NIST AND WEIGHTS AND MEASURES: HELPING AMERICA MEASURE UP

TRADE. Imagine for a moment trying to buy and sell apples or alloys, olive oil or synthetic oil, or even croutons or construction materials without a system of weights and measures. Chaos quickly would take over the marketplace if there were no standards for weights and measures. Our forefathers, in drafting the U.S. Constitution, recognized the importance of weights and measures for a strong economy. The Constitution assigns the federal government the responsibility "to fix the standard of weights and measures" immediately following the responsibility "to coin money."

Trade from domestic to global requires agreed-upon methods for measuring a host of chemical, physical, and engineering properties of goods. That is why the laboratories at the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology are of prime importance in thousands of industrial settings in every state of the union. Without the standards of measurement developed and maintained by NIST and the technical advice NIST provides to hundreds of U.S. organizations that work on voluntary standards, domestic industry in general would suffer a great, or even crippling, disadvantage when it comes to certifying products for ever more global markets.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. The NIST Office of Weights and Measures, which traces back to an 1836 act of Congress, plays a unique role among federal agencies as an objective third party working with both industry and regulators. Its mission is to promote uniformity among the states in weights and measures standards, laws, and practices to facilitate trade and protect U.S. companies and citizens.

The OWM works with the National Conference on Weights and Measures to develop model weights and measures laws and standard procedures. The NCWM, which is sponsored by NIST, is a standards-writing organization made up of state and local weights and measures officials and representatives of the federal government, industry, and consumers. The OWM helps ensure compliance with state and federal standards by providing technical assistance to government regulators, business and industry, and consumers. The OWM, working in cooperation with other federal agencies or the NCWM, also undertakes special studies and investigations to develop information and procedures for new weighing and measuring devices and new fields of enforcement activity.

MILK. For example, in early 1997, the OWM joined with the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Food and Drug Administration on a study of the net content labeling of dairy products in 20 states. The study found "widespread problems with short-filling of milk, juice, and other dairy products." NIST developed the inspection procedure used to inspect randomly selected lots of milk in the 20 participating states. NIST also provided equipment and training for staff in state weights and measures offices on how to use the procedure accurately. NIST will continue to provide training for state weights and measures officials and offer training courses for the dairy industry on prevention of short-filling problems.

Over the years, OWM has worked with a variety of organizations:

"The NIST Office of Weights and Measures offers industry a forum for discussion of scientifically justifiable fair practices for packaging goods. The result is uniformity in the procedures we use to verify the net content of our packaged products. Without this uniformity, we would have a pretty serious barrier to interstate commerce. NIST serves as an effective interface between consumer protection and fair industry practices." --Steve Titko, manager of technology and development, Organic Business Group, Scotts-Hyponex, Marysville, Ohio

"NIST has worked closely with the food industry to ensure equity in the marketplace by creating Publication 19, which creates a protocol for price verification procedures. As states adopt this procedure, the food industry will know that all competitors will be inspected in exactly the same way. This is a valuable service which helps to create fairness and even-handed regulation of the marketplace." --Randy St. John, vice president for membership, Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association, Camp Hill, Pa.

"Fairness in weights and measures is just crucial to trade all over the world. It's much more than a consumer issue; industry needs it too. We want to compete on a level playing field and without fair weights and measures there is no fair trade. The NIST Office of Weights and Measures does a great job in training and education. We appreciate the technical expertise they provide, and as an international company, we appreciate their leadership in harmonization of international standards."--Paul Zalon, director of regulatory affairs, Nestle USA, Purchase, N.Y.

For more information, contact the NIST Office of Weights and Measures, 100 Bureau Dr., Stop 2350, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-2350, (301) 975-4004, fax: (301) 926-0647, e-mail: owm@nist.gov or visit the Office of Weights and Measures home page at www.nist.gov/owm.

Contact: inquiries@nist.gov
Last Update: March 23, 1999