ENT OF COMMERCE POSTAGE AND 3. DEPARTMENT involves a deep understanding of the properties of mate relationship of properties to composition and structure. braces our National Standard Reference Data System, w mentioned in previous sessions of this Conference, dealin pilations of critically evaluated data. Our third program category is called Engineering M and Standards. This activity it primarily concerned wit criteria for the effective evaluation of commercial tec ducts and services, and the development of test method application of these criteria. Our fourth general program category is called Technica to Government, and its goal is to aid other government the utilization of modern science and technology. Impor area are programs in automatic data processing systems a ing research. With the formulation of our program under these four gories, we are now attempting to formalize subcatego measure the effectiveness of our output in each subcateg A year ago, I reported to you that plans were afoot new Environmental Science Services Administration wit partment of Commerce and the plan to transfer to it our C Propagation Laboratory here in Boulder. That plan w and the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory is now part of the Bureau. ESSA is celebrating, by coincidence, it day tomorrow, and perhaps during your visit to Boulder to to the NBS Radio Standards Laboratory, you may see ESSA birthday celebration in progress. New responsibilities continue to be added to the Natio of Standards. The Congress, last summer, enacted a with automatic data processing problems and assigned to the central responsibility for assisting other government the utilization of these new techniques and for developin for automatic data processing systems in order to facilita changeability of such equipment and techniques. In order to implement this responsibility, we establi Bureau a Center for Computer Science and Technology la There is now pending before the Congress legislation w acted, would bring additional responsibilities of rather seri The largest of these is the legislation dealing with auto transportation safety. If this legislation is enacted, it s that the National Bureau of Standards will have a centr bility to provide the technical basis for development of safety standards. This would involve the development o sary performance criteria and the development of test evaluate conformance to these criteria. If this legislation at present, we have just a little over 50 percent of our Washington staff now located in the new facilities. We have also just begun the final construction phase, which consists of four special-purpose laboratories. These laboratories will not be completed until late in 1968, but they will house only a small portion of the staff. In the laboratories now available we will be able to house approximately 90 percent of the staff, and it is expected that this 90 percent will be located in the new facilities by the end of this year. Late in the fall, we are planning a formal dedication of the new facility. I would also like to bring to your attention the fact that we have been preparing a comprehensive history of the National Bureau of Standards. We have been working on this project over the past five years, and expect it to appear this month. It is to be published by the Government Printing Office, and its title is "Measures for Progress." We have selected as the date for the formal publication July 28, 1966, which is the hundredth anniversary of the legalization of the Metric System in this country. During the past year, we have been very active at the National Bureau of Standards in categorizing our program in terms of new definitions promulgated by the President and the Bureau of the Budget. This effort, government-wide, is called the Planning-Programming Budgeting System. The objective is to aline all Federal Government activities in terms of programs whose outputs can be measured. The general goal is to attempt to provide better criteria for choice among the many activities that the Federal Government must engage in so that return per dollar can be optimized. Within the National Bureau of Standards, we have reached the conclusion that our activities can be summarized under four major program categories, each of which permits some means of evaluating or measuring the output qualitatively, if not quantitativly. The first of these four program categories is called Basic Standards, and the goal of this program is to provide the central basis for uniform compatible measurement in this country. It begins with setting up the basic standards, with extending the standards through higher and smaller values, with the extension of the basic standards into approximately forty-five derived standards, and with providing measurement and calibration services for the effective utilization of these standards throughout the Nation. Your own program of the Office of Weights and Measures is a part of this basic program category of the Bureau. The second major program category is the Numerical Data program. This involves the determination of properties of matter and materials that are of great importance to science and industry and which are not available in sufficient accuracy elsewhere. The work UNIVERSITY OF TO ATISI FAINIT and the responsibility now planned is assigned to the Bureau, the budget for this program may approach the present basic appropriations of the entire National Bureau of Standards. Another item now pending before the Congress is the so-called "Fair Packaging and Labeling" legislation. This, of course, is legislation of great interest to this Conference since you have many activities related to it. The involvement of the Bureau in this legislation, if enacted, will be the provision of voluntary standards development procedures. As I think many of you know, we have had a Commodity Standards program whereby we work with industrial groups in the development of standards which are then promulgated and adopted on a voluntary basis. The legislation now pending before the Congress makes provision to use this mechanism to arrive at many of the standards which are important in the packaging field. A third item has been pending for some time in the legislative field, but the forecasts for its enactment this summer appear good. This is the legislation which would direct the Secretary of Commerce to study the problems associated with the increased use of the Metric System throughout the world. If this legislation is enacted, it would, of course, involve a major effort on the part of the National Bureau of Standards to carry out this study. If this is done I am sure we would want to call on many of our friends associated with this Conference for help in developing recommendations. Our Chief of the Office of Weights and Measures, Malcolm Jensen, who has done so much work throughout the years for this Conference, is a man of many talents. We have found it necessary, in line with the Bureau's increasing responsibility in the standards field, to give Mr. Jensen a large responsibility. He is now our Manager of Engineering Standards and has responsibility not only for the Office of Weights and Measures, but for our program generally in Engineering Standards, particularly our Voluntary Products Standards program. In this field, Mr. Jensen has taken the lead in implementing one of the important recommendations of the Committee on Engineering and Commodity Standards set up under the Secretary of Commerce some time ago. Their recommendation in the commodity or product standards area was that we revise our procedures for developing these standards in order to assure better technical review and to include a broader range of viewpoints from the many interests concerned with such standards. These new procedures were promulgated by the Department of Commerce last December, and we are now applying them under the leadership of Mr. Jensen. I am sure that many of you will regret that he is now no longer concerned full-time with weights and measures, but I am sure you will appreciate that his talent has made necessary to give him larger responsibility. T OF COMMERCE POSTAGE ARTM I would like to mention just a few of the technologic within the Bureau's program. It would be impossib many of them, but I think the following are of specia First, at our new Gaithersburg facilities this past yea tuted direct weighing calibrations up to 1-million po engineering mechanics laboratory there was justified t extent by the need to improve our accuracy in direct y ues this large. Our million-pound constant weight ma operative during the past year. Associated with th completed a many-year study and redetermination of of gravity with improved accuracy. This important c tial to the translation of our mass standard to a w standard. We have instituted new calibrations of thermomet below 20 degrees Kelvin. We have instituted a num improved calibration services in the radio frequency course, is an activity which is the responsibility of ou ards Laboratory at Boulder here in Colorado. We have developed a number of important new sta materials, and in this general area of materials re come up with a radically new method for purifying seems to offer the possibility of achieving near al achieving purity so high, it is extremely difficult, if n measure. I now come to one of the most pleasurable parts of m and that is the naming of new members to the Standin the Conference. On the Committee on Education, I am appointing of Monmouth County, New Jersey, for a four-year John Madden who resigned to accept a position in appointing J. I. Moore of the State of North Carolin term to succeed J. T. Daniell of Michigan. On the Committee on Laws and Regulations, I an Kerlin of the State of California for a five-year term Littlefield of Michigan. On the Committee on Liaison with the Federal Go naming R. C. Primley, Operation Manager of the Company, St. Joseph, Michigan, and Chairman of the and Measures Technical Committee, for a five-year te W. Love. On the Committee on Specifications and Tolerance Raymond Rebuffo of the State of Nevada for a five-y ceed H. J. McDade of California. I would like, at this time, to give my sincere thanks of these committees who have completed their assig |