Congress must reject the
Pro Codes Act
After being rejected by Congress twice before, the Pro Codes Act is rapidly being pushed through Congress without careful review or appropriate oversight.
As written, the bill mandates that Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) including the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) or the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers would have to make standards available for free online – while special interests make this seem like a positive, it would force SDOs to forfeit their copyrights or strip them entirely of their ability to generate revenue.
The consequences? Putting the entire standards-writing industry in jeopardy and risking American public safety and national security.
This rushed, misguided, ill-informed legislation will imperil a system that’s worked for generations and kept millions of Americans out of harm’s way. It’s a clear-cut example of a government taking of private intellectual property, and it’s an unnecessary overreach that would lead to an additional financial burden on federal agencies and American taxpayers.
Congress must pump the brakes now and consider its disastrous unintended consequences.
“The Pro Codes Act is a sweeping overreach that undermines the legal foundation of American intellectual property and jeopardizes the standards system that has safeguarded public safety and innovation for over a century. This bill serves a narrow business model, while threatening the entire system that supports millions of engineers and protects critical infrastructure across the country.”
We are the technical experts who keep Americans safe
Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) are nonprofit private organizations that act as a vital public service. In the late 19th century, SDOs including ASME emerged in response to worsening engineering failures that cost countless lives as a result of the lack of industry-wide standards that would keep people safe.
This standards development system has worked for decades, providing health and safety codes and standards for the most integral components of our society from transportation systems and robotics to the construction of nuclear power plants.
The Pro Codes Act will destroy this time-tested, carefully balanced system.
The loss of American SDOs on the world stage will leave American standards creation in the hands of governments in China or Russia, enabling them to shape global standards in ways that weaken U.S. competitiveness and national security. And making the technical standards of our key infrastructure publicly available risks adversaries disrupting our cybersecurity or military technology.
Everyone – no matter who you are – should be gravely concerned about this bill’s potential impacts on American public safety and national security.
“I’m proud to work in Texas’s energy industry – we’re part of what makes this state strong. The standards we follow aren’t just paperwork, they’re what keep our people safe and our industry thriving. If Washington, D.C. starts giving our standards away for free, we’ll feel the consequences out here.”
