U.S. Inching Toward Metric System : Trade: The GAO largely blames the Commerce Department for the slow pace of the change. The delay is harming the nation economically.

Although the United States this week strongly reaffirmed its intention to adopt the metric system, a new government report warns that the nation may not meet its 2 1/2-year deadline for making the switch because of a lack of commitment in the federal bureaucracy.

Despite a congressionally mandated Oct. 1, 1992, conversion deadline, most federal agencies “have not advanced beyond the early stages of planning,” the General Accounting Office said.

The GAO was especially critical of the Commerce Department, the designated lead agency in the unprecedented effort.

According to the GAO report, officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Pentagon and the General Services Administration all blame the Commerce Department’s “minimal” efforts and “lack of commitment” for weakening their own efforts toward metrication.

The overall slow pace “may delay or prevent a timely and comprehensive conversion to the metric system,” it warned.

Although past efforts to convert the nation to the metric system have failed miserably, the federal government, as the purchaser of nearly 5% of all goods and services produced in the United States, now hopes to lead the way.

“I don’t deny that the GAO is right that we didn’t apply enough resources,” G. T. Underwood, Commerce’s director of metric programs, conceded Friday. “It certainly did look pretty bad here. But it’s being fixed.”

Alarmed by GAO’s findings, the House subcommittee on science, research and technology has set a hearing for April 24.

The United States is the only major industrialized nation with a non-metric system of weights and measures and thus often finds itself at a disadvantage in world commerce.

“The conversion is a great challenge, but it is absolutely vital that we meet this challenge if our businesses are to compete effectively in the global marketplace,” said Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton), a longtime champion of conversion. “They are having great difficulty finding domestic sources of metric raw materials.”

The GAO found that only one of 37 key federal agencies has developed a plan to identify areas within its purview for review and conversion. But not even that one has come up with a timetable for the conversion.

The pervasive foot-dragging, the GAO said, “calls into question the federal agencies’ commitment to the transition . . . . Nine of 10 important interagency subcommittees have not convened.”

In addition, two-thirds of the 37 agencies that GAO surveyed have not even informed their own officials, who would be responsible for the conversion, of the congressional mandate, the report said.

The country first tried metrication after Congress passed a law in 1975 exhorting the public and private industry to adopt the system voluntarily.

But the effort never caught on, especially among the citizenry. By 1982, the Metric Board disbanded after the Ronald Reagan Administration refused to fund it.

Among the most resistant to metrication is the construction industry, said Jim Meredith, president of the American National Metric Council, a business organization.

He said auto makers and the liquor and computer industries have been among the leaders in the movement.

Efforts to teach the metric system in schools have varied widely, Underwood said. He said states along both coasts and the Canadian and Mexican borders generally have done the most, with California leading the way.

Interest in metrication broadened in the 1980s amid growing concerns about American economic competitiveness.

“We’re getting shut out of all kinds of markets because we don’t have metric,” Valerie Antoine, executive director of the U.S. Metric Assn., said Friday.

Meredith said: “We’ve known of cases where U.S. firms were not even able to compete in the markets because they were unable to give specifications in metric.”

It was a little-noticed provision of the omnibus trade bill, signed by then-President Reagan on Aug. 23, 1988, that called for the entire federal government to begin doing business in the metric system “whenever feasible” by Oct. 1, 1992. In its landmark trade accord with Japan this week, the United States again pledged its intent to meet the deadline.

However, at the time the legislation was passed, Commerce was experiencing a change of administration and the creation of a technology administration within the department, Underwood said.

“The metric office was caught in a very unusual political situation of not having an organization or an administration in place.” he said.