New Bill Would Ban Public NOAA Weather Data 567
ckokotay writes "Here we go again. Apparently for-pay weather companies (specifically Accuweather) have lobbied Senator Rick Santorum to introduce a bill to ban the National Weather Service from 'competing.' The NOAA just made data available for free on the internet in XML format. Essentially, that means no more free data, and the possible elimination of the NOAA web presence all together. Nothing like being able to buy off a clueless Senator - lets hope the rest do not fall in line, as I for one, do not like to pay for my information twice." This debate picks up where the last one left off. According to the article, the bill's biggest critics are complaining of the bill's vague wording which makes it unclear what exactly is being banned.
Sure! (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm not allowed to see the benefits of what my tax dollars are paying for, than neither should they. That means no more access to NOAA satellites and no more help paying for Kennedy Space Center and the heavy-lift rockets they need for their geosynchronus launches.
I'm feeling generous, I'll let taxpayer-funded NORAD tell them if and when Something Bad is about to happen to their satellites, but beyond that...
Without my money going to NOAA, these for-pay services would still be stuck with nothing but ground-based radar, to the point where I doubt they'd even spring to pay for off-shore buoys (where'd the profit be?). And that means things like not being able to see hurricanes until it's too late.
They shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways, but I'm sure they'll get it anyway. Thanks, Congress!
Accuweather's crusade (Score:5, Insightful)
Barry Myers, AccuWeather's executive vice president, said the bill would improve public safety by making the weather service devote its efforts to hurricanes, tsunamis and other dangers, rather than duplicating products already available from the private sector.
Ed Johnson, the weather service's director of strategic planning and policy, said:
"If someone claims that our core mission is just warning the public of hazardous conditions, that's really impossible unless we forecast the weather all the time. You don't just plug in your clock when you want to know what time it is."
And then this gem from Accuweather:
Myers argued that nearly all consumers get their weather information for free through commercial providers, including the news media, so there's little reason for the federal agency to duplicate their efforts.
"Do you really need that from the NOAA Web site?" he asked.
Um, gee, if everyone already doesn't get their weather information from the National Weather Service, then what the fuck are they so worried about? Incidentally, the stated mission [weather.gov] of the National Weather Service is:
The National Weather Service (NWS) provides weather, hydrologic, and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States, its territories, adjacent waters and ocean areas, for the protection of life and property and the enhancement of the national economy. NWS data and products form a national information database and infrastructure which can be used by other governmental agencies, the private sector, the public, and the global community.
Clear, timely, comprehensive, accurate - and now open [weather.gov] - weather forecasts are critical for many, many sectors of public and private society. The new, open formats of weather data also make its integration into myriad other services and tools trivial. It's only good for the public. I don't think Sen. Santorum realizes how critical the NWS's weather, climate, and marine data is to so many sectors of US society.
The National Weather Service is funded for this mission, among others, by the taxpayers of the United States.
I hope Rick Santorum realizes that in a world where this bill passes, there should also be a corresponding reduction of funding to the NWS, in addition to a wholesale change of its mission. In fact, what would its mission be?
The best part of all of this is that in order for the NWS to effectively be able to gather the necessary data to still predict and warn against life- and property-threatening dangers, it still has to do almost all of the continuing data collection it does now. Removing the public access to this does absolutely nothing for anyone.
Except for-profit weather forecasting providers like Accuweather, of course.
For now, at least, Johnson of the NWS notes his agency is expanding its online offerings to serve the public.
Remember, too, that a "bill" is just that. Time to remind your elected [house.gov] officials [senate.gov] of what you think...
That sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Free as in Taxes (Score:4, Insightful)
hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
Public Good (Score:5, Insightful)
The bill doesn't go far enough (Score:5, Insightful)
The Congressional part especially has a lot of merit, since I'm sure Congress would prefer that we not find out about stuff like this except as duly authorized sources see fit to pass it along.
Re:Doesn't make sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure! (Score:0, Insightful)
Americans don't want to pay "extremely" high taxes for real public services like national health care, but they have no problem paying out twice for things like this. Or even worse when our wonder elected officials hide some other agenda within a bill which most of them don't read all the way through anyway.
The last time around (Score:5, Insightful)
Add to that that other government agencies (both Federal and State) would have to staff up, duplicating the no-doubt-now-classified military work. Bottom line is that shutting down the NOAA forecast role will be a sizable net cost to the US, along with some unknown harm to both the economy and national security.
Great move, Senator.
Don't Worry (Score:5, Insightful)
Write to your senator then! (Score:5, Insightful)
What can you say to this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps we can we expect Senator Santorum to next intervene on behalf of the unjustifiably repressed legions of private firefighters, police, water safety testers, and maintainers of roads?
After all, it's hard to compete in the market when the government does it for free!
This is also a good time to mention Spreading Santorum, a personal crusade by the advice columnist Dan Savage to popularize the use of the word 'santorum' to describe a (mostly) gay sex act, with the intention of embarrassing the anti-gay senator: spreadingsantorum.com [spreadingsantorum.com]
Re:Accuweather's crusade (Score:5, Insightful)
IMO, the NWS is one of the few examples of a sucessful government entity. I think this is one of those examples, like the military, that a public agency is far superior than a for-profit corporation.
Hold on... (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with the AC. Stop them from gaining access to all the government satellites if they feel that the government is competing with them!
What? effing morons.. (Score:2, Insightful)
My last home got destroyed by hurricane Charley. I have NOAA/NWS to thank for giving me the data I needed to make a decision to take what was important and LEAVE. I got to study (and freak out over) model-generated charts, tables of probabilities, storm surge/pressure data from off-shore buoys and a host of other stuff. The Weather Channel had static pics that
This prick wants to make me have a harder time next year? For the gain of WHO ?
Re:Sure! (Score:5, Insightful)
The notion that all the companies whose existence is indebted to NOAA would lobby for something like this just makes my head hurt.
Re:Contact the senator (Score:5, Insightful)
What you should do is write your local newspapers. Editors are always looking for well-written commentary. Anything that stirs up the shit a little bit is a bonus (and that isn't hard to do when writing about politics). Write something insightful and get it in front of thousands of readers. That is the only way you'll get the attention of these bought-and-paid-for congress critters. Turn the heat up a bit and they'll be less likely to try to slip something like this under the radar again.
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, his replacement.
Re:The proper response... (Score:3, Insightful)
Suggestion for editors: when an article concerns allegedly pending legislation, don't approve it unless you have a damned reference for it. If we could read the fucking proposed language, we could comment more intelligently on it.
Re:Accuweather's crusade (Score:5, Insightful)
But that's the thing: companies like Accuweather would love to launch their own private commercial satellites and provide the data themselves, for a fee. The net result would be a focus on profitable ventures, an attentiveness to urban and densely populated areas (i.e., those who will pay), and complete ignorance of rural areas and major swaths of the country (except where profitable for, e.g., commercial food growers).
Sure weather providers may get some data from government-operated satellites now. They just want to legislatively cripple the agencies that administer them, and their data, so that they control it all themselves. A few hundred million dollars to launch some satellites is nothing if they're guaranteed a corner on the market for crucial information.
My own private SENATE .... (Score:5, Insightful)
The next logical step is simply to privatize the Senate, and ban competing government organizations.
After all, private lobbyists ALREADY write legislation, conduct research and collect money.
What do we need a government-run Senate for?
It isnt free (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporate control of this country is sickening.
Re:My own private army... (Score:4, Insightful)
NOAA collects all kinds of weather data. NOAA is paid for by my tax dollars. Therefore, I pay for that weather data.
Right now I can get online and look at said weather data for free. I've also been able to get that very same weather data over radio via a system called EMWINS.
This new bill would prevent me from getting access to the weather data I've already paid for (with my taxes) until I pay another entity (Accuweather was mentioned) for it...AGAIN.
Why should AccuWeather make money by giving me access to data I've already paid for? I would think public records type laws would come into play here.
Re:XML (Score:3, Insightful)
...and that will print out
Now personally I think that's pretty nifty. Sorry it doesn't use NOAAs services directly; I haven't checked what they are.
That said, I have to admit that while there's boatloads of XML behind all that, there's nothing special about XML that made it possible: All that descriptor tagsoup could have been done just as well with LISP s-expressions.
Re:Accuweather's crusade (Score:3, Insightful)
Would someone please tell me WHY these people continue to get elected? Is half the population of the U.S. just completely blind and ignorant to the damage these guys are doing to our country? It's one thing to be pro-business. I love business. I love money. It's what makes the world tick. I write stock-trading software for a living, for bejeezus sake. Money is my lifeblood. But it's a completely other thing to be so pro-business that you completely destroy everything else and people like Santorum and his fellow hard-line conservatives are doing just that.
I'd rather see a Congress full of 100 moderate Republicans than a Congress of 99 Democrats and one Santorum, Frist or DeLay. Today's Republican party is a crock.
They could, but that's not the point (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that many places aren't doing that. The procedure says, "Check the NOAA website for..." That's where the cost is represented. And it's not an insignificant cost and it's easy to show how expensive it is.
Combine that with the general argument that the government-gathered weather data is government property and thusly subject to standard information disclosure rules, and you're going to have a hard time getting this bill to go anywhere.
Re:It isnt free (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:My own private army... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm. Lets see.
-Pulic schools compete with private schools.
-Free health clinics compete with paid medical service.
-Police departments compete with private security and private investigation.
-The US Postal Service competes with UPS and FedEx
-Community theatre competes with Broadway
Interesting facts about these services:
1.In several of these activities, such as schools and the police, the stated goals of the public organization is to offer services at least as good as their private conterparts, but for no cost whatsoever to the consumer of the service.
2.Despite this, private enterprise actually makes quite a lot of money with their services, primarily by offering superior products.
I don't see what these folks are arguing about... unless their argument is that they don't know how to compete with beaurocratic government drones.
TW
"Private Security Contractors" (Score:3, Insightful)
'Private Security Contractor' is just a politically correct term for 'Mercenary'. There are already a host of beltway bandit, er um... I mean 'freedom loving free enterpise institutions' already doing this.
Too bad mercenaries have no vested interest in peace
Re:My own private army... (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, are you living under the illusion that the police are charged with the responsibility of providing you with the same degree of personal security that Bill Gates can purchase with his billions?
Seriously??
Re:Sure! (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Is a hurricane going to strike soon? Pay or die... (Score:3, Insightful)
I do not think it is a reasonable idea to pay for access to this required information. This information is a type of 'raw feed'. People can go to the commercial sites for the hyped-up, chicken little, 'we'er all gonna die!' media show.
This smells like another insane party politic trick. Get NOAA to stop publishing, then do away with the NOAA & the NWS. Privatize weather forecasting. All lies, no liability. Gotta love what corporations are doing to politics and our government.
Letter to my senator (Score:2, Insightful)
Senator Rick Santorum introduced thre National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005 with the purpose of restoring the NWS non-competition policy.
Please oppose this bill.
The NWS and NOAA provide a valuable service to everyday citizens. Their no cost to access weather forcasts - with unparralled granularity - and other weather data are wonderful resources. I use them on a weekly basis. I also subscribe to a commercial weather service, Weather Underground, for the value added services it provides. Both have their place in the world. It would be a loss to Americans if the services now provided by the NOAA web presence were legislated out of existance.
Indeed. (Score:3, Insightful)
If your company cannot exist without handouts from the government, then your company does not deserve to exist. This bill is totally justified, the government should not be in the business of competing with corporations.
I guess so. I do believe, however, that if you apply that reasoning to the companies pushing for the bill to be passed, then they should not be getting any access to government resources (which they currently receive). After all, in a free market no one corporation should get special help from the government!
Re:"Private Security Contractors" (Score:1, Insightful)
And how about you have a nice warm cup of shut the fuck up.. the OP has a right to voice his/her opinion. Those guys were there to do a RISKY job on contract. Unlike most of the current active duty and reserve military personnel involved (who enlisted BEFORE this farce and just MAY have had patriotic motivations) they (Blackwater folks) took their chances and lost the bet.
Re:Accuweather's crusade (Score:1, Insightful)
2x/3x daily forecast discussions from each and every NWS office in the nation, multiple types of discussions multiple times per day from the HPC, SPC, CPC and NHC among others don't count? There are 10-20 daily discussions from the big centers alone, to say nothing of the forecast discussions from the NWS offices. InaccuWeather doesn't have forecast offices in every corner of the US. NWS does.
-longer radar loops... more convenient
I agree. Fortunately, you can get longer radar loops from a host of free sites as well (universities usually provide some great data). You can even get historical data for free!
-more accurate forecasts
I sure hope you aren't referring to those produced by Joe Bastardi, for example. NWS does pretty darn good, at least around here, and you know that a dedicated team of meteorologists produced your local forecast, not some overworked fresh-out-of-college 25 year old up in Pennsylvania, or worse, a crappy weather model (*cough* GFS *cough*).
-NOAA doesn't do real-time alerts
No? Could have fooled me. Alerts show up pretty damn fast on the website and I believe you can get them emailed to you. Also, perhaps you forget that the emergency broadcast messages are triggered by, guess who? NOAA/NWS, not AccuWeather.
-Accuweather tends to shy away from the aggravating probability model... (what does "40% chance of X mean?")
Somebody's been reading too much Joe Bastardi, I see. The NWS/NOAA uses sophisticated methods to grade forecasts, whereas Joe Bastardi/AccuWeather have some sort of pseudo-subject "looks good enough" A/B/C/D/F grading scale that usually comes out in JB's favor no matter how much he blows the forecast.
Public Safety/Economic Issue (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason weather data is made available to the public is because it enables the public to go about their business in a safer manner that is planned around the obstacles that weather tosses in the way.
From commercial passenger and freight aircraft, ships, and other forms of commercial transit, to the commuter just trying to get to work, free weather data from NOAA is an essential part of the economy.
Shall we require pilots to subscribe to AccuWeather in order to know the weather forecast for their flight path? I think not.
Normally, I'm not a fan of the government doing what private business can do, but NOAA has become essential to public infrastructure. It's not a perfect analogy, but you wouldn't let a for-profit private company run the (armed) police department, while it may be perfectly appropriate for private companies to provide *additional* security services on top of what the public provides through the police.
Start writing your representatives and Senators now.
This is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Public tax money pays for this weather data to be collected. The public has the RIGHT to access this information, because they've already PAID FOR IT.
If a private company can not survive doing "value-add" with this free information, then that company does not deserve to exist. Plain and simple. You can't ban that information from being free and then charge people for it!
There are only two ways to procede with this problem. Either the government stops spending tax money recording the weather information, leaving the corporations to set up and maintain their own weather stations, or the entire board of directors of AccuWeather is drawn and quartered. Either one is fine with me.
Re:My own private army... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but AccuWeather is by far the most INACCURATE weather service I've ever seen. When I see some TV news channel touting their AccuWeather forecast, I know I might as well change the channel, because if their forecast CAN be wrong, it WILL be.
Point being, if the only way to get NOAA data is secondhand, filtered through some commercial forecaster of dubious competence, people who rely on accurate weather forecasting are going to suffer for it.
As an alternative bill, I suggest that commercial entities like AccuWeather be required to gather their own data, at their own expense, and be forbidden from using taxpayer-funded services like NOAA.
Answer to: "WHY do these people get elected?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Santorum represents Pennsylvania, and AccuWeather is headquartered in Pennsylvania. If AccuWeather makes more money, Pennsylvania voters have more money in their pockets, and they will naturally be inclined to re-elect the guy who made it happen.
Politicians want votes. Voters want pork.
And that's your answer.
what a load of crap (Score:2, Insightful)
or that the government shouldn't provide a police/military to taxpayers because it puts private bodyguards/mercenaries at an unfair disadvantage.
what a load of BS... where does it stop? very few slashdot articles actually have enough stupid people in them to piss me off, this one has a senator...
Re:"Private Security Contractors" (Score:1, Insightful)
Bottom line, these people are professionals doing a job. If the job is training soldiers for Third World Regimes, suborning or toppling those regimes or doing the unofficial work that the government doesn't want traced back to their doorstep. So be it! IT'S A BLOODY JOB!!
Re:My own private army... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the same motivation behind everything from this to copyright and patent extensions. Many private enterprises are not interested in competing anymore. It's not very profitable and it's a lot more hard work than getting your very own exception to free market rules.
Expect further attempts to kill any competition with legislative means as we exit the age of scarcity and prices should be dropping like rocks all over the board, not just in a few spots.
Re:Sure! (Score:2, Insightful)
But why do they lobby? Why does anyone attempt to bribe government? Because it works.
With that said, government is the root of the problem. You can't really blame the lobbyists for playing by the rules, when the rules are corrupt and designed to be exploited in the first place. Everyone wants a piece of the big government pie, but remember why the pie exists in the first place: because government made it so. Government holds the keys, not the lobbyists.
Re:Accuweather's crusade (Score:3, Insightful)
Weather forecasting doesn't work that way. It's not like the Rural Electrification Program.
Residents of dense cities want to know if will be raining next Saturday or not. To predict that, meteorologists don't want sensors aimed just at the city- they need to know conditions all around the continent (and beyond), to model large-scale weather patterns.
Consider the relative population density of Manhattan Island and the rest of New York state (called "upstate"). Then ask yourself if the city dwellers pay any attention to radar images of precipitation clouds over the less populated regions, especially if the wind is aiming it towards them.
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
I cant belive weather compines would be so stupid. (Score:2, Insightful)
they use the SAME weather data (NEXRAD NWS radars) that we do.
Re:Sure! (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with everything but that. I take it you don't live in Tornado Alley, where even 5 minutes of notice that a storm has developed a hook is enough to save quite a few lives. Doppler won't help a bit with 7-day forecasts, but it's really really nice to be able to see exactly where the bad parts of an approaching storm are relative to where I am so I can forecast whether I'm going to die within the next 10 minutes.