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Accreditation
Center Activities
The National Enforcement Investigations Center {NEIC} is an accredited environmental forensics center. The Center’s operations are compliant with ISO/IEC 17025:2005(E) and supplemental forensic requirements. Forensic Quality Services-International 
(FQS-I) is the accrediting body, and the accreditation scope includes field measurements/monitoring, field sampling, and laboratory measurements.
NEIC also maintains accreditation for specific methods in bulk asbestos fiber analysis. This accreditation is granted by the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program, operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Benefit of Accreditation
NEIC obtained accreditation, which makes a public statement about the quality of NEIC operations. Accreditation confirms that NEIC implements a recognized and systematic approach to planning, conducting, documenting, and assessing forensic and environmental data collection activities. Accreditation demonstrates to environmental stakeholders and to the American public NEIC’s ongoing commitment to sound science.
The NEIC accreditation is based on:
- The International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) 17025 - the international standard for quality management in testing laboratories.
- The EPA Quality Manual (based on ANSI/ASQ E4-2004) - the American National Standards Institute/American Society for Quality Control (ANSI/ASQ) E4-2004 is the national standard adopted by the U.S. EPA for quality management of environmental data collection.
- The International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) G19 - is the international guidance for forensic science laboratories, whose quality systems are based on ISO/IEC 17025. ILAC is an international cooperative for accreditation organizations worldwide.
This accreditation provides NEIC with the flexibility to develop or customize environmental data collection methodology appropriate to the variety and complexity of technical support needed to support its mission.
Accreditation Scope
This accreditation covers:
- Field measurements/monitoring
- Field sampling
- Laboratory measurements
NEIC accreditation requirements were customized to cover the Civil, Criminal, and Special program work conducted by NEIC.
The requirements encompass forensic areas including:
- Ethics
- Evidence management
- Facility security
- Witness testimony, and
- Written court statements/reports
The requirements address infrastructure items such as:
- Document control/records management
- Procurement
- Facility environment
- Safety
- Equipment inventory, maintenance, and calibration
- Training, competency demonstration, and proficiency evaluation
The accreditation includes both field and laboratory activities, because both impact the control of evidence and the quality of results, and therefore the defensibility of the measurement information.