Proposals can be submitted for text to be amended or included in NFPA Codes and Standards. Following the Call for Proposals period, the responsible Technical Committee or Panel holds a meeting to consider and act on all submitted proposals. The committee or panel may also develop its own proposals. A document known as the Report on Proposals (ROP) is prepared containing all the Public Proposals, Technical Committees' action on each Proposal, as well as all Committee-generated proposals. The ROP for the document in question is submitted for the approval of the responsible TC or Panel by a formal written ballot. If the ROP does not receive approval via written ballot in accordance with NFPA rules, the Report is returned to the committee for further consideration and is not published. If the necessary approval is received, the ROP is published in a compilation of Reports on Proposals issued by NFPA twice yearly for public review and comment, and the process continues to the next step. The ROP is published and widely distributed and anyone may download or request a copy.

Once the ROP becomes available, there is a 60-day comment period during which time anyone may submit a public comment on the proposed changes documented in the ROP. The committee or panel reconvenes at the end of the comment period and acts on all public comments. This committee or panel may also develop its own comments. As before, approval obtained via written ballot in accordance with NFPA's Regulations is required on all committee and panel actions. All of this information is compiled into a second Report, called the Report on Comments (ROC), which like the ROP, is published and made available for public review for a seven-week period.