Aviation Forum / General / IFR / April 2005

Storm over weather service initiatives
Santorum bill would protect private forecast firms

Tuesday, April 26, 2005
By Maeve Reston, Post-Gazette National Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Rick Santorum has introduced legislation that would
limit the information that the National Weather Service can provide to
the public, in what the Pennsylvania Republican's aides describe as an
effort to make sure that private weather companies -- particularly
those in his home state -- can compete in the marketplace and retain
jobs.

Santorum's legislation directs the U.S. secretary of commerce to limit
the National Weather Service's offerings to just those services that
private-sector weather companies cannot or are unwilling to offer --
unless the information is related to "severe weather forecasts and
warnings designed for the protection of life and property" or
information that the government must provide under international
aviation accords.

Some have criticized the legislation as a giveaway primarily intended
to help Pennsylvania-based AccuWeather, whose employees have
contributed to Santorum's campaign fund. But a spokeswoman for the
senator dismissed that assertion as being without merit.

Foes of the legislation view the bill as a major change to the role
the National Weather Service plays, one that could drastically
restrict free information for the public as well as airplane pilots
and farmers, who are among some 6 million people who each day access
weather service data on the Web pages of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.

The legislation "could be read to say that it prohibits the National
Weather Service from providing any services online that are available
from private vendors," said Chris Dancy, director of media relations
for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. "The National Weather
Service provides weather data online and through a number of other
outlets that are vital to the safety of all flight. ... Everyone needs
to at least start on the same page with the same basic information."

Staff members for Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat from hurricane-prone
Florida, said they were already working to prevent Santorum's bill
from even coming out of committee. Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin
said that during four hurricanes last year, many Floridians depended
on National Weather Service data for information that ranged beyond
emergency warnings.

"The legislation appears to be aimed at restricting or closing off a
free information service for consumers and, in turn, benefiting one or
two big companies that sell weather forecasts and other information,"
McLaughlin said.

"For Pete's sake, no one suggests shutting down the post office
because FedEx has a system of delivery," McLaughlin said. But private
weather companies have argued that the legislation is necessary to
protect their rights in the marketplace. One of the companies
advocating for the bill is AccuWeather in State College, Pa., whose
employees have contributed at least $5,500 to Santorum since 1999,
according to Federal Election Commission reports. AccuWeather also
provides weather data to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and
post-gazette.com.

Individuals who identified themselves in FEC reports as AccuWeather
employees also contributed at least $2,250 to Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen
Specter. A Specter aide yesterday said his staff was reviewing
Santorum's legislation but had not yet taken a position about it.

Until December 2004, the National Weather Service -- which falls under
the purview of NOAA, which is part of the Commerce Department -- has
been guided by a series of agreements designed to make sure that the
federal agency does not compete with private firms, which use National
Weather Service data to provide their own specialized services.

But late last year, NOAA argued that the agency's most recent policy
about competition -- known as the 1991 public-private partnership
policy -- was too strict in delineating the roles of the weather
service with regard to private companies. The agency then dropped that
policy as "untenable" because "there may be good public-policy
reasons" for the weather service to provide some services that the
private sector could also offer.

The private companies saw that stance as a sign that the National
Weather Service might endanger their businesses by expanding into new
areas with competing products or offerings.

"What we see [the National Weather Service] doing is providing
specialized information for business and industry, commercial users
within society, products and services that the public, really, itself
doesn't need," said AccuWeather Executive Vice President Barry Myers.

Providing generalized public information that parallels the private
firms' services is "not the function of our government," Myers said,
"and I don't think you'll find any other agency in the U.S. government
that does that kind of thing."

The pre-2004 weather service policies on competition led to "the
entire explosion of weather information in the United States and gives
us probably the best weather available to the public anywhere in the
world," Myers contended. He argued that Santorum's bill was a
necessary measure to put back in place a firm anti-competition policy
for the federal agency.