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Society News

IAQ Discussion Board is Live

The spring 2008 membership ballot will include a series of five questions from the ASHRAE Board of Directors regarding Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) standards. An online discussion board is now available and you are encouraged to submit comments now!

The five IAQ ballot questions were first distributed to members at the plenary session of the ASHRAE January 2008 winter meeting in New York City. Here’s some background. Following submission of a petition by a sufficient number of members, the ASHRAE membership voted to approve a policy statement related to ASHRAE indoor air quality or ventilation standards. Since approval of that petition in June 1999, it has become apparent that the policy may not have resolved the underlying concerns that led to its approval, and in fact has resulted in conflict and confusion regarding its interpretation. As a consequence, the Board of Directors has determined that we need to ask the members of ASHRAE to clarify their intent with respect to a number of issues related to the petition and the development of ASHRAE standards.

These new questions being posed to the membership have been very carefully worded to avoid any conflict with well-established ANSI requirements that the consensus body developing a standard (referred to as the Project Committee within ASHRAE) is responsible for determining the content of that standard. It would in fact violate ANSI requirements for the Board of Directors, or the membership through a vote such as this, to dictate the contents of a standard to the Project Committee. Of course, the Board, the membership and the public at large have ample opportunity to impact the content of a standard through the public review process, but ultimately it is the Project Committee that must determine the content.

I encourage you to voice your opinion! A prominent link now appears on the ASHRAE web site home page (http://www.ashrae.org/) to the discussion board. You need to log-in to the ASHRAE web site to participate in the discussion board.

Make your feelings known! Post your comments and encourage your ASHRAE member colleagues to do the same.

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Four Times Square is the first green office tower in New York! Click here to read more.		One Bryant Park is still under construction, a 2.1 million square foot high rise. The Bank of America Tower is striving to achieve LEED Platinum.
		ASHRAE Society President, Kent Peterson, enjoyed the Harlem Jazz and Blues Band at the Members' Night Out event.