John, More recently than the Act of 1866 legalizing metric units is PL 100-418 (designating SI as preferred for US trade and commerce...), also an Act of Congress.
I believe that President Obama will eventually express support, rather than efforts to repeal, these Acts. Let's draft a new Executive Order (and submit it for consideration by the White House); an order which reduces easy evasion by Departments and Agencies of the Executive Branch. I'm also thinking of a new draft of the FPLA rather than a mere Amendment since NIST must resubmit its draft anyway. Perhaps we can debate various drafts in this USMA forum? Gene. ---- Original message ---- >Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 07:36:44 -0700 (PDT) >From: "John M. Steele" <jmsteele9...@sbcglobal.net> >Subject: [USMA:43814] Re: Metric personal data was Re: 24 hour time >To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu> > > > >At best, it is ignoring an Executive Order, binding on Federal agencies. >Reality is that their boss (the Prez) doesn't enforce it, nor have recent past >Presidents and it has been widely ignored by Federal agencies. > >The few that tried to honor it (DoT) were handed setbacks by Congress. > >The EO is still out there, but it might be wise to have all political ducks in >a row before arguing it. It could be struck down at the stroke of a pen. I >don't think we have any idea where Obama stands on metrication. > >Perhaps an argument could be made around the Metric Act of 1866. However, I >am not aware of much case law surrounding it. If it hasn't been used much in >140+ years, that argument might be a very hard sell.
