HeHe, this thread and the previous thread made me contemplative!?ÿ So, with tongue firmly planted in my cheek I offer these slight modifications to the Red Green Show's "Man's Prayer"
I'm a surveyor, but I can change, if I have to, I guess.
and "Woman's Prayer."
I am the gubmint, hear me roar, I'm in charge, get over it.
[/TongueOutOfCheek]
Hi Gene, I take you have been watching Re Green a bit lately??ÿ?ÿ
Hi Gene, I take you have been watching Red Green a bit lately??ÿ?ÿ
US Survey Foot is a legal definition based on accepted law. NGS has no authority to change or establish law.
In my opinion they should abolish the International Foot.
Paul in PA
I enjoy 3937/1200.
Now we will need to scale 10000/3048.
Eww.
No, not lately, Jerry. As you can imagine, I watched a few of his shows back in the 1990s on PBS (more than enough to remember the Man's Prayer). It was great Theatre of the Absurd.
The decision of which foot to use would have made a great sketch with his nephew Harold! The Possum Van would have been jacked up and a spare wheel rim used to reel up Red's fabricated and calibrated tape (made from duct tape of course).
The US Survey foot is in law in the majority of States. This flies in the face of the Constitution, which grants the feds authority to set standard weights and measurss.
The federal law on the subject mandates meters for federal agencies and grants NIST authority to issue advisory definitions and conversions for imperial units. NGS is working with NIST to deprecate the US Survey foot.
The interesting questions on the table...
1. Will the current SCOTUS support NIST absent any interstate commerce reasoning.
2. Will anyone toss in the legal monkey-wrench from the metrification act.
Get your popcorn and get comfy. .
I cannot understand the brouhaha about this decision.
Firstly, the decision states that Commerce Department entities: NGS and NIST will discontinue support for the US Survey Foot.?ÿ They are not planning an Orwellian campaign to push references to the unit into a memory hole.
Secondly, in practice, the unit is only the output of a translation; NIST will be NOT be closing down activities to refine the value of the US Survey Foot.
While users will no longer see coordinates translated from meters to US survey feet, they are free to translate themselves. ?ÿAs an aside, the existence of two versions of the foot unit did require monitoring and tracking state legislation to insure the correct version was used in translations.
I would favor the elimination of foot units in NGS products as translations to them from metric units is trivial and best left to the end user. ?ÿEnough with the hand holding. ?ÿ?ÿ
The feds are welcome to set standard weights and measures for issues relating to interstate commerce and federally-funded projects. That doesn't mean that a U.S. State can't adopt the U.S. Survey Foot for other purposes. Furthermore, the U.S. Survey Foot was by long standing the federal choice for surveying and mapping projects, in accordance with this now superseded 1991 NGS memo. https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/INFO/Policy/st_plane.html
"...in 1989 the Federal Geodetic Control Committee, in order to accommodate the prefer- ence of the majority of its member organizations, officially adopted the U.S. Survey Foot for federally funded projects."
'If we like our old unit of measure, we can keep our old unit of measure' ?? ????
In general, natural persons in the US can do whatever they want, unless the government can pass a law or binding regulation that restricts something, and the law or regulation withstands any court challenge concerning individual liberties contained in state constitutions or the federal constitution. On the other hand, the government can't do anything unless there is a law that says they can, and the legislature has wide lattitude to restrict the activities of the executive or judicial branches.
So probably the maximum restriction the federal government would be able to achieve, if it wanted to, would be to prevent the use of the survey foot in commerce, to prevent the consideration of any lawsuit in any state or federal court that mentions the survey foot for a measurement made after the effective date of the restrictive legislation, and preventing the filing of any document with any state or federal executive branch agency that contains survey feet.
In 1959 the NIST adopted the International foot, with the caveat that the US foot could continue to be used for surveys, "until such time as it becomes desireable and expedient to readjust the basic geodetic survey networks in the United States" .?ÿ That time slipped by once and is coming by a second time.?ÿ Everybody, except surveyors, have been using the Int'l foot for 60 years.?ÿ
At this point is seems that the decision has been reached -the die is cast. International foot for everybody.?ÿ Quit bickering and get on with it.
I have no issue adopting the ift. It's a good idea. My point is that 1959 decision by NIST is no longer valid as they have no congressional authority beyond meters. Any imperial units are advisory only. If they go that route it will have no effect. If they mandate without a statute change somebody will fight it and the lawyers will win (again).