Protecting and Enhancing Public Access to Codes Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Pro Codes Act, which I am proud to lead alongside Representative Issa.

The Pro Codes Act is a commonsense solution that balances providing free, public access to codes and standards that have been incorporated into law with ensuring that important code development work can continue.

The industry codes and standards that keep us healthy and safe every day are created by standards development organizations, SDOs, which regularly convene experts to write and modify standards to ensure electrical codes, building codes, crisis management codes, and more are up to date.

Importantly, the standards the SDOs put out are approved by consensus and adopted by industries voluntarily. However, Congress and Federal agencies have recognized repeatedly that government should rely on these standards whenever possible, which has led to their incorporation into law.

I firmly believe that codes that have been incorporated into law should be available to the public at no cost, and this bill recognizes that. It is why it requires these codes to be available online. That said, code development costs money, and SDOs cannot operate without funding, and they earn that funding by maintaining copyrights to their codes, which allows them to sell print copies and access to their work. These sales fund code development at no cost to the taxpayer. Ultimately, this bill strikes a critical balance between having good, safe codes and having public access.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

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