Thanks for that,
It does make sense to wait until you're firmly sure that the legislation
will pass. On the surface, I think that making it voluntary will make the
Congress able to adopt it more easily as then they can be secure in knowing
the bill has no teeth and doesn't force anything.
Americans in general have been better accepting change gradually and slowly
rather than from the top down. I'll bet once the amendment gets ratified
within a year all products will basically be metric. There might be a few
holdouts say in the dairy or other industry but I'm sure some ad agency deep
in the bowels of various corporations have ad campaigns planned to introduce
the US to new metric units once the time comes.
I have to wonder what will become of Hamburger Helper's "one pound, one pan"
slogan though :)
Mike
On 9/20/07, James Frysinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Legislation has not yet been submitted, as far as I know. NIST has held
> public meetings on the proposed wording and at those industry has
> strongly supported it. A few key lobbyists have made it apparent,
> however, that they would fight to oppose it. NIST has been working on
> getting legislators and industry spokesmen on board prior to submitting
> the legislation--greasing the skids, you might say. Strategically, one
> would not want to throw the amendment out on the floor until conditions
> look favorable; otherwise a fatal blow might be dealt to it and changing
> the FPLA would be greatly delayed. I hope that NIST forgives me for
> speaking for them on this and that I have put it correctly.
>
> This matter is not unrelated to the European Union's directive that has
> been extended three times already and currently bans non-metric markings
> after 2009 Dec 31 on products and ancillary documents brought into or
> produced in the EU. Contemporaneous to the work being done to amend the
> FPLA in the U.S., groups have been working in the EU to amend this
> directive to remove the scheduled ban on non-metric indications.
>
> A lot of folks have been quite busy in a lot of back hallways and closed
> meeting rooms! It would be dangerous to assert that these two amendment
> movements are firmly tied to each other but it would be foolish to say
> that they are unrelated. Industry is the common player on both fields.
>
> In short, I have seen (at two of those NIST conferences) the proposed
> FPLA amendment and so far I have not heard that it has been submitted
> for congressional action. I suspect at this point that this will not
> happen until after the 2008 elections. However, now that Gen. Petraeus
> has given his testimony and the Democratic Party is turning its
> attention back to other internal issues, there yet might be a window in
> the last session of this Congress to get it through. I'm not close
> enough to the ballgame to call the plays, though.
>
> Jim
>
> Mike Millet wrote:
> > I like your reply James but have we really heard of any person actually
> > submitting legislation to amend the FPLA? I was under the impression
> > that that hasn't been proposed or even thought about in Congress yet.
> > Hopefully it does though.
>
>
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