Scientific errors resulting from unit conversions are costly and learning two system of measurement places unnecessary burden on aspiring engineers and inconveniences collaboration with their foreign contemporaries. Our transition to the metric system is long overdue. Many university level engineering programs still teach English units.
A more direct approach to solving this problem would be to require that the metric system be taught in primary schools but as that is an issue for the states let's do what we can at the Federal level to encourage the change. Requiring that all patents submitted to the USPTO use metric units could be a nudge in the right direction.