Helping to meet this demand is the United States Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and about 30 private vendors. For these vendors, a booming business in standard materials has emerged because NIST is unable to supply everything; moreover, not everyone needs the utmost precision that NIST applies.
The standards business has its share of controversy. Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency ceased giving away chemical standards for some of its pollution-monitoring tests. The termination of this giveaway program touched off a lawsuit by one vendor. The firm says its business was damaged when EPA cleaned out its stocks of standards and provided them for free to five other companies.
Standards Everywhere Until 1988 NIST, based in Gaithersburg, Md., was known as the National Bureau of Standards. Selling "standard reference materials," or SRMs, is part of its charge. These are materials whose physical or chemical properties are ...
