(a) A published standard shall be subject to revision or amendment when it is determined to be inadequate by its Standing Committee or by the Department of one or more of the following reasons or for any other appropriate reasons:

(1) Any portion of the standard is obsolete, technically inadequate, or no longer generally acceptable to or used by the industry;

(2) The standard or any part of it is inconsistent with law or established public policy; or

(3) The standard or any part of it is being used to mislead users or consumers or is determined to be against the interest of users, consumers, or the public in general.

(b) A revision of a standard shall be considered by the Department to include changes which are comprehensive in nature, which have a substantive effect on the standards, which change the level of performance or safety or the design characteristics of the product being standardized, or which cannot reasonably be injected into a standard without disturbing the general applicability of the standard. Each suggestion for revision shall be submitted by the Department to the Standing Committee for appropriate consideration. The Standing Committee shall serve the same functions in the revision of a standard as the Standard Review Committee serves in the development of a new standard. The processing of a revision of a standard shall be dependent upon the age of the standard as computed from its effective date and shall be accomplished as follows:

(1) A proposed revision of a standard older than 5 years at the time such proposed revision is submitted to the Standing Committee by the Department shall be processed as a new standard under these procedures and, when approved for publication, the standard shall be republished and reidentified to indicate the year in which the revision became effective. The revised standard shall supersede the previously published standard.

(2) A proposed revision of a standard less than 5 years at the time such proposed revision is submitted to the Standing Committee by the Department shall be processed as a new standard except that:

(i) Distribution for acceptance or rejection shall be made to an appropriate list of producers, distributors, and users and consumers compiled by the Department;

(ii) If the revision affects only one subsection of the requirement section and/or only one subsection of the test methods section, it may be circulated separately for determining consensus and subsequently published as an addendum to the standard with appropriate dissemination and public notice of the addendum; and

(iii) If the revision does not change the level of performance or safety or the design characteristics of the product being standardized, the standard need not be reidentified.

(c) An amendment to a standard shall be considered by the Department to be any non-editorial change which is not comprehensive in nature, which has no substantive effect on the standard, which does not change the level of performance or safety or the design characteristics of the product being standardized, and which reasonably can be injected into a standard without disturbing the general applicability of the standard. Each suggestion for amendment shall be submitted by the Department to the Standing Committee for appropriate consideration. An amendment to a standard recommended by not less than 90 percent of the members of the committee eligible to vote and found acceptable by the Department, shall be published as an addendum (until the standard is republished) and distributed to acceptors of record. Public notice of the amendment shall be given and copies of the amendment shall be distributed to those filing written requests.