I was under the impression the "committee" here was the people who wrote the C standard? So the accepted interpretation by the people who wrote the document mus

I was under the impression the "committee" here was the people who wrote the C standard? So the accepted interpretation by the people who wrote the document must be the intended meaning, no? If it wasn't, they'd have written something else. (Sure, it's possible they wrote something, then only later came to understand the implications of this. But the standard has been understood as allowing nasal demons since long before the latest revision of the C standard, so I'd argue that by publishing a new version without rewording that section, they're making clear that they intend its current interpretation to be part of the standard.)