Metric System
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from Spain. Pedro-Vicente Bellosta y Ferrer asks if the United States has proposals to use the metric system some day.
The answer to this question is yes. The United States is the only industrial country in the world that does not use the metric system as its main system of measurement. Congress approved a law in nineteen-seventy-five that called for the use of the metric system. It said the United States should begin measuring in kilometers, liters and hectares instead of miles, gallons and acres.
Lawmakers knew that American companies would lose money if they made non-metric products for sale when most other nations used the metric system. And foreign importers did reject American goods that were not made in metric measurements. But Americans resisted such change.
So Congress changed the Metric Conversion Act in nineteen-eighty-eight. The new law gave the federal government the responsibility to help industry change to the metric system of measurement. But the law did not require businesses to change. Lawmakers believed that companies would make the change if they recognized the need to do so.
Kenneth Butcher of the Commerce Department heads the federal government’s metric program office. He says more and more American companies have changed to the metric system. Companies that export products or produce goods in other countries have been using metric measurements for years.
The American public seems to be supporting a change to metric in recent years. For example, a federal law requires all product packaging in the United States to include both metric weight and non-metric weight. Mister Butcher says about five-hundred American companies now support a proposal that would change the law so companies would not have to provide the non-metric weight on the package. Only the metric weight would appear on the package. He also says that most American states support this idea, too.
Mister Butcher says his office has provided American schools with materials to teach the metric system for many years. He says this effort is now showing results as young American business leaders are seeking to change to the metric system.
