When you filter out all the bureaucratize all they are saying is that they
will cooperate with the commercial AND non-profit services and avoid
competing in areas outside NOAAs responsibility. In effect adding back a
less restrictive form of non-competition than in the original 1990 policy
statement.
Basically we are dealing with 3 different NOAA policy statements. (NOT
laws) The proposed new policy, the current policy and the 1990 policy. The
1990 statement says that NOAA will not compete with the private sector when
a service is currently provided or can be provided by a commercial service
unless otherwise directed by law. At that time the commercial services were
primarily providing specialized forecasts to specific industries and special
events and pretty graphics to the newspapers and TV. The were not big on
delivering general weather information to the public so the NWS provided it
via WEFax, VHF and a limited web presence.
During the next 14 years the commercial services figured out the advertising
revenues they could get from a web site, jumped into that market and started
bitching about NWS competing with them. Then in 2002 a study by the
National Science Foundation commissioned by congress really beat up the NWS
for failing to take full advantage of the web in providing weather data to
the public. NWS responded by slightly improving its web presence and
improved access to climate data and general weather facts.
In 2004 the Office of Management and Budget issued a directive that all
Federal agencies must make all their data not classified as secret easily
accessible to the public using all available technologies. NOAA was caught
between the 1990 policy statement and the constant encroachment into direct
delivery to the public by the commercial services . In response to the OMB
directive NWS in January of 2005 changed their policy statement eliminating
the non-compete clause and started to improve their web sites to make
current weather information more user friendly. That is what sent
Accuweather into such a tizzy.
While Mr. Santorum claims that all the bill does is restore the 1990 policy,
because the commercial services have moved so far into services
traditionally provided by the NWS it effectively eliminates ALL direct
access by the public to services that NWS provides.
It is important to understand that the commercial services have no desire to
privatize weather data collection. They can't possibly afford to pay for
that. They only want the NWS to give the data to them exclusively so they
can charge for it. Santorum's bill would be analogous to requiring the Post
Office to collect, sort and deliver the mail to local UPS branches for free
and so UPS could charge us for local delivery.
--
Glenn Ashmore
I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at:
http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division:
http://www.spade-anchor-us.com
wrote in message
...
You can read the old and new policy statements and make comments
on the proposed change at
It makes my eyes blurry. Can someone translate the difference into
simple english?