Last week PA Republican senator Rick Santorum proposed a bill that would prohibit federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as Surfline, AccuWeather and The Weather Channel. His proposal is that the information that we already pay for through our taxes would only be made available to corporations that would then RESELL the information you! > 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. > > "The National Weather Service has not focused on what its core mission > should be, which is protecting other people's lives and property," > said Myers, whose company is based in State College, Pa. Instead, he > said, "It spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year, every day, > producing forecasts of 'warm and sunny.'" > > Santorum made similar arguments April 14 when introducing his bill. He > also said expanded federal services threaten the livelihoods of > private weather companies. As if you can only spend money on predicting storms and not learn that, oops, some days are going to be warm and sunny. This bill is vaguely worded but it may eliminate the weather forecast available through most VHF radios, and the ability to get weather and surf forecasts online. BTW AccuWeather is based in Sen. Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania. Here's the Full text of the bill: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi? dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:s786is.txt.pdf Membership of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee http://commerce.senate.gov/about/membership.html US Senate Contact Info: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm More Information: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epaper/2005/04/21/ m1a_wx_0421.html Nick Schade Guillemot Kayaks 824 Thompson St Glastonbury, CT 06033 USA Ph/Fx: (860) 659-8847 http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Apr 27 2005 - 16:39:47 PDT
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