US senate bill to shut down the National Weather Service: Updated

Created by doina. Last modified on 2005-09-16 11:09:47
Contributors:
Topic: Weather
Countries: USA

Following Noonsite's publication of the following news item, we have received information with a link to US Senator Rick Santorum's own website defending his bill and stating that it will in fact strengthen US taxpayer's access to weather information. This is a complicated issue and not one Noonsite has the resources to investigate: anyone interested should read the following link to make up their own mind: http://santorum.senate.gov

US Senator Rick Santorum has introduced a bill which would prevent the National Weather Service from offering any information to the public, other than emergency alerts. Private companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel would still be able to obtain all their daily weather information from NOAA for free and in turn then sell continuous weather updates to the public for a fee.

The reasoning behind this move is prompted by the fact that the NWS has recently started publishing more user-friendly info on the internet. The proposed bill would ban the NWS from "competing" with private entities by making it unlawful for the agency to publish user-friendly weather data.

Concerned US sailors are urged to contact their Senators to protest against the legislation. The Boatus.com website provides a sample letter at http://www.boatus.com/gov/Sample786ltr.doc