The ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB), a wholly owned subsidiary of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), is now recognized by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for its comparable laboratory accreditation program for construction materials testing.
This means laboratories accredited by ANAB for construction materials testing are considered to meet the requirements in FHWA regulations at 23 CFR 637.209(a) (2), (3), and (4). These regulations require certain laboratories to be accredited by the AASHTO Accreditation Program or a comparable laboratory accreditation program approved by the FHWA.
On September 22, 2004, the FHWA published a notice in the Federal Register (69 FR 56818) documenting the criteria to be used to determine a comparable laboratory accreditation program. Those criteria include recognition by the National Cooperation for Laboratory Accreditation (NACLA) following technical requirements based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) NISTIR 7012 document, Technical Requirements for Construction Materials Testing.
Because ANAB is formally recognized by NACLA for meeting technical requirements in construction materials testing, ANAB also meets the requirements for comparable laboratory accreditation bodies listed in the September 22, 2004, Federal Register notice.
The official memorandum documenting this recognition of ANAB by FHWA replaces an earlier memorandum documenting the recognition of the Laboratory Accreditation Bureau (L-A-B) as a comparable laboratory accreditation program. ANAB acquired L-A-B in 2015.