On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 10:13:46 -0000, Dylan Smith
wrote in
::

You might want to write to Rick Santorum and tell him why this is such a
bad idea:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...a_wx_0421.html

Essentially, Accuweather has paid Sen. Rick Santorum to put this bill
through the Senate, to force the NWS/NOAA to take a great amount of its
freely available weather offline.

From this it seems that your assertion may have reasonable credence:

But 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.

"The National Weather Service has not focused on what its core
mission should be, which is protecting other people's lives and
property," said Myers, whose company is based in State College,
Pa. Instead, he said, "It spends hundreds of millions of dollars a
year, every day, producing forecasts of 'warm and sunny.'"

Santorum made similar arguments April 14 when introducing his
bill. He also said expanded federal services threaten the
livelihoods of private weather companies.

"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.

AccuWeather has been an especially vocal critic of the weather
service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration.

It would seem that AccuWeather wants the NWS to provide them with tax
payer funded information, so they can charge us for it AND clutter it
with advertising.

"I believe I've paid for that data once. ... I don't want to have
to pay for it again," said Scott Bradner, a technical consultant
at Harvard University.

This will only have adverse safety implications for general aviation.
Apparently, the Australian experience of removing free weather access
has been a string of weather-related accidents.

Are you able to provide a link to information that supports that
change in Australian aviation safety?

You can write to Santorum he
Santorum, Rick- (R - PA) Class I
511 DIRKSEN
SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6324