If I told you that there’s a seemingly innocuous bill about safety standards quietly moving through Congress that, if passed, could have massive unintended consequences for America’s economy, national security and competitiveness on the world stage, would you believe me?
Well, believe it.
If passed, the Pro Codes Act (PCA) would do precisely that.
The PCA is rapidly being pushed through Congress without careful review or appropriate oversight. Its weighty implications haven’t been thoughtfully considered.
For Standards Development Organizations, the legislation is a death knell for the industry, putting thousands of jobs at risk. But it’s so much worse than that.
The passage of the PCA would erode copyright protections and leave us vulnerable to adversarial foreign powers, who could soon set the manufacturing standards for everything we hold dear — from transportation systems and robotics to constructing nuclear power plants.
But how? Let’s consider how we got here and why America has become the global leader in setting standards.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers was founded in 1880 after a catastrophic steamship explosion that made it clear that a national system to set manufacturing standards was needed to keep Americans safe. Before that, there were no engineering standards, which meant critical products weren’t safely and uniformly designed and built, leading to disastrous explosions.
Standards Development Organizations are private, nonprofit entities that develop voluntary consensus standards employed by industries. They use a consensus-of-interest process made up of various stakeholders, including designers, manufacturers, regulatory agencies, inspectors, and insurers to ensure that the standards-setting process is not dominated by any one interest group.
Because of the standards’ complexity, they must be written by highly trained professionals with expertise in their given field. The audience for many of these standards is other highly trained individuals involved in the manufacture, design, servicing, and inspection of complicated products.
The PCA fails to take that vital lesson into account. It mandates that all standards — no matter their use or intended audience — be made available online for free. Should this come to pass, anyone will have unfettered access to them, and SDOs would likely go bankrupt, having lost their ability to support their standards-setting mission, leaving countless jobs in the balance and forcing the government to pour tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money into the development of highly complex scientific and engineering standards.
Imagine the catastrophic consequences if an adversarial foreign power — potentially with a much different safety standard than we have — suddenly becomes the global standard-setter for nuclear energy or complex infrastructure.
This scenario — just one of several that could play out — would not only compromise American safety but also diminish our leadership in developing global engineering standards, leaving standards creation to others.
This is not a partisan issue. Both political parties should recognize the profound risks associated with this bill.
It represents unnecessary government overreach and a clear example of a taking, which would normally be considered anathema to constitutional conservatives. The hasty legislative process lacks the oversight and deliberation good government advocates would want to see for such a significant policy change. And everyone — no matter who you are — should be gravely concerned about the potential effects on public safety and national security.
The Pro Codes Act is a perilous step that could dismantle a system that has protected Americans for over a century. Congress should press pause immediately and consider the untold effects of this bill on our way of life.
Protecting our standards means protecting our future. We owe it to future generations to maintain the safety, security and innovation that have defined American engineering and innovation for over a century.
Let us not compromise this legacy with such shortsighted legislation.
