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New Bill Would Ban Public NOAA Weather Data
ckokotay writes "Here we go again. Apparently for-pay weather companies (specifically Accuweather) have lobbied Senator Rick Santorum to introduce a bill to ban the National Weather Service from 'competing.' The NOAA just made data available for free on the internet in XML format. Essentially, that means no more free data, and the possible elimination of the NOAA web presence all together. Nothing like being able to buy off a clueless Senator - lets hope the rest do not fall in line, as I for one, do not like to pay for my information twice." This debate picks up where the last one left off. According to the article, the bill's biggest critics are complaining of the bill's vague wording which makes it unclear what exactly is being banned.
Once the bill motors through the Senate and House, and has the signature of the prez (Hey, the GOP loves private businesses, right?) I'll be able to direct when and where war actually takes place.
This should undoubtably improve my popularity gasp and maybe get me a gulp date with that cutie gosh I've had my eye on for a while!
Ok, Kim's check bounced, you can invade now.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
... just as soon as they build their own space launch facilities.
If I'm not allowed to see the benefits of what my tax dollars are paying for, than neither should they. That means no more access to NOAA satellites and no more help paying for Kennedy Space Center and the heavy-lift rockets they need for their geosynchronus launches.
I'm feeling generous, I'll let taxpayer-funded NORAD tell them if and when Something Bad is about to happen to their satellites, but beyond that...
Without my money going to NOAA, these for-pay services would still be stuck with nothing but ground-based radar, to the point where I doubt they'd even spring to pay for off-shore buoys (where'd the profit be?). And that means things like not being able to see hurricanes until it's too late.
They shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways, but I'm sure they'll get it anyway. Thanks, Congress!
In response to:
Barry Myers, AccuWeather's executive vice president, said the bill would improve public safety by making the weather service devote its efforts to hurricanes, tsunamis and other dangers, rather than duplicating products already available from the private sector.
Ed Johnson, the weather service's director of strategic planning and policy, said:
"If someone claims that our core mission is just warning the public of hazardous conditions, that's really impossible unless we forecast the weather all the time. You don't just plug in your clock when you want to know what time it is."
And then this gem from Accuweather:
Myers argued that nearly all consumers get their weather information for free through commercial providers, including the news media, so there's little reason for the federal agency to duplicate their efforts.
"Do you really need that from the NOAA Web site?" he asked.
Um, gee, if everyone already doesn't get their weather information from the National Weather Service, then what the fuck are they so worried about? Incidentally, the stated mission of the National Weather Service is:
The National Weather Service (NWS) provides weather, hydrologic, and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States, its territories, adjacent waters and ocean areas, for the protection of life and property and the enhancement of the national economy. NWS data and products form a national information database and infrastructure which can be used by other governmental agencies, the private sector, the public, and the global community.
Clear, timely, comprehensive, accurate - and now open - weather forecasts are critical for many, many sectors of public and private society. The new, open formats of weather data also make its integration into myriad other services and tools trivial. It's only good for the public. I don't think Sen. Santorum realizes how critical the NWS's weather, climate, and marine data is to so many sectors of US society.
The National Weather Service is funded for this mission, among others, by the taxpayers of the United States.
I hope Rick Santorum realizes that in a world where this bill passes, there should also be a corresponding reduction of funding to the NWS, in addition to a wholesale change of its mission. In fact, what would its mission be?
The best part of all of this is that in order for the NWS to effectively be able to gather the necessary data to still predict and warn against life- and property-threatening dangers, it still has to do almost all of the continuing data collection it does now. Removing the public access to this does absolutely nothing for anyone.
Except for-profit weather forecasting providers like Accuweather, of course.
For now, at least, Johnson of the NWS notes his agency is expanding its online offerings to serve the public.
Remember, too, that a "bill" is just that. Time to remind your elected officials of what you think...
here
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Seriously: tough luck to weather companies! If this is a public service for Americans given by their government, then the American public should be allowed to use that service. Considering they paid for it with their taxes, I don't see how this bill could be passed!
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
He is an extremley conservative senator, and so Dan Savage of Savage Love decided to name something horrible after him and try to overtake Santorum's official site as the number one site on Google. He succeeded... Hilarity Ensued. Check it out!
http://www.pterrys.com
Uh...free? I think I just paid for some of that data. Maybe Accuweather could compete the old fashioned way--in the marketplace.
the Weather Channel is asking cable companies to add a surcharge based on the number of windows in a subscriber's household, to recoup lost revenues due to subscriber's looking outside to see what the weather is like...
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
If accuweather is so concerned about the national weather service undermining private companies, this bill should also forbid the national weather service from providing their data to accuweather itself. By providing all this data to accuweather, they are undercutting the ability of private comapnies to set up their own weather monitoring instruments and SELL the data to accuweather.
Well Senator M-O-D Santorum had better hurry up and pass the bill because he is about to have his lunch handed to him in his 2006 relection efforts:
8 65
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/21/11132/9
He's dropping faster than a rock so if this bill is stalled or set aside Accuweather will have to find some other "go to" guy...
Not that would be too difficuly unfornataly...
Santorum is "analubepoo"
Accuweather does.
Why would anyone pay for accuweather's data if they can get the (probably) superior data from the NWS?
They're also based in the same state that has elected this blight on Congress.
Dad gummit. I PAID for NOAA....with my TAXES. I have EVERY right under FOIA to all that data. The nly reason this is being brought up is the Accuweathers, the DTN's and to a lesser extent, the Weather Channels of the world.
Gorkman
Clearly you're being rhetorical, but I'll fire off a response anyway:
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The Congressional part especially has a lot of merit, since I'm sure Congress would prefer that we not find out about stuff like this except as duly authorized sources see fit to pass it along.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Santorum (n.)
1. That frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.
2. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)
...write him a letter or give him a call:
Santorum, Rick- (R - PA) Class I
511 DIRKSEN
SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6324
Web Form: santorum.senate.gov/contactform.cfm
Source
Accuweather is headquartered in Pennsylvania. And Santorum is a senator from PA. I mean, come on, what are the odds of that? ;)
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Here's the text of S. 786. Thankfully, no co-sponsors yet. Here's hoping that most Congresspeople see this bill for what it is - lunacy.
Seems like if a bunch of us got pissed off enough we could simply throw together some weather stations and provide RSS feeds through a single private web site for free.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The government should just get out of the information business. The free market is the best way to ensure that we get the most unbiased information.
Test 1 2 3 4
I think I have a new sig...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Add to that that other government agencies (both Federal and State) would have to staff up, duplicating the no-doubt-now-classified military work. Bottom line is that shutting down the NOAA forecast role will be a sizable net cost to the US, along with some unknown harm to both the economy and national security.
Great move, Senator.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Aviators everywhere depend on NOAA for weather all the time and AOPA will never let this bill get passed. AOPA has a long history of protecting the citizens from stupid laws like this so I'm not worried at all.
I wonder this will include GOES satellite data. This will be a major blow to me becuase I run my school's weather center. This is stupid if you ask me? Hopefully this won't spell the end for the NWS.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
Workaround: Learn to read FAA weather reports. It will be a little difficuly to take away access through that channel.
Seriously, either write to them or call them up explaining that you are about to go out of business because of this proposed bill. Unless they know about you (they most likely won't), then they won't be able to lob this little bomb on Rick Santorum, who then will be unable to say that his bill is designed to protect businesses. After all, it's a bit hard to say this when other senators are giving examples of companies his bill will put out of business!
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
"It is not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers, subscribers or investors when the government is providing similar products and services for free," Santorum said.
Perhaps we can we expect Senator Santorum to next intervene on behalf of the unjustifiably repressed legions of private firefighters, police, water safety testers, and maintainers of roads?
After all, it's hard to compete in the market when the government does it for free!
This is also a good time to mention Spreading Santorum, a personal crusade by the advice columnist Dan Savage to popularize the use of the word 'santorum' to describe a (mostly) gay sex act, with the intention of embarrassing the anti-gay senator: spreadingsantorum.com
You should definitely check out the official spin on this:
Santorum Proposes to Modernize National Weather Service to Better Serve Public
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Halliburton has beat you to it (and might hold the patent).
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Just so everyone understands, we here at NOAA provide many other products and services that have nothing to do with the National Weather Service. Check out noaa.gov to see the eight major areas of work, of which weather is just one. :)
Now, I only worked (past tense) for the NZ MetSvc for 10 months so I've probably got this stuff wrong. :)
o c
My understanding is that by agreement national weather services share data with each other without charge - other than data distribution charges.
If the US started to charge for this, they might run into problems with (say) the UKMO.
It is standard practice for met organisations to make their model data freely available, Environment Canada does this:
http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/grib/index_e.html
The WMO lays it out pretty clearly:
http://www.wmo.ch/web/pla/Res40Cg-XII.d
If the US govt decides not to offer XML anymore, that's fine, they'll probably have to provide the grib... Grib is a lot bigger than the XML...
Google for "free grib data". GRIB is the file format used by the computer models.
So, if we really wanted to, we could parse the GRIB data and relay it as XML for everyone else.
Jason Pollock
I actually had an Accuweather account for years, dial-up (paid for long distance bill plus $10 per month). I stopped using it once weather via internet (both gopher and later http) became available because the internet product provided vastly more information (like satellite .gif images, radar maps) and in a much more usable format. The cost was only secondary. Remind me again, how will this bill better serve the public?
Our constitution defines treason as aiding and abetting the enemy. Clearly our greatest enemies are the corporations. I call for Santorum to be tried as a traitor. If he is convicted, he should be sentenced as harshly as possible.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Ewww! santorum..
Starsucks
We see the following seemingly contradictory clauses:
XXX
(b) COMPETITION WITH PRIVATE SECTOR- The National Weather Service shall not provide, or assist other entities in providing, a service or product (other than a service or product described in subsection (a)(1)(A)) that is or could be provided by the private sector unless--
(1) the Secretary determines that the private sector is unwilling or unable to provide such service or product; or
(2) the United States Government is obligated to provide such service or product under international aviation agreements to provide meteorological services and exchange meteorological information.
(c) ISSUANCE OF DATA, FORECASTS, AND WARNINGS- All data, information, guidance, forecasts, and warnings received, collected, created, or prepared by the National Weather Service shall, to the maximum extent practicable, be issued in real time, and without delay, in a manner that ensures that all members of the public have the opportunity for simultaneous and equal access to such data, information, guidance, forecasts, and warnings.
XXX
Don't compete, but you have to inform the public, "without delay" in a way that the public "have the opportunity for simultaneous and equal access to such data, information, guidance, forecasts, and warnings."
Hmmmm.
The next logical step is simply to privatize the Senate, and ban competing government organizations.
After all, private lobbyists ALREADY write legislation, conduct research and collect money.
What do we need a government-run Senate for?
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
We paid for it via taxes.
Corporate control of this country is sickening.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Basically, the Air Force will not let this happen. The Air Force is reliant in many ways upon the NOAA data for its forecasts.
While NOAA does make its data available over a satellite uplink (called a NOAAPort), this data is typically only used for detailed local modeling and display on AWIPS terminals. I've personally witnessed Air Force Forecasters using the NOAA website and its XML data to do their reports, and that is part of The Procedure.
Which means, it costs a huge boat of money to change, which means it costs concrete tax dollars which must be allocated to cover the costs to change. You and I might find such a change trivial, but I assure you the sheer volume of paperwork that needs to be revised, analyized, reported on and certified means that the process would easily take millions, and take years.
No. As much as Accuweather would like to stifle NOAA to turn a profit, they're too late on the scene.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Yes, other vectors of communication could be established. I even mentioned they allready get most of the data via a satellite uplink (along with other things that only a NOAAPort subscription will get you, like the raw data of their high detail forecast models).
The point is that many places aren't doing that. The procedure says, "Check the NOAA website for..." That's where the cost is represented. And it's not an insignificant cost and it's easy to show how expensive it is.
Combine that with the general argument that the government-gathered weather data is government property and thusly subject to standard information disclosure rules, and you're going to have a hard time getting this bill to go anywhere.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
The problem is that the Democrats in PA right now are in total dissarray. The state went for Kerry(the state usually goes Democrat in presidential elections) but the best they could muster for a senate candidate was a sacraficial lamb. The problem is that the Democrats are either known well in either the west part of the state or the east part of the state(good luck getting any part of the middle of the state outside Penn State to vote democrat), but never in both parts.
Seriously, Will Smith should run in PA in 2006. He owns a large chunk of real estate in Philly(were he was originally from), so he can qualify as a resident. Outside of Will Smith, the Democrats in PA have nothing, so beating Santorum is going to be quite a challenge.
Monstar L
Despite of international agreements, the German Wether Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst, DWD) doesn't publish data for free. They sell them to commercial companies which provide forecasts for media. The DWD publishes weather forcasts ans warnings but not the data the forecasts are based on. Tzey worward station measurements to other weather serveces for free according to the WMO agreement but the other European weather services don't publish them either because most of them have similar policies than the DWD. But the NOAA publishes them and so European hobby meteorologists get their weather data from the NOAA. The really strange thing is that a lot of commercial services in Europe obtain the free GFS oputput and plot weather maps from that which are copyrighted to them. So we may have the crazy situation that the national weather services in Europe such as DWD or UKMO would like the bill and ther commercial services won't.
Senator Santorum's bill would probably cause a measurable loss of life, given that numerous spotters such as myself rely upon NWS's Internet-accessible data to assist us in our spotting activities.
I just returned from spotting in extreme southwest Iowa (and am actually headed back out, as we have flash flooding to assess). I'm a trained weather spotter (not a chaser, mind you) and am an amateur radio operator. I'm one of two active spotters covering the far southwest-most county. Unlike spotting in a major metro (where I was first active), rural spotting often requires you work without a lot of coordination from net control at the NWS offices. We have to move to cover the storm, and this requires we watch NWS radar data very closely - both to allow us to be positioned to get a good view of activity (e.g. the north of most typical Midwestern supercells is a great place for hail but not for visibility - get southeast of it!), and to cover our backsides when things suddenly change and we're too close to the action.
I've used Intellicast, Accuweather and other sites. Their free data is delayed, poor, lacking sufficient detail, and simply not usable. As I donate annual training, several thousand dollars of equipment, radios, mobile broadband Internet, and my time, I'm not about to also purchase a subscription to Accuweather just so I can assist NWS and save lives. (A note about the NWS XML example: I've actually prototyped an XML to APRS relay of NWS data that uses their XML feeds - it's not just webpages we require!)
The people that will suffer will be those of you who are not weather aware and count on the quiet volunteers out there watching your back. Santorum's bill might prohibit our access to open source information and provide a handful of investors with financial gain, but it'll be someone's grandma in a rural community who will pay for that gain.
Please email your Senators on this bill and let them know that open source information is our property. Your weather spotters and ultimately our communities depend on this access.
S 786 states that the NWS must publish the information it collects and generates to the general public immediately. It also states that the NWS can't publish information in so doing it competes with the private sector. So the NWS is actually prevented from making weather reports (and this would, in fact, include hurricane warnings).
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:1:./tem p/~c109lAuHez::
Here's the bill and TFA is right. Also, it's very short, which tells me the senator from PA has no idea why this is a bad idea. DO fill out a web form for your senator. Make this bill die on thefloor of the senate.
Gorkman
AccuWeather's argument reminds me of the example used in Frederick Bastiat's "Economic Sophisms" where the candlemakers argued for legislation to block sunlight because it deprived them of their just livelihood. Pathetic, isn't it?
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
It's misleading that the article suggests NOAA just scrapped a policy that stated what the National Weather Service's role would be in relation to private industry. A law had been in effect defining these roles, but the law had expired. In absence of such regulation, NOAA found an applicable OMB requiring them to disseminate the data in an open format. NOAA has made an effort to comply with the regulation and follow the law.
It is absolutely false that the NWS spends lots of time producing forecasts of warm and sunny. This is nothing short of a lie. Forecasts are issued twice daily in most situations. It will still be necessary for the NWS to produce a forecast in all cases because even if it's warm and sunny today and tomorrow, it's very useful for example to monitor and be aware of a storm system that will have an impact a few days out. Forecasts are produced more often or are updated when a change in the weather is expected, such as showers and thunderstorms. This is referred to as nowcasting and is a necessary function of the NWS. While I can't cite this as a fact, I would expect a much greater amount of time is spent nowcasting or forecasting significant weather than is spent producing these forecasts of warm and sunny.
The National Hurricane Center disseminates information about tropical cyclones and is not disseminating these forecasts of warm and sunny that the private industry suggests NOAA spends too much time doing. The NHC has an extremely important function and is working to improve its products for the purpose of providing better alerts to the general public about approaching threats. To suggest the NHC is hampered by such duties as producing warm and sunny forecasts is a lie.
Furthermore, it is extremely important that accurate weather data be available to emergency managers and to weather spotters. These are important beneficiaries of data such as radar data and nowcasts produced by the NWS and the Storm Prediction Center. While emergency managers will likely pay the fee and get access to data provided by private industry, it is less likely that spotters, which are the general public, will be willing to pay. Effectively, this could cripple an important means of detecting severe weather. I guarantee that without accurate radar data, I'm not going to try to spot a tornado and relay the information in; it's just too dangerous.
I am a meteorologist and I have also heard the opinions of many other meteorologists that I attend school with. The consensus about companies such as the Weather Channel is that they do not provide accurate timely data. Their on-air personalities generally have little knowledge of meteorology. They operate their own forecast model which my fellow meteorologists do not believe produces quality and reasonably accurate solutions. And I've heard that many of the actual meteorologists at the Weather Channel lost their jobs. Anyone who's watched their broadcasts probably has noticed their tendencies to focus on the East and West Coasts even when the middle of the country is receiving severe weather. They hardly do a reliable job of disseminating information about potentially dangerous weather to the public. Is this really who we want in charge of forecasting and providing information to the public?
I find this bill to be based around lies and to have the ability to be extremely harmful to the ability to detect severe weather. The Senate should not approve this bill.
Well maybe not for all congressmen, but most are paranoid about paper mail. Remember the anthrax scares of a few years ago? Staffers are still afraid. When mail arrives at their office they don't open it, they send it to an irradiation plant, then open it. The process intentionally takes weeks. (Some poisons are better destroyed by time than irradiation)
A post card is better because there is no easy way to hide poison on it (without killing everyone in the post office anyway). Still best is an email or fax, which cannot be tampered with by the sender.
Bill Frist's web site has a side bar "PLEASE NOTE: security restrictions now cause considerable delay in processing postal mail sent to the offices of Senator Frist. Accordingly, please consider e-mail, fax"
This is simply a public safety issue. Period. Should we rely on a private entity to provide hurricane or tornado warnings? Does this apply to NOAA weather radio?
The reason weather data is made available to the public is because it enables the public to go about their business in a safer manner that is planned around the obstacles that weather tosses in the way.
From commercial passenger and freight aircraft, ships, and other forms of commercial transit, to the commuter just trying to get to work, free weather data from NOAA is an essential part of the economy.
Shall we require pilots to subscribe to AccuWeather in order to know the weather forecast for their flight path? I think not.
Normally, I'm not a fan of the government doing what private business can do, but NOAA has become essential to public infrastructure. It's not a perfect analogy, but you wouldn't let a for-profit private company run the (armed) police department, while it may be perfectly appropriate for private companies to provide *additional* security services on top of what the public provides through the police.
Start writing your representatives and Senators now.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Why not do both: write to your senator AND the papers?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Once the NPOESS constellation of weather and climate satellites are launched (starting in 2008), anyone with a field terminal and a one-meter dish can listen in to weather data. Furthermore, anyone can take the data and format it in JPG or GIF and post it to a website, RSS feed, or what-have-you.
Don't have the cash to buy a field terminal? That's okay, you should be able to build your own from a relatively powerful Linux box, a COTS receiver, and a one-or-two-meter dish. You can FOIA the algorithms and write an open source client.
It needs to be said.
Public tax money pays for this weather data to be collected. The public has the RIGHT to access this information, because they've already PAID FOR IT.
If a private company can not survive doing "value-add" with this free information, then that company does not deserve to exist. Plain and simple. You can't ban that information from being free and then charge people for it!
There are only two ways to procede with this problem. Either the government stops spending tax money recording the weather information, leaving the corporations to set up and maintain their own weather stations, or the entire board of directors of AccuWeather is drawn and quartered. Either one is fine with me.
As an ex-employee of AccuWeather, I'm really not surprised to see this. Joel Myers is a corrupt tyrant. Slimeball Pennsylvania politicians were always coming into the building to meet with him. There's a picture hanging in the hallway of Myers shaking hands with Bill Clinton. I'm not surprised he has Santorum in his pocket now.
During my years at AccuWeather, there seemed to be only two things Joel Myers tried to accomplish - to stop NOAA, and to prevent the employees from creating a union. Joel Myers treats his employees like slave labor. He entices young meteorology students from Penn State into signing contracts with them - then works them rediciously long hours without compensation. If you want to quit, they will sick their horde of corporate lawyers on you quicker than you can bat an eyelash. Their lawyers write up big complicated contracts with their customers, which happen to have automatic renewal clauses if AccuWeather is not notified by certified mail within 60 days of the end of the contract. This is the way they run their business. They don't give a shit about their employees, customers, or the general welfare of American citizens who support NOAA with their tax money.
Anyone in Happy Valley reading this, avoid working at this place like the plague!
By the way, for those of you who don't know Rick Santorum, you may remember him from a few years ago when he made national headlines by comparing homesexuality to incest and beastiality.
Several years ago, before Rick Santorum was a big shot politician, I was living in Pittsburgh and he was running for some local office, going door to door trying to get support. I was in middle school at the time, in the yard playing with my dog. She saw Santorum coming and didn't like him at all.. she ran to him, started barking and growling. I guess she was a good judge of character.
Santorum represents Pennsylvania, and AccuWeather is headquartered in Pennsylvania. If AccuWeather makes more money, Pennsylvania voters have more money in their pockets, and they will naturally be inclined to re-elect the guy who made it happen.
Politicians want votes. Voters want pork.
And that's your answer.
Easy, automatic testing for Perl.
http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email .html
That's a great site for looking up your Senators and Representatives. I wrote Virginia's senators and Pennsylvania's senators over this issue. I probably got the link from Slashdot originally so I'm returning the favor if this is where I originally found it.
I think this is a case of a Senator putting a business agenda ahead of the welfare of taxpayers. Our tax money pays for the National Weather Service and we have every right to see the weather data via our taxpayer funded organization.