Now Issued, We Thank Those That Brought the 2023 NEC to the Top of the Mountain

It’s been a long climb to the top, but we made it – together! The NFPA Standards Council has voted to issue the 2023 National Electrical Code® (NEC®) with an effective date of September 1, 2022. With a pandemic overarching most of this revision cycle, we faced challenges never before seen in working through the NFPA Standards Development Process to create the 2023 NEC. A very special thanks goes out to the public for their valuable inputs and comments, the countless volunteer committee members for sharing their valuable time and knowledge, and NFPA staff for all of their hard work of governing the process and keeping everything on task through the challenges brought about by the pandemic. This truly has been an NEC cycle like none we have ever seen before.

While there were new challenges along the way, it never delayed the development process which is rather inconceivable considering the way the world was being impacted by the pandemic. Not only did it not slow down, but it also increased. Every actionable item of the NFPA Standards Development Process increased in the 2023 NEC cycle versus the 2020 NEC cycle including: Public Inputs (PIs), First Revisions (FRs), First Correlating Revisions (FCRs), Correlating Notes (CNs), Public Comments (PCs), Second Revisions (SRs), Second Correlating Revisions (SCRs), and Certified Amending Motions (CAMs). After two years of not having our annual NFPA Conference & Expo in-person, 2022 allowed us to finally all get beck together in Boston for C&E in June where the Technical Meeting was held. During the meeting, the 55 CAMs for the 2023 NEC were presented and most were debated by membership on the meeting floor. The only CAMs that were not debated were those that were not pursued by the submitter, often due to the results of a previously debated CAM around the same topic failing to get the necessary votes from membership. In early August, the NFPA Standards Council heard fourteen appeals related to the 2023 NEC, which after the voting of the Council resulted in 18 amendments and four concurrently issuing Tentative Interim Amendments (TIAs). Some of the topics of the appeals that were heard dealt with optical fiber cable, copper-clad aluminum wiring, surge protection devices, GFCI protection, and swimming pool bonding. After all was considered, the preliminary minutes for the NFPA Standards Council Meeting concluded that the Council set an issuance date for the 2023 NEC as August 12, 2022, and the aforementioned effective date as September 1, 2022.

After the thrill of climbing the mountain, and all that was overcome, every good climber sticks a flag in the ground to celebrate their accomplishments. The mountain that we all climbed to reach the pinnacle of the 2023 NEC should be commemorated as well. Our distinctive flag in the ground for the 2023 NEC comes by way of NFPA LiNK®, which is NFPA’s digital access to codes and standards, plus so much more. All previous NEC code cycles always had a delay between when it was issued and when it was available due to the time it took for printing, but the 2023 NEC will be different. The 2023 NEC will become available in NFPA LiNK® on September 1, 2022. That’s right, if you are a subscriber to NFPA LiNK®, the 2023 NEC will be available to you on the same day that it becomes effective. For individuals that still prefer the book version of the NEC, the softbound, spiral, and handbook versions are available for preorder now and will become available this fall. The best view always comes when you reach the peak of the mountain. From what I can see, our ability to make electrical installations around the world safer just improved with the addition of the 2023 NEC. A very special thank you goes out to all of you that helped us to climb the mountain!

For more information on the features of NFPA LiNK®, including access to a 14-day risk-free trial for all new users, please visit www.nfpa.org/LiNK.