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National Environmental Accreditation
The Forum on Environmental Measurement (FEM) has played a key role in the promotion of having a single national program for environmental accreditation. On November 6, 2006, a giant step towards achieving a long-term goal of the environmental laboratory and monitoring communities to have a national laboratory accreditation program was realized. After years of an evolving program under the auspices of the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference (NELAC) and the Institute for National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation (INELA), both Boards of Directors took action to form The NELAC Institute (TNI)
. The purpose of the organization is to foster the generation of environmental data of known and documented quality through an open, inclusive, and transparent process that is responsive to the needs of the community. As reflected in the new name, The NELAC Institute has combined the heritage of NELAC with the consensus process of INELA into one organization dedicated to the vision that all entities generating environmental data in the United States and beyond be accredited to a national standard.
Since there are several organizations that provide environmental laboratory accreditation opportunities and information, the FEM has created a conduit, environmental laboratory accreditation, to link various options that are available.
The FEM has taken an active role on ways the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) can better promote the use of accreditation in the work the Agency uses other organizations to perform. An EPA policy titled, Policy to Assure Competency of Laboratories, Field Sampling, and Other Organizations Generating Environmental Measurement Data under Agency-Funded Acquisitions (PDF) (3 pp, 167K, About PDF), was issued on March 28, 2011. All organizations performing environmental analysis for the Agency shall demonstrate their qualifications in the field(s) of analyses to be conducted, prior to performing such analyses, under Agency-funded acquisitions. A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) (PDF) (9 pp, 156K, About PDF), document is also available to assist in the implementation of this policy.