Gary
En-Route
Lo and behold, I received a response from Senator Santorum concerning the National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005. Quite frankly, I still do not understand Sen. Santorum’s position on this or why the bill even needs to be introduced. I think there are far more important matters to be taken up by the Senate than delineating the market place for private weather providers.
My read is that since Accu-weather is based in State College PA, Accu-weather is a contributor to Sen Santorum’s campaign, and they wish to expand their own market, they have prevailed to Senator Santorum to restrict the activities of the National Weather Service.
Sen. Santorum justifies his position by stating that weather services will not change (nor can the NWS expand their services), that the NWS resources should be spent elseware, and that the CORE responsibilities of the NWS is providing severe weather forecasts and most importantly, “several hundred Pennsylvanians will keep their job”! I have some real problems with the way Sen. Santorum evaluates the role of the NWS. To restrict the ability of the NWS to provide expanded services (some of which probably haven’t yet been invented) in the interest of allowing private industry to increase their own market share is just plain wrong!
Sen Santorum mentions that the NWS is seeking to duplicate services already provided, and doing nothing will threaten the dissemination of quality weather services now free to most consumers. No idea of what he’s referring to.
To me this bill is nothing more than a payback to a contributor to his campaign and will do nothing to improve weather information dissemination or forecasting.
If Accu-weather can successfully compete with the NWS and provide better quality information or forecasts… well go ahead. Most of the raw data comes from the NWS anyway and if the consumer wishes to pay for a private opinion, go for it. But to restrict the activities of the NWS is a bad idea.
My read is that since Accu-weather is based in State College PA, Accu-weather is a contributor to Sen Santorum’s campaign, and they wish to expand their own market, they have prevailed to Senator Santorum to restrict the activities of the National Weather Service.
Sen. Santorum justifies his position by stating that weather services will not change (nor can the NWS expand their services), that the NWS resources should be spent elseware, and that the CORE responsibilities of the NWS is providing severe weather forecasts and most importantly, “several hundred Pennsylvanians will keep their job”! I have some real problems with the way Sen. Santorum evaluates the role of the NWS. To restrict the ability of the NWS to provide expanded services (some of which probably haven’t yet been invented) in the interest of allowing private industry to increase their own market share is just plain wrong!
Sen Santorum mentions that the NWS is seeking to duplicate services already provided, and doing nothing will threaten the dissemination of quality weather services now free to most consumers. No idea of what he’s referring to.
To me this bill is nothing more than a payback to a contributor to his campaign and will do nothing to improve weather information dissemination or forecasting.
If Accu-weather can successfully compete with the NWS and provide better quality information or forecasts… well go ahead. Most of the raw data comes from the NWS anyway and if the consumer wishes to pay for a private opinion, go for it. But to restrict the activities of the NWS is a bad idea.
