United States Government Printing…

                               United States Government Printing Office
                                         Washington, DC 20401

OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC PRINTER


     August 20, 1997



     Mr. Markus G. Kuhn
     Apartment 1
     120 Wiggins Street
     West Lafayette, IN 47906-5851

     Dear Mr. Kuhn:

     Thank you for your inquiry regarding the Government Printing Office (GPO)
     use of standard ISO metric paper sizes.

     GPO is a provider of printing and binding services to all branches of the
     Federal Government pursuant to certain provisions of statute. Nevertheless,
     GPO lacks authority to mandate use of metric sizes in government printing.
     Rather, GPO supplies metric sized paper and products to its customers upon
     request.

     Towards this end, GPO is well versed in the use of metric sizes, has a Metric
     Executive and participates with the Department of Commerce and other
     agencies in transitioning the Federal Government to a metric standard. In
     fact, subsequent to the passage of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness
     Act of 1988, 15 U.S.C.A. § 205b (1997), GPO established an internal training
     program specifically geared to instruct GPO Customer Services personnel
     about agency requests for metric sized products. Since that time, GPO has
     supplied customer agencies with both copier paper and publications in metric
     sizes. For example, one of GPO's earliest metric sized products was the
     United States Passport which it continue to produce for the U.S. Department
     of State.

     Agencies are regularly informed of the availability of A-4 and other metric
     paper sizes through courses offered by the Institute for Federal Printing and
     Publishing, GPO's in-house training center for customer agency personnel.
     Moreover, in 1993 when, after more than 40 years service, GPO replaced the
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presses used to produce the Congressional Record and Federal Register, it,
with the concurrence and support of the Joint Committee on Printing, United
States Congress, specified that the new presses be configured to
accommodate metric sizes at such time as those products are desired by their
publishers.

Approximately 75-80 percent of products requisitioned through GPO are
procured from the private sector in a competitive process. Therefore, GPO has
participated with the Printing Industries of America in surveying suppliers in
an attempt to identify those capable of producing metric sized products.
Suppliers typically produce for private sector customers as well as the
government and there has been some expression of concern that the
specification of metric sized products could result in a diminution of
competition since many suppliers do not have the necessary equipment to
produce such products nor the private sector demand for metric sized products
to warrant capital investment in such equipment at this time.

I hope this information satisfactorily responds to your inquiry, and again,
thank you for your interest in this matter.

Sincerely,




M H EFM R
 C A LD A O
 I .i I
Public Printer