WEATHER ACCESS DENIED TO MILLIONS?

[RickI]

ACCESS TO FEDERAL WEATHER
INFO TO BE BANNED!!!?


http://www.nws.noaa.gov/
Get ready to kiss this goodbye ... IF Senator Richard Santorum,
(R-PA) has his way and his bill becomes law.

Santorum proposed and is trying to hammer through Senate Bill 786,
“National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005â€

[RickI]

WANT TO TRY TO PRESERVE YOUR RIGHT TO ACCESS FEDERAL WEATHER INFORMATION? SOME IDEAS FOLLOW ...


1. Sign online petitions.

PETITION #1, JUST CLICK HERE

PETITION #2, JUST CLICK HERE


2. Send letters to your State senators
(IT’S VIRTUALLY AUTOMATIC REQUIRING VERY LITTLE INPUT AND FAST!)
JUST CLICK HERE

NOTE: Email is fine but a real letter can be even more impacting. Why not print out the letters this application generates and not only mail them to your State senators but also to Senator Santorum? He needs to know that he has a lot more to worry about than a few special commercial interests.

3. Also send your letters to:

Senator Rick Santorum
511 Dirksen Senate Office Building?
Washington, DC 20510?
Main #: 202-224-6324
senator@santorum.senate.gov




*** I M P O R T A N T ***

If you know others that might be impacted by this bill, e.g. farmers, nurserymen, commercial and recreational pilots, commercial and recreational boaters, golfers, golf courses, fishing boats, baseball parks, skiers, homeowners and business owners, investors, developers, bankers and anyone else influenced by weather and forecasts, NOT JUST IN THE USA BUT WORLDWIDE (NOAA currently provides MANY valuable international weather resources), DO ALL OF US A FAVOR AND PASS THIS LINK ON.


If you have other ideas and suggestions, please let us know here. This is an important cause that effects important interests of millions of people. Make your views heard where they can do the most good.

Thanks!

[RickI]

Some folks within the USA government provided some interesting statistics on this subject:

During the last hurricane season between August 8 and September 25, 2004, there were 3.1 BILLON hits on the National Hurricane Center website. This included 312 MILLION page views.

Senator Santorum would like this to end, permanently.

USA taxpayers have ALREADY PAID for this information that has been expertly gathered, interpreted and presented. WHY would we wish to pay for it TWICE?

This is exactly what Senator Santorum, Accuweather (I understand is based in PA along with the senator) and some other commercial sites would like us to do.

The government is unfairly competiting with the private sector?
The Federal government has been in the meteo business for many decades, the private sector started working into this area in a modest way as of about the mid '70's. Who was here first and more importantly, WHO IS DOING A BETTER JOB OF IT CURRENTLY ?

Beyond that, government is usually involved in areas where human health and well being are involved. They are mandated to act in our best interests with profit not being a concern whatsoever. Does the private sector have such a constitutional mandate? Of course not, they have a mandate to make money in a legal way as any other for profit enterprize in the USA.

Trust your life and property to weather.com or accuweather.com OR simply go to the source of THEIR information first? There is a place for commercial weather services that ADD value. This should NOT be at the exclusion of vital government sources that millions have grown to rely upon both in the USA and beyond.

To find out the current status of the bill, CLICK HERE

[RickI]

I received the following response from Florida Senator Bill Nelson in response to the letter that I filed through the website at:

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?JS ... lay&id=123

"Dear Mr. Iossi:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the National Weather Service.
The weather information provided on its website is invaluable and should
not be limited.

The National Weather service is a branch of the National
Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It is the primary
source of weather data, forecasts, and warnings to the United States, and
provides information to television broadcasters and private meteorology
companies to prepare their forecasts. During the hurricane season of 2004, when Florida was being battered by Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, the National Weather Service provided valuable information throughits website to the people of Florida to help them prepare for the disaster. During these hurricanes, The National Weather Service website received billions of hits, breaking a government record previously held by NASA sites after the Mars rover landing last spring.

Legislation has been introduced that would limit the ability of the
National Weather Service to offer its information to the general public.
S. 786, the National Weather Service Duties Act, introduced on April 14,
2005, would, among other things, prevent the National Weather Service from providing weather forecasts (with the exception of severe weather warnings) to the public on its website if a private company also is capable providing this information.

I oppose the National Weather Service Duties Act because it has a
variety of negative effects. This legislation would force consumers to get
on-line weather information from commercial websites that are cluttered
with pop-up ads and invasive solicitations, even though the consumer has
already paid for the taxpayer-funded National Weather Service. It would
prevent any National Weather Service forecaster from doing a one-on-one interview with a news reporter, and could even prevent the National Weather Service from providing any service on-line that is provided by a private vendor. I have written a letter to President Bush asking that he publicly oppose this attempt to push the weather service back to its pre-Internet era and limit the public's right to access government information.

I appreciate your informed policy suggestions. Please do not
hesitate to contact me again in the future."

http://billnelson.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm#email