Paul, No doubt you have already seen or shall soon see the email from Helen Bushnell (to USMA) concerning a petition she signed to We the People at the White House, which recently received a response from John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
This response from John Holdren took about three months! I would not be surprised if a reply to your letter to the Acting Secretary of Commerce takes an equally long time. A follow-up letter to John Holdren, also promoting the Metric Petition, might hasten the process? My opinion is that SI is already the officially "preferred sustem of units of measurement" in the United States by Acts of Congress and that there is no longer a contest between ''metric" units (formally SI by Public Law 110-69 of 2007) and "Imperial units" which have no standing in the United States. Implementation of SI is the remaining problem. A letter to John Holdren might request enforcement of Executive Order 12770 in elements of the Executive Branch. Stronger leadership on SI in Departments and Agencies of the Executive Branch could prompt Congress to Amend the FPLA to permit SI-only labeling of consumer products. Eugene Mechtly ________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Paul Trusten [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, February 18, 2013 8:20 AM To: U.S. Metric Association Cc: Butcher, Kenneth S.; Gentry, Elizabeth Subject: [USMA:52370] Where is White House response to metric system petition? February 18, 2013 The Honorable Rebecca M. Blank Acting Secretary U.S. Department of Commerce 1401 Constitution Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20230 Dear Madam Secretary, On January 30, a petition posted to the whitehouse.gov "We The People" site garnered sufficient signatures to invite a White House response. The petition, at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-metric-system-standard-united-states-instead-imperial-system/FndsKXLh asks President Obama to seek U.S. conversion to the metric system of measurement as the Nation's measurement standard. However, in searching the site, I fail to find such a response, and I believe one is necessary. With only 25,000 signatures required to elicit a White House response, the petition has garnered 40,000 nods. It begs an answer from the Obama Administration, which, on many occasions, has addressed U.S. world stature in connection with academics and trade. As the stated leader of the Commerce Department's efforts to strengthen U.S. competitiveness, you must have been discussing this petition and the issue it represents. Our country must start speaking and using the world's decimal measurement language as its own everyday measurement system. The longer we delay the changeover, the longer our economy and our academics will suffer. Sincerely, Paul R. Trusten Registered Pharmacist Vice President and Public Relations Director U.S. Metric Association, Inc. www.metric.org<http://www.metric.org> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> +1(432)528-7724
