Distributors fight FQA; implementation nears
By Staff -- Industrial Distribution, 4/1/1999
FASTENER PROFESSIONALS ARE BACKING their opposition to the Fastener Quality Act with financial support as the June 24, 1999, implementation date draws nearer.Originally designed to deter the sale of nonconforming fasteners, FQA includes elements to enhance the traceability, accountability and responsibility from the fastener manufacturer's plant throughout distribution and finally to the end user, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
However, many fastener industry professionals believe that FQA needs to be changed or taken off the books completely. Fastener professionals have contributed more than $110,000 to the National Fastener Distributors Assn. and the Fastener Industry Coalition to retain the services of consultant Tom Fulton, president of Big Sky Consulting, to lobby members of Congress to repeal or change FQA.
Those in favor of repealing FQA gave mixed reviews to a report from the Commerce Department that recommends amendments to FQA and was submitted to Congress in late February, says Fulton. The report, prepared by NIST, suggested that FQA coverage be limited to high-strength fasteners, that paperwork requirements be streamlined, that quality management systems currently in use by fastener manufacturers be recognized and that fraudulent commercial transactions involving fasteners be punished.
"In our view the report is somewhat ambiguous," says Fulton. "It both helps and hurts our position. We'd heard rumors that the document would be very much in favor of the distributors and manufacturers who believe the original law was too far-reaching in what it intended to encompass. We were even hopeful that they might reach the conclusion that [FQA] might need to be repealed."
Members of the FIC are currently working with members of Congress to create a revised bill that reflects "our own solution to our own problem," Fulton says, which would limit government interference in the industry and focus instead on the self-policing efforts the industry has instituted since FQA was signed.
"We believe that we have a very good chance of replacing this [law] with another simplified act," says David Merrifield, NFDA executive vice president and FIC secretariat, "in view of the fact that the industry has cleaned itself up considerably over the last 10 years."
The FQA was originally drafted because of reported critical-use fastener failures, Fulton says, but he says that the NIST report revealed that many of those failures were the result of misapplied, not defective, fasteners.
FQA facts
* The Fastener Quality Act, or Public Law 101-592, was signed by President George Bush in 1990
* In August 1998, President Clinton signed P.L. 105-234, which exempts certain aerospace fasteners from the FQA
* 423 labs are accredited to perform FQA testing, as of 2/11/99, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology
* The complete text of Public Law 101-592, as amended by P.L. 104-113 and P.L. 105-234, is available on the Web at www.nist.gov/fqa/fqalaw.htm.
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