Since the passage of the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995, government has by law taken a back seat to the private sector in standards development. For years, the national interest has been well-served by the “bottom up” standards development process mandated by the NTTAA. The advent of globalization and the need to implement policies dependent on the development of complex, cross-sectoral standards profiles, however, indicates that the public-private partnership institutionalized by the NTTAA needs to be rebalanced.