The metric system is just around the corner.

• Author: Levitan, Donald
• Position: US use of the metric system becomes a national policy - Includes related article

The federal government will require the use of metric systems in its procurements, grants and other business-related activities beginning in September 1992. Are states and local governments ready to go metric?

Weights and measures may be ranked among the necessaries of life to every individual of human society. They enter into the economical arrangements and daily concerns of every family. They are necessary to every occupation of human industry.. . .

For years, there has been talk that the metric system will replace the traditional system of measurement used in the United States. The time is now: many American businesses already are using both systems or only the metric system. Metrics will affect more than the business world. Soon, the federal government will use the metric system in almost all of its dealings - September 30, 1992, has been established as the date by which all federal agencies will be required to use metric systems in procurements, grants and other business-related activities. Officials in local government eventually will have to come to terms with this different, although long-established method of measurement.

The measurement system used in the U.S. is known as the "English system." Through colonization and dominance of world commerce during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, England established its system of weights and measures in many parts of the world, including the American colonies. Other countries had different measurement systems, however. The need for a single, worldwide measurement system was recognized early, and in 1790 the metric system was created. At present, only three countries in the world do not, officially, use the metric system: Liberia, Myanam and the United States.

Many see the English system of measurement as an obstacle to American competitiveness and to the ability of the U.S. to improve its trade balances, especially as the country begins to compete with such international trading cartels as the European Community.

Concerned about the issue of world trade, the U.S. Congress in 1988 declared the metric system as a desired goal. Congress amended the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 (P.L. 94-168), declaring it to be national policy to

designate the metric system of

measurement as the preferred system;

to require that each federal agency, by

a date certain and to the extent

economically feasible by the end of

fiscal year 1992, use the metric system

of measurement in its procurements,

grants and...