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Should Taxpayers Pay Twice For Weather Data?
theodp writes "Thanks to O.M.B. Circular A-130, taxpayers now enjoy free access to SEC, Patent Office, and IRS data over the Internet. Now the Bush administration must decide whether to order the National Weather Service to make taxpayer-funded weather readings freely available on the Net, ignoring complaints from an industry trade group that doing so violates pre-Internet era agreements."
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Step 2 is dead people.
Australia does this. The result is lots of dead pilots and boaters every year because they didn't pay the money to get the services they need. The result is that other people end up paying far more for everything since the gov't is being too cheap.
This implies, but doesn't state clearly, that its information should be made easily available to all
What I don't get is what exactly the NWS provides to the commercial weather services, and what exactly the companies do that they believe is being "duplicated" by the government.
My understanding was that the NWS simply collects raw data and feeds it to the companies. The companies do not actually collect weather data independently. Prior to the new rules, the NWS data was only available to said companies, which packaged it up with fancy graphics or some such nonsense. Now, anyone can download the data and set up their own service. Is this all true?
So, if the NWS is making fancy weather websites (and hence, directly competing with the companies), I agree that this might not be entirely fair (although I've seen this argument extended too far on occasion). On the other hand, if some random private individual wants to set up their own website to interpret the public data, what possible argument is there against this? I'm not clear on what exactly the industry association is objecting too - it sounds like a combination of both cases.
I found a Wired article from last month that made it a little clearer:
"Weather-industry companies were promoting the idea that the government restrict special interests that have the ability to pay for the data -- like Major League Baseball teams or citrus growers -- from acquiring it for free, [some weather company honcho] said."
That sounds like bullshit to me. Why should private companies be discriminated against? They're taxpayers too, at least in theory. The government shouldn't force them to go through some hideously expensive service to get the same info that the public receives for free. (Actually, though, this practice is unfortunately very common in academic sciences, largely as a way for universities to supplement their grant income.)
You could argue that the government shouldn't be in the business of collecting weather data at all - although I think there's a very strong case for the NWS even for libertarian types, since the primary role of government should be to protect our lives and property. So, assuming the NWS is a justified agency, there's no possible case for restricting access to the data to a few private companies.
Is this slashdot.org or slashdot.org.us?
Don't assume "taxpayer" is well defined, 'cos it aint. Only some of us live in the USA.
Weather kills far more people in the US than foreign aggression. It is national defense (heck, NOAA even has their own uniformed, commissioned corps), just not defending from what you're too short-sighted to think of.
I'm a student studying meteorology. I've got a lot of data and software available to me when I'm at school that simply isn't available when I'm not there. It's frustrating to search for certain data and find that it's unavailable.
The private weather industry reached an agreement with the NWS before the internet that defined the seperation between the two. There were certain things that private industry would not do that the government would. It set the responsibilities for both. However, with advances in technology and lower costs, private weather can perform many tasks that the government legitimately does. Thus, NOAA believes it's time to redefine the boundary between the two. Presumably this would allow for some overlap.
Government has always been responsible for things such as soundings, radars, and issuing watches and warnings. There's many other things the NWS does as well. NOAA has attempted to make data available to the public whenever possible. For example, you can get a lot of radar data shortly after it's received from a NOAA ftp site. This is a good thing.
The way I see it is private industry has spent lots of money investing in things the NWS already does. Instead of just accepting this, they want to make money by taking over things that are normally done by the government and reducing the government's role.
Research is rarely profitable in the short term. It's an investment. Research in the meteorological community is ongoing. Constantly, work is being done to improve the data collected, our understanding of the weather, and the methods used to analyze the data. By taking things such as radar out of the hands of the government, we sacrifice the research that is currently being done. Remember, private industry isn't going to make the investment in research that the government is. After all, research doesn't make a profit quickly and doesn't impress investors.
IMHO, private industry is overstepping their bounds here. They're infringing into things the government already does. And they're pretending to be the victims in this.
If private industry gets their way, everyone who doesn't have a financial stake in this loses.