5.30—Fee calculation.
(a)
MSHA bases fees under this subchapter on the direct and indirect costs of the services provided, except that part 15 fees for services provided to MSHA by other organizations may be set by those organizations.
(b)
Except as provided in paragraphs (b)(1) and (2) of this section, upon completion of an initial administrative review of the application, the Approval and Certification Center will prepare a maximum fee estimate for each application and will begin the technical evaluation once the applicant authorizes the fee estimate.
(1)
The applicant may pre-authorize an expenditure for services under this subchapter, and may further choose to pre-authorize either a maximum dollar amount or an expenditure without a specified maximum amount. All applications containing a pre-authorization statement will immediately be put in the queue for the technical evaluation upon completion of an initial administrative review. MSHA will concurrently prepare a maximum fee estimate for applications containing a statement pre-authorizing a maximum dollar amount, and will provide the applicant with this estimate. Where MSHA's estimated maximum fee exceeds the pre-authorized maximum dollar amount, the applicant has the choice of cancelling the action and paying for all work done up to the time of the cancellation, or authorizing MSHA's estimate.
(2)
Under the Revised Acceptance Modification Program (RAMP), MSHA expedites applications for acceptance of minor changes to previously approved, certified, accepted, or evaluated products. The applicant must pre- authorize a fixed dollar amount, set by MSHA, for processing the application.
(c)
If unforeseen circumstances are discovered during the evaluation, and MSHA determines that these circumstances would result in the actual costs exceeding either the pre-authorized expenditure or the authorized maximum fee estimate, as appropriate, MSHA will prepare a revised maximum fee estimate for completing the evaluation. The applicant will have the option of either cancelling the action and paying for services rendered or authorizing MSHA's revised estimate, in which case MSHA will continue to test and evaluate the product.
(d)
If the actual cost of processing the application is less than MSHA's maximum fee estimate, MSHA will charge the actual cost.