Letters

With regard to your In The News article "Mixed Reception for NFPA 5000," (CSE 08/02 p. 15), the concerns expressed by BOMA and AIA about NFPA's new building code—that the development process was not inclusive enough—are precisely the reasons that the electrical industry strongly opposes the International Code Council building codes and the ICC Electrical Code, in particular.

Uniformity of regulatory codes is only meaningful when there is consensus about their content. There can be no such consensus with regard to the ICC Electrical Code because electrical interests are excluded from voting on it. There are no electrical engineers, contractors, inspectors, test labs, utilities or electricians on the the ICC committee that writes their wiring rules. This should be a matter of extreme concern to all electrical consulting engineers, as it is to NECA contractors.

The ICC is a non-electrical organization attempting to write wiring rules that compete with the accepted safety standard for the last century—the NEC. We cannot allow this to happen.

John M. Grau, CE0, National Electrical Contractors Assn. Bethesda, Md.

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"Letters to the Editor"
c/o Jim Crockett
Consulting-Specifying Engineer
2000 Clearwater Drive
Oak Brook, IL 60523
Or email: jcrockett@reedbusiness.com