INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 3 Two points about this third conclusion require emphasis: Page a. The question of the extent to which participation in interna- b. This decision need not (and should not) await the outcome of Conclusion 4: If the United States increases and makes more effective its participation in international standards-making activities, then the degree of incompatibility between U.S. domestic standards and international recommendations would be reduced, and a U.S. metrication program would be facilitated, should we take this course. Conclusion 5: Relatively modest changes in the import-export pattern of measurement sensitive goods can have a serious impact on the U.S. balance of payments. Hence, the relation between standards, standards utilization and trade should be the subject of careful study to develop the policy basis for U.S. participation in international standards development and utilization. Conclusion 6: SI usage in international standards as a language does not of itself pose any serious complications to the U.S. Conclusion 7: Product certification emerges as a primary consideration in the utilization of standards. Conclusion 8: Some product certification scheme for exports will probably be required to maintain a competitive position if European plans are successful. It can be either a plan compatible with those now developing in Europe or a distinctively U.S. approach, conceived to provide adequate assurance that U.S. export products meet a set of explicitly stated standards. Conclusion 9: If the U.S. elects to certify products in terms of IEC-ISO standards, it must recognize that the critical decade of standards development is here and take the necessary steps for participation. RECOMMENDATIONS Recommendation 1: The Department of Commerce should take appropriate steps to determine whether the economic impact of agreements such as the Tripartite Agreement can be expected to affect the U.S. balance of payments significantly or otherwise work against the best interests of the United States. Recommendation 2: The Department of Commerce should devise, in concert with other interested Federal agencies and responsible standardizing institutions, a firm U.S. policy about participation in international standards activities, including what role the Government should play and provisions for furthering the public interest as well as the competitive position of U.S. industry in world trade. 25 25 26 26 28 28 28 28 31 31 Recommendation 3: If such a policy dictates increased participation, appropriate steps should be taken to see that such participation is sufficient to meet the rapidly increasing international standardization activities that have been predicted for this decade. Recommendation 4: The Department of Commerce should, in concert with other interested Federal agencies, initiate action to determine whether or not the United States should participate in international product certification agreements. If adherence to such agreements is deemed desirable, an appropriate mechanism for certification within the U.S. should be developed. If adherence is not believed warranted, the U.S. should ensure that an appropriate alternative strategy is devised and followed. Recommendation 5: Finally, the actions indicated above should be taken without awaiting the outcome of the U.S. Metric Study, but drawing upon it for relevant information. Page 32 32 32 II. NATURE OF THE U.S. METRIC STUDY "We seek an open world-open to ideas, open to the exchange of goods and people - a world in which no people, great or small, will live in angry isolation." These words from President Nixon's inaugural address, and similar declarations by American Presidents over recent decades, provide a context for the U.S. Metric Study. American Space Technology has made every nation aware of our global interdependence. More than ever we are acutely aware of the need to learn to live together in peace and harmony on our spaceship Earth. Enterprise and Technology have produced wealth that spreads beyond national boundaries. As technology continues to advance industrial productivity, markets of global scales are needed to realize potential production and market efficiencies. Unfortunately, environmental pollution, as well as wealth, spreads out across national boundaries. National interdependence goes beyond commercial relations, cultural contact and political accommodation. We share the same environment. We are netted together through the same communications and transportation systems. Most important of all, we live in a world in which survival is increasingly dependent on knowledge and understanding. And this knowledge, especially scientific and technical knowledge, being nature's truths, is every man's legacy. By harmonizing our actions on the basis of this universal knowledge, mankind may learn to live in harmony with nature and with itself. As we recognize the growing interdependence of nations, we must also realize that each individual's freedom of action is necessarily limited to some degree by that interdependence. Yet this independence of the individual has been the principal source of our national strength, in both spiritual and prac tical terms. The achievement of international harmony does not necessarily require uniformity of customs and practices. It is essential that we identify and preserve as much freedom of action as possible in those areas where uniformity is not indeed necessary. Evaluation of the virtues of uniformity must rest on a rational evaluation of the consequences of continued nonuniformity. In this respect, the Congressional debate leading to the passage of Public Law 90-472 represented a far more practical understanding of the nature of the metric problem than was reflected in the turbulence of earlier Congressional debates on this subject. Many times in the last hundred years passions have been inflamed on both sides of this issue, but rarely did the debate rise above a purely emotional level. This time the Congress, after eleven years of discussion, did not ask, "devise a plan for conversion to metric usage," or even, "answer the question: should the United States convert to metric usage?" Instead, the Congress asked the Department of Commerce to "determine the impact of increasing worldwide use of the metric system on the United States . . . ."We were further asked to consider "the desirability and practicability of increasing use of metric weights and measures," but also to study "the feasibility of retaining and promoting . . . engineering standards based on the customary measurement units. . . ." Finally, we are to "evaluate the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action which may be feasible for the United States." The Congress specifically directs that in carrying out this investigation we should examine the impact of current trends and possible U.S. courses of action on international trade and commerce, U.S. national security, our international relations, and the possible practical difficulties that might be encountered should the metric system be increasingly used in this country. The law requires that we give special attention to the "advantages, disadvantages and problems associated with possible changes in either the system of measurement units or the related dimensional and engineering standards currently in use in the United States." In this connection the law recognizes that international harmonization of industrial practices is not a one-way street. U.S. technology and practices are adopted in the industrial life of every nation on earth, at least to some degree. Thus, we must distinguish very carefully between changes in measurement language and requirements for industrial redesign. We must determine where U.S. self-interest lies with respect to international harmonization of industrial standards, and then must carefully examine the extent to which our measurement language influences our objectives in international standards negotiations. Thus, the Congress has asked us to attempt a thorough and rational analysis of the impact on the United States of present world trends with respect to measurement language. Conformity with the world trend toward metrication is not to be accepted as an inviolable postulate, nor is it to be stricken aside as alien to our culture. Planning and execution of the study have been assigned to the National Bureau of Standards, an institution with extensive experience in measurement and its applications, large-scale involvement in the development of the nation's voluntary engineering standards, and national acceptance as a resource for unbiased technically based studies. In keeping with this tradition, the National Bureau of Standards is now engaged in the implementation of a study plan developed in consultation with its Advisory Panel. The study undertakes to provide what perhaps no other nation has yet achieved: a rational evaluation of the nation's alternative courses of action, openly arrived at, with full participation from all sectors of the society. The metric system is a measurement language. To be more precise, since there are some variations among metric systems, we use the term to mean the International System (SI) adopted in 1960 by the General Conference of Weights and Measures, in which the United States was a participant. This is an international treaty organization, established by the Treaty of the Meter in 1875, to which the U.S. and forty-two other nations formally adhere. The International System is the first essentially complete, internationally harmonized system of compatible scientific measurement units. It is based on the meter, kilogram, and second, but of course also includes thermal, electrical, mechanical, radiometric and photometric units. All modern industrial nations (in particular the signatories to the Treaty of the Meter) assure the compatibility of their scientific measurement system, at the highest levels of precision, through SI standards and their intercomparison. To this extent, the United States has been metric for nearly a hundred years. The measurement standards, as maintained at the National Bureau of Standards, are all SI Standards. The U.S. customary measurement standards (pound-yard-secondFahrenheit) are exactly defined by a specified numerical ratio to the fundamental SI Standards. Thus, our customary measurement standards are, in fact, derived from SI Standards. The United States is formally and legally bi-lingual with respect to measurement systems. Since the middle of the last century, the United States, by act of Congress, has declared metric units legal in Commerce and in other uses. In actual practice, of course, scientists and engineers are multi-lingual. That is, we use many different systems of measurement units interchangeably, creating and adapting each to the needs of specialized fields of research. That this is so is of little public consequence. It is only important to realize that under some circumstances it is not only possible but desirable to permit the co-existence of more than one system of measurement language. So long as we know the quantitative relationship between measurement languages - that is, so long as each measurement language is precisely defined with respect to a formally adopted base language (SI) – we can translate exactly from one language to another. We must, however, not underrate the importance of properly handling the question of diversity versus uniformity in our measurement language. Moreover, technology is changing the impact of metrication. For example, in this country a very large fraction of consumer goods are now sold in prepackaged form with weights and measures established at the factory and printed on the package. For these products, a change to metric language is a software change, quite different from the hardware change required when materials are served in bulk and the measuring instrument must be at the retail outlet. The rapid growth of numerically controlled 3 See appendix 2 for the membership of this advisory panel and the salient provisions of its charter. |