Extensions of Remarks 25357 Extensions of Remarks Useless U.S
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October 26, 1981 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 25357 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS USELESS U.S. METRIC BOARD that the U.S. policy is to continue a Embarrassingly, nothing came in. The NEAR EXTINCTION successful system of customary Transportation Department floated a plan inches, pounds, gallons, et cetera-and for switching highway signs from miles to kilometers, but an outcry from Congress HON. ELDON RUDD metric measurement only if metric is prevented it from reaching the board for of OF ARIZONA desired. We must pursue a vigorous ficial consideration. Ditto for a plan by the IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES effort to avoid wherever possible National Weather Service to figure tem undue or harmful socioeconomic dislo peratures exclusively in Celsius instead of Monday, October 26, 1981 cations as a result of Federal programs Fahrenheit, and barometric pressure in kilo • Mr. RUDD. Mr. Speaker, after or actions, such as mandated metric pascals instead of inches of mercury. The spending at least $8 million in tax dol programs. metric weather plan never reached the lars over its 3 years of existence to It should be clear that the American board for "coordination" and is dormant. travel around our Nation and promote people and private sector can dictate A primary conduit for funneling private industry's metric-switching plans to the an unpopular and unreasonable inter their own needs or desires on the ques board was to have been the American Na national system of metric measure tion of metric or customary measure tional Metric Council. It is a private, Wash ment, it appears that the U.S. Metric ment usage. The Federal Government ington-based group that's officially neutral Board has finally neared its last mile. should not promote costly, unneces about the metric system's merits, but actu If Congress acts wisely and approves sary concepts, like metric conversion, ally a hotbed of metric converters. The a Senate subcommittee's recommenda which can result in tremendous costs council draws up timetables for synchroniz tion to terminate this useless Metric in convenience and expense to the ing the details of conversion on an industry Board, effective March 31, 1982, a American people, and in overwhelming by-industry basis. As early as 1974, the council began working on a plan for metric major victory will have been scored by opposition by the people. measurement of bulk chemicals. As the pri the vast majority of American people For these reasons, I urge my col vate council worked out each industrial who are against Government-imposed leagues to enlist as cosponsors on by sector plan, it was to submit the proposal to metrication. bill, H.R. 1660, to repeal the Metric the new government board for public com But the fight does not end here. Conversion Act. ment and endorsement. There are presently metric coordina There are two items I am inserting Again, no plans came. Last year, the pri tion offices or departments within in the RECORD for perusal: the Wall vate council designed a how-to-do-it plan for most of our major Federal agencies. Street Journal article on the Metric oil companies wanting to sell gasoline by the The Commerce Department has a liter, after most gasoline pumps could not Board of October 26, 1981, and an ex register gasoline prices above $1 a gallon. senseless plan to convert all of its de cellent letter written by Dean Krake!, The council did not send this plan to the partment activities to the Franch-de executive vice president of the Cowboy government board, fearing criticism from its vised metric system by 1985. The De Hall of Fame, to the Department of minority factor of metric critics. fense Department has stated that it is Defense on DOD's ill-advised 1990 · With nothing to coordinate, the Metric continuing to follow a timetable con target date for metric conversion. Board contented itself with holding public version by 1990. Other Federal agen CFrom the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 26, meetings around the country, listening to cies have already instituted metric re 1981] frends and foes of the metric system. Last May, the board's executive director, Mal quirements in their contracts issued to METRIC BOARD Is INCHES FROM EXTINCTION, An colm O'Hagan, a leading advocate, quit to the private sector. ad hoc creation ALTHOUGH IT FINALLY HAS SoME WoRK To take a job with .a private trade association. of the U.S. Metric Board, the Inter Do And just lately, President Reagan's budget agency Committee on Metric Policy <By Arlen J. Large) cutters put the board on its list of agencies <ICMP), composed of agency repre WASHINGTON.-Just as it's finally getting the government should do without. sentatives, publishes regulations in the some real work to do, the U.S. Metric Board By coincidence, everyone swears, the Federal Register for all participating has been told by the Reagan administration American National Metric Council has com Federal agencies to follow in SI metric to walk the last kilometer. pleted its conversion plans for both industri conversion. All of these actions add up The White House has asked Congress to al chemicals and instruments, and wants to to quasi-mandatory conversion. To the abolish the Metric Board by next March 31. submit them to the government board for That death sentence has been approved by its very first try at "coordination." The private sector, the consumers and a nine-member Senate appropriations sub council has set a 1984 target date for the American citizens, these actions con committee. The full 29-member Appropria packaging and billing of bulk chemicals in stitute nothing less than imperial tions Committee will consider the matter on kilograms instead of pounds. It has also decree, something you would expect in Wednesday before sending it to the Senate drawn up guidelines coaching makers of in a totalitarian government. · floor. dustrial instruments on how to go metric. Of course, Congress never approved Congress created the Metric Board in The council is formally submitting these a mandate for SI metrics. Nor did it 1975, in a truncated law that originally plans to the government board in hopes request timetables, deadlines, or any started as an ambitious plan to convert the that public hearings will be held and the thing else that would even suggest nation mainly to metric measurement over a proposals will get wider attention. decade. As finally passed, the 1975 act omit The government board probably will dis that the Federal bureaucracy take it ted any reference to a deadline, or even an cuss what to do with these plans at its Janu upon itself to force this system of eventual commitment to U.S. metric conver ary meeting. David Gorin, the private weights and measures upon the Ameri sion. The act simply created the 17-member metric council's president, said the plans can people. It explicitly stated that board and told it to "coordinate the volun aren't being slyly submitted at this time to any conversion be voluntary and that tary conversion to the metric system." make the threatened board look suddenly it be initiated by the private sector. Not until 1977 did President Carter ap busy and irreplaceable. "All along we've in Unfortunately, the 1975 Metric Con point the board members, part-timers from tended to see Whether the board carrmake a version Act contained loose and pre big and small business, unions, consumer positive contribution," said Mr. Gorin. "I groups and state experts on weights and don't think it will have any direct effect on sumptuous language that failed to es measures. The board established a small congressional action." tablish a definitive and plain national staff in an office building across the Poto The Senate appropriations subcommittee policy on weights and measures. mac River from Washington, and waited for attached the board's death notice to a It should be made clear to the unre metric "conversion" proposals to come in House-passed bill providing money for the sponsive bureaucrats in Washington for coordination. State and Justice Departments, plus such e This "bullet" symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by the Member on the floor. 25358 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS October 26, 1981 smaller agencies as the Metric Board. metric. What, pray tell, has NATO really world for several decades. Further more, un Senate sources say this bill could die in the done for America? So the U.S. and NATO solicited Soviet meddling in the affairs of closing weeks of this year's session because forces have interchangeable weapons and the developing nations continues to cause of arguments about other matters, leaving ammunition. America won two world wars serious foreign policy problems faced by the the Metric Board legally alive, Then the ad using the English system. The fear that United States and its allies. ministration would have to find another ve most citizens have is that metric weapons For sixty four years Russian immigrants hicle for abolishing the agency. and ammunition, once converted, will play have repeatedly warned the world of the into the hands of the Rus8ians. Our weap dangers of Communism. Too often they NATIONAL COWBOY HALL OF FAME ons systems and fighting equipment, when have been not only misunderstood, but even captured, could become the biggest and AND WESTERN HERITAGE CENTER, mistaken for Communists. As a result, the Oklahoma City, Okla., October 1, 1981. finest arsenal for the Communist world word "Russian" has ironically become syn Mr. HOWARD B. ELLSWORTH, with no problems of conversion. Why is it onymous with the words "Soviet" and Metric Coordinator, Office of the Deputy that America must always submit to the for "Communist".