§7301 National Construction Safety Teams

Summary

The NIST Director can create National Construction Safety Teams to investigate building failures that cause a large loss of life or that could have caused a large loss of life. When possible, the Director must set up and send a Team within 48 hours after such an event. The Director must quickly publish a notice in the Federal Register whenever a Team is formed. The Teams work to make buildings safer and stronger. They must find the likely technical cause or causes of the failure, look at evacuation and emergency response, and recommend changes to building codes, practices, and needed research. The Director had to, not later than 3 months after October 1, 2002, make procedures with the U.S. Fire Administration and others and update them as needed. Those procedures must cover conflicts of interest, when to send a Team, team size, rules about sharing information and giving written inspection notice, extra resources Teams may need, not interfering with search-and-rescue, public briefings, preserving evidence, coordination with federal, state, and local research (including the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977 (42 U.S.C. 7701 et seq.)), and other appropriate issues. The Director must publish those final procedures and any updates in the Federal Register.