Byron Dorgan: “I observe that the appetite for agencies to enforce is a never-ending appetite. I would not expect the Senator from Ohio…”

“I observe that the appetite for agencies to enforce is a never-ending appetite. I would not expect the Senator from Ohio has a great deal of faith in the bureaucracy looking at enforcing mandates and then deciding, ``Well, let's do this in a commonsense way; let's do this only when the highway sign wears out so we have one highway sign that says `Next exit 30 kilometers' and then 2 miles later, another highway sign that says `Next exit 18 miles.''' What happened there? One sign had worn out and the other sign had not. So you have a highway that has kilometers and miles. The fact is, the Department of Transportation and the enforcement officers intent on enforcing this have a scheme in mind of tearing down the highway signs that exist and putting up metric signs across the country. The problem is, that costs an enormous amount of money. It costs the American taxpayers a substantial amount of money they ought not have to spend. All of the things the Senator from Ohio said I largely agree with. It is in this country's best interest, where it is engaged in international trade, to trade in units where those with whom we are trading are using those common units. In many cases, that is the metric system. But you get a perverse result, it seems to me, when we have an enforcement mechanism in the Federal Government to require State, local, and tribal governments to convert to metric.”