Adrian: I listened to your comments on my phone recorder and I believe that the point being made by Clay is as follows:

HOW THE FIRE REGULATORY SYSTEM WORKS For a hundred years the NFPA/UL operation has worked the various governments (federal, state and local) to provide the NFPA/UL combine the power to actually create enforceable law and to control a huge part of the American Commerce. With the help of the fire department officials and the political power of the fire services the NFPA fire codes have been adopted within states and cities nationally. Once a code is adopted and becomes law and is enforced; if revisions in that code are made (commonly every 3 years) those changes are automatically considered to be law. Usually the revised sections are not again processed through the legislatures. Whether this is completely legal or not, it happens. And no one seems to care about the technicalities. Many if not most of the NFPA codes include a regulation that states, in effect, that the equipment and systems referenced by the code must be approved by a nationally recognized testing laboratory. Almost without exception that mean UL. So adopting the NFPA code usually automatically mandates that the public must buy what UL certifies. Both the code and the certification of the approved products are mandated by the authorities. Obviously, this puts the power to control billions of dollars of commerce into the hands of the NFPA/UL Combine. The NFPA codes and the UL certifications have become the expertise of the government fire and building inspectors and the plan reviewers. Of course, the NFPA has become a champion of the desired perks and expenditures for the fire services. The left hand washes the right hand. The codes and certifications are extremely important to the fire department inspectors and plan reviewers because the great majority began as firefighters and do not have any technical education beyond high school. Competence in the in the fields of engineering, science or architecture became unnecessary because the codes provide the answers. . Also, nearly all government fire regulators are devoid of any real experience in building construction. But they must force more highly educated professionals to do as they say; often at costs high into the thousands of dollars. The NFPA fire codes and building codes give them the power to control others who may be more competant. The NFPA with the cooperation of the fire services have developed codes and legislation and wording that tends to adopt all the codes in a blanket operation. There is adequate generalizations and cross references so that a fire inspector can justify enforcing anything and everything; or close to it. To fight the dictates of the regulators takes years and much money, so it is the habit of builders to just cave in even when the demands are ridiculous. Either that or grease the approval process. I figure the NFPA/UL combine may have control over more than 500 billion dollars a year in American commerce. Using that power for enriching the regulatory system, rather than using it

to reduce the burn rate, seems to be the primary objective. Indeed, it is the high level of burning that feeds the regulatory system. So, why reduce fire? Now here is what I believe that Clay is getting at. The whole structure defined above is predicated on the codes and the product certifications being legal and enforceable. But if the UL certifications are produced by a PROFIT MAKING organization (UL) then the NFPA codes would be mandating compliance with the dictates of a private profit making business. Presumably this would be illegal. But, the system has been doing illegal deals for the past 100 years, so whether it will make a real difference I do not know. The various governments have been quite content with illegal so long as it benefits government. Here are some of the factors at stake relative those who routinely defraud the public. A UL approved fire pump installation (fed by an approved connection to a city main) while complying with the appropriate NFPA codes will frequently cost 50 to 75 thousand dollars. A fire pump of a more reliable type complying with proper engineering criteria can be installed for about 2 or 3 thousand dollars; often less. And rather than digging up the street and installing a huge supply line with very expensive backflow preventer (and other unnecessary accouterments) the properly designed sprinkler system could be fed by the already existing domestic water feed. Thus by falsifying research programs and cooking the laboratory test data, and by very creative lying, a water supply for a sprinkler system for a hospital, hotel or an apartment house could be weaseled up to a 50 thousand dollar or higher bonanza for the sprinkler industry. The sprinkler industry welcomed the fraud with a smile because it accomplished two things (at least) for the industry, namely: 1. It magnified the prices for protection and therefore the profits from any job. 2. By requiring huge pipe, enormous water supplies and other special regulations, for decades it prevented plumbers from installing sprinklers. The major sprinkler contractors accepted a smaller, but very exclusive and profitable market for their systems. In reality, probably they had no choice but to accept what was given them because the NFPA/UL combine and the fire insurers were setting the rules. Obviously, it is this system of creating codes and product certification powers that allowed the crooked smoke detector manufacturers to sell defective so-called smoke detectors into 90 million homes (with the UL Label on the box). I suspect the total sales have been into the billions and I believe the fire deaths due to the fraud are now over 70,000 with at least 5 serious injuries per death. While the NFPA/UL combine and the various governments will probably ignore the technicalities of the law that (I believe) Clay is referring to, this information may be of value to any lawyer who is seeking compensation for fire victims. A court of law may be far more honest than the federal government regulators I have had experience with. Some of them, it seems to me, would probably drop dead with a heart attack if they ever uttered a truth. If you judge this report to be of value to any law office you have my OK to send it on. R.M. Patton