grumer; Administrative Secretary, R. E. Cramer (Non-Member).1 Mailing address: 8501 East Pleasant Valley Rd., Cleveland, Ohio. 1969 E. O. Mattocks, M.E., P. E., consultant 523 Rutile Dr. Post Office Box 403, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.. 1969 D. M. Amundson, vice president, 1969 Richard E. DuVall, vice president, 1962 Chas. B. Gamble, Jr., executive vice president. 1971-Claire S. Coleman, vice president, operations. 1970 David F. Hansen, vice president, sales. 1967 Carrington Mason, vice president and general manager, distribution division. Indiana Gas Co., Inc., 1630 North Meridian St., Indianapolis, Boston Gas Co., 2900 Prudential Tower, Boston, Mass...... The Peoples Natural Gas Co., 2 Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. Alabama Gas Corp., 1918 1st Ave. North, Birmingham, Ala.. Mountain Fuel Supply Co., Post Office Box 11368, Salt Lake Minneapolis Gas Co., 739 Marquette Ave., Minneapolis, Houston Natural Gas Corp., Post Office Box 1188, Houston, 1969-Lester R. Pickup, general mana- Southern California Gas Co., Post Office Box 3249, Terminal Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., Gas and Electric Building, engineering. Representing American Home Economics Association: 1969 (Miss) Margaret Schierberl, McCall's, 230 Park Ave., New York, N.Y. Representing American Insurance Association: American Insurance Association, Engineering and Safety American Petroleum Institute, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, Representing American Public Gas Association: 1968-Ralph D. Sparkman, assistant superintendent, gas operations department. Representing Association of Home Appliance 1968-Herbert Phillips, technical director. 1968-John Weizeorick (alternate) assistant technical director. Representing The Canadian Gas Association: 1965-John A. Spence, manager, approvals and codes. Representing Factor Mutual System: 1949-Louis H. Flanders, Jr., chief heating engineer. Representing Federal Housing Administration (liaison representative, with vote): Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division Post Office Box 388, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, 20 North Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, 20 North The Consumers' Gas Co., 400 Coventry Rd., Ottawa 7, Factory Mutual Research Corp., 1151 Boston-Providence 1970 Nat L. Eure, Department of Federal Housing Administration, Washington, D.C. 1964 A. M. Castello, vice president, engineering. 1968-Robert H. Chaffee, executive vice 1963 Keith T. Davis, director, modular 1961 Edward A. Norman, consultant.. 1970-H. E. Brehm, director, corporate product safety. 1971 William V. McDonnell, vice president. 1957 S. F. Skafte, director of engineering. 1971-Harold Moss, vice president.. Representing Department of Health, Education, 1970 Floyd B. Oglesbay, chief, injury control branch. 1971-Lewis G. Polk (alternate), chief, traffic safety injury control branch. Space Conditioning Division Dunham Bush, Inc., Post Expiration date June 30, 1973 June 30, 1971 Do June 30, 1973 June 30, 1971 June 30, 1972 June 30, 1974 June 30, 1974 Watts Regulator Co., Post Office box 628, Lawrence, Mass... June 30, 1972 Bryant Air Conditioning Co., 7310 West Morris St., Indiana- Do. Rheem Manufacturing Co., 7600 S. Kedzie, Chicago, Ill. June 30, 1974 Representing Incinerator Institute of America: Representing International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials: International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Representing Mechanical Contractors Association of America, Inc.: 1952-Anthony E. Lavelle.... 1952-K. A. Leitgabel (alternate).. Representing National Electrical Manufacturers Association: 1964-Rawlings Brewer, assistant to vice president of engineering. 1965. H. Thornbery (alternate). Representing National Environmental Systems Contractors Association: 1969 Sterling E. Apgar, Jr... Representing National Fire Protection Association: 1962-W. L. Walls, gases field service. Representing National LP-Gas Association: 1959 Walter H. Johnson, vice president, technological services. Representing Southern Building Code Congress: Gorman-Lavelle Plumbing Company, 3459 East 52d Place, A. F. Leitgabel & Sons, 4435 W. Lisbon Ave., Milwaukee, Emerson Motor Division, Emerson Electric Co., 8100 Tri-Boro Corp., Post Office box 125, Bound Brook, N.J. National Fire Protection Association, 60 Batterymarch St., National LP-Gas Association, 79 West Monroe St., Chicago, 1970-Willard L. Amann, operating Houston Natural Gas Corp., Post Office box 1188, Houston, manager, central plants. Representing Underwriters' Laboratories, Inc.: Tex. 1962 W. J. Smith, associate managing Underwriters' Laboratories, Inc., Post Office box 247, Representing U.S. Department of the Army 1955 Joseph Grumer, acting project General Equipment and Packaging Laboratory, U.S. Army U.S. Department of the Interior, 4800 Forbes Ave., Expiration date Senator SPONG. These hearings will recess until 10 a.m., Monday morning. (Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the hearing was adjourned, to reconvene at 10:00 a.m., Monday, July 26, 1971.) |