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#21
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Follow up: Here, is the bill, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786: and below is the Commercial Weather Services Association's press release advocating passage of the bill. I'll just point out one of the many duplicities in the press release. Note the particular paragraph that reads, "This will mandate that the public, including users like pilots, boaters and farmers, and the private sector, will all have unrestricted real-time access to government information." What the press release doesn't disclose is that, under the bill, this "unrestricted real-time access" will be through a set of data portals designed for volume access by commercial providers of products or services. In other words, the data would be in a form that would be essentially useless to the lay public, including pilots. The non-competition clause of the bill would likely kill any user-friendly Internet weather presentations by the NWS if similar presentations were available commercially on the Internet. -------------------------- Commercial Weather Services Association Says S.B. 786 Assures Both Public and Industry Access April 29, 2005 - The Commercial Weather Services Association (CWSA) announced today its support for Senate Bill 786, "The National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005." S.B. 786, one of three related bills now before Congress, will benefit both the public and the private sector. The new legislation would require the National Weather Service (NWS) to distribute government generated weather information "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." No such requirement currently exists. This will mandate that the public, including users like pilots, boaters and farmers, and the private sector, will all have unrestricted real-time access to government information. The bill will also update the 115-year-old mission of the NWS to fit within the American weather framework of today, in which both the agency and the Commercial Weather Industry now play important parts in providing weather products, services, systems, networks and communications to the nation. "Through more than 55 years of innovation by the Commercial Weather Industry and a policy of free and open exchange of government information, the American public has become the beneficiary of the best weather information available anywhere in the world," said Steven Root, President of the Commercial Weather Services Association (CWSA). "Unfortunately, the performance of the National Weather Service in fulfilling its key tasks of collecting and disseminating government information has not always kept pace with public and private needs and critical information the agency possesses is not always reaching the public in time." CWSA has noticed an increasing number of occurrences where the NWS has not provided timely, key information during hurricanes, floods, and severe snowstorms, exposing the public to heightened and serious danger. Just as alarming, this key information was not made available to the public or the Commercial Weather Industry including the media. Such delayed or missing information has included real-time cooperative observer and snow intensity reports delayed up to twelve hours during a blizzard, hurricane reconnaissance reports delayed during an intensifying storm, and missed flood warnings. S.B. 786 will provide for better information and warnings to the public by requiring NWS to focus on a defined core mission and adhere to its own non-competition/non-duplication policy, which NWS has had in effect, in one form or another, for over 55 years. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the parent organization of the NWS, unilaterally repealed this policy in December 2004. This NOAA action is not in accord with long-standing government policies and programs designed to encourage private-sector investment and development of products, services, systems, networks, and communications facilities beneficial to the nation. Root added, "Government duplication of existing products and services readily available from the private sector is unnecessary and detracts from the NWS mission of saving lives and property." The result of the December repeal has been a growing uncertainty and risk for private sector firms engaged in the weather enterprise and threats to jobs throughout the industry. Accordingly, this NOAA action also endangers the very existence of free weather information to the public, an estimated 95% of which comes from the Commercial Weather Industry including the media. The bill requires the Secretary of Commerce, which directs and controls the operations of NOAA and NWS, to determine what those competitive and duplicative activities are and requires oversight reports to Congress. The bill does not target any particular government activity for elimination. S.B. 786 endorses the concept of encouraging private-sector activities and investment, rather than government expenditures, in the American weather sector, a principle that was jointly adopted with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate in November 2004 as part of the appropriations legislation funding the National Weather Service (Conference Report to H.R. 481 . The non-duplication provision of S.B. 786 is also in line with NWS's prior policy and the philosophy of national policies on space transportation and other government activities. "CWSA believes that the public safety and well-being of the nation would best be served by NWS concentrating on its long-standing and critical core missions including disseminating government-generated weather information and issuing severe weather warnings for the protection of life and property of the public. The NWS is the only source of official government weather warnings, government data and computer models, all relied upon by numerous users in government, industry and the public," said Root. "Activities that shift the NWS focus away from this mission by duplicating products, services, systems, networks and communications that are already widely available from the private sector, many free to the public, do not represent appropriate stewardship of public funds." S.B. 786 was introduced April 14, 2005 by Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA). It is one of three bills currently before Congress that would reexamine and redefine the structure and mission of the National Weather Service and its parent NOAA. About the Commercial Weather Services Association The Commercial Weather Services Association is the trade association for professionals who make weather their business. Its members collect, interpret and disseminate weather information to weather-sensitive businesses as well as the general public. In addition, CWSA members engineer a variety of hardware and software systems, including weather sensors and meteorological workstations and operate weather information networks. For more information about the Commercial Weather Services Association, please visit: www.weatherindustry.org |
#22
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In article ,
Matt Whiting wrote: Even if I used GPS for my bugsmasher, the cost to provide regular ol' SPS GPS for my use is still zero. How do you see that? Somebody has to pay for the satellites. Sure the military needs them anyway, Exactly. we already paid for the satellites. And nothing on the GPS SV's is there for me. Everything is there to meet military requirements. This isn't like the Shuttle where NASA paid big bucks to add military-specific capabilities which meant lotsa extra weight so that every single launch costs extra money to haul the the extra weight into orbit. but if this was all private enterprise, then you'd pay for your fair share of the use. Well, the GPS SV's aren't private enterprise. -- Bob Noel no one likes an educated mule |
#23
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George Patterson wrote:
Matt Whiting wrote: I think if most "public" services were provided by a free enterprise system, then we'd get a lot more in aggregate for our money. I disagree. I remember when the Weather Station first came out, they had very frequent local reports and paging of text weather of various cities every 20 minutes or so. Also had some aviation weather, as I recall. Then they started attracting advertisers. The pilot weather was gone the next time I saw a report. By 1995, the local cable companies had replaced the local weather reports with their own ads. TWS corrected that a few years later by announcing that the local weather would be displayed every 10 minutes (on the 8s). That forced the cable companies to play it. Basically, if you need something special and are perceived to be a minority, private enterprise will cut you right out of the picture. If weather info is provided only by private enterprise, we won't have pilot weather unless something like AOPA provides it for us. Yes, that is why I said in aggregate. We overall have much better weather services today than we had 30 years ago when it was nearly all government provided. I didn't say that aviation would be better off. Actually, my point is that aviation is very heavily subsidized and would likely take it on the chin without such subsidies. Government is very wasteful, but it does provide for the special interests in a manner that wouldn't exist were everything based on a "pay as you use" basis. In the end it might work out OK, but it certainly would look a lot different. I wouldn't pay school taxes if I didn't have kids in school, but I'd probably pay $10/gallon for avgas, if it was even available, and I'd pay for weather briefings, use of ATC, use of GPS, etc. Matt |
#24
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Jose wrote:
Costs [of public infrastructure] are only half the story. Benefits are the other half. There are invisible benefits to the system (any system) which also need to be figured in. Such as? I'm not going to answer specifically, because I can't prove them. They are hidden - that's what hidden means. But consider the following. Where I live we recently discussed (with great heat) attracting corporations to move into our town so that we would get a bigger tax base. The more taxes paid by corporations, the less we'd have to pay in property tax. The arithmetic is quite simple and very compelling. It's also wrong. However, while we can all speculate as to why, it is virtually impossible to prove. The only verifiable numbers are the tax rolls, and they clearly show that corporations would pay tax that would otherwise have to be paid by homeowners. Nonetheless, looking at neighboring towns and graphing the mil rate (homeowner tax rate) against the corporate percentage, those towns with the highest corprorate presence have the highest mil rate. They have the highest traffic density, the worst schools (schools are supported by corporate and property tax), the highest prices in the stores... stuff like that. The reason (I speculate) has to do with the impact of the corporations on daily life - more cars parking, more roads to be built, slower speeds, everything takes longer, wealthier people move out... things like this that don't show up on the balance sheet. Those costs aren't hidden at all. It is fairly easy, admittedly very tedious though, to figure them out. And, as you said, it is easy to simply look at a town that looks like your town would look after you attract large corporations. I don't see much hidden here. Large companies need lots of workers, better fire fighting equipment, hazardous waste response teams, etc. The cost of these is pretty easy to figure out and, as you say, tends to offset the taxes that the corporation pays. I have no children, but it benefits me to have a good school system. I'll leave you to figure out why (and it has nothing to do with my screen name). Therefore, there is a benefit to non-users of the school system. If you are benefiting, then then you are a user of the system and should help pay for it. :-) The benefits to reliable mail service, reliable transportation (air and otherwise), reliable telecommunications, extend to people who walk to the store, don't have a phone, and burn all their mail. It means that when I walk to the store, they will have what I want. OK, that makes me an indirect user, but there are lots of indirect users of infrastructure that are not tracked, but benefit from it. Yep, same thing. You are still using the system, albeit it somewhat indirectly. We all benefit from our water system (unusual in the world in that even our wash water is potable) because it reduces disease, even if I don't use water from the system. It is not just the people with the tap that benefit. Street lighting could be seen as benefitting the drivers, and so should be paid by the drivers. However in reducing accidents it also reduces my health insurance premiums, and it reduces robberies to boot. These are "invisible" benefits which accrue to non-drivers. They aren't invisible. It isn't that hard to compare crime rates in areas with street lights and those without. It's little things like this that add up all over the place, just like little costs also add up all over the place, that make a strict "user pay" accounting problematic. Yes, I agree it would be an accounting nightmare. Matt |
#25
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Bob Noel wrote:
In article , Matt Whiting wrote: Even if I used GPS for my bugsmasher, the cost to provide regular ol' SPS GPS for my use is still zero. How do you see that? Somebody has to pay for the satellites. Sure the military needs them anyway, Exactly. we already paid for the satellites. And nothing on the GPS SV's is there for me. Everything is there to meet military requirements. This isn't like the Shuttle where NASA paid big bucks to add military-specific capabilities which meant lotsa extra weight so that every single launch costs extra money to haul the the extra weight into orbit. They have to be replaced periodically and monitored by folks on the ground. There are onging operational costs. If the military isn't the sole user, it shouldn't be the sole payer. All users should be supporting the system. If this was the case, then folks that don't use GPS wouldn't be taxed as heavily to support the military and thus subsidizing those of us who do use the system. That is the essential point. Aviation is very heavily subsidized and folks who argue it isn't are deluding themselves. but if this was all private enterprise, then you'd pay for your fair share of the use. Well, the GPS SV's aren't private enterprise. Right, and that is why our use of it is subsidized by general revenue to the defense department. Matt |
#26
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"Matt Whiting" swaggered in message news:P1ofe.2026 I wouldn't pay school taxes if I didn't have kids in school, Oh, yes you would or suffer the consequences. [crossposting trimmed] |
#27
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I wouldn't pay school taxes if I didn't have kids in school
It is in your best interests that other people's children are well educated. Jose -- Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane. for Email, make the obvious change in the address. |
#28
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Those costs aren't hidden at all. It is fairly easy, admittedly very tedious though, to figure them out.
No, it is not easy at all to figure them out. How much of the price of ham is due to the fact that it takes two minutes longer to get through town? How much of my income is leaking away in little costs like this because a developer put a corporate park next to the river? And even if you could figure it out to your own satisfaction, could you do so well enough to convince the voters? If you are benefiting [from a good school system], then then you are a user of the system and should help pay for it. :-) I am not a consumer of the school system in any shape or form. Nonetheless, I benefit because my fellow citizens know how to add and subtract, can reason properly, understand logarithmic progressions, and are familiar with literature. This means for example that plays and concerts are popular (which allows me to be a consumer of these events), and that when a referendum comes by, I can count on people to think more than react. If the schools were funded simply by tuition, I'd be getting a free ride. But if the schools are funded publicly, I might argue (like we are doing in aviation) that I'm not a user of the system and shouldn't pay for it - the money should come strictly out of the pockets of the students. I use the aviation system just by eating a ham sandwich (and not just when I'm navigating . Why shouldn't I pay for it (in taxes) instead of having pilots getting a weather briefing fork over their credit cards? It isn't that hard to compare crime rates in areas with street lights and those without. True, but as an indirect measure of an indirect benefit, it's subject to much interpretation. Jose -- Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane. for Email, make the obvious change in the address. |
#29
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On Sat, 07 May 2005 19:24:38 GMT, Matt Whiting
wrote in :: Larry Dighera wrote: On Sat, 07 May 2005 14:54:02 GMT, Matt Whiting wrote in :: If the private enterprise is efficient enough that it can make a profit and still cost less than a government agency, then it is a good deal overall. It's difficult to envision a less costly and more equitable way of collecting the revenue for ATC operation, than a tax on fuel. I was talking more about the delivery of services costs than the collection costs. I agree a fuel tax is pretty simple, however, do you know how high that tax would have to be to support the entire aviation infrastructure? I don't, but I'll bet it would be several dollars a gallon at least. I don't know where to get an accurate assessment of the real cost of our aviation system (airports, ATC, navaids - we'd need to pay our share of the cost of GPS for example) or I'd make an estimate of the cost per gallon. I suspect the fuel consumption figures are available with some research, but I doubt all of the costs of the rest of the system area readily available. The aggregate cost of all government services provided aviation is probably a staggering figure, but so is the amount of aviation fuel consumed annually. AOPA's 2005 Fact Card figure is 18,857 million gallons. Fortunately, Congress is only contemplating ATC privatization at this time. |
#30
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At our city-owned/operated airport we have available a commercial
weather product (I can't recall the name but it is one that is commonly found at FBOs) that I find useful when I am there to use it. But I also use the NWS-generated ADDS Aviation Weather and IMHO it is First Class and a damn fine example of the government "getting it right" (a refreshing anomoly). Of the possibility that AccuWeather's Michael Steinberg could be (speaking) in a self-serving manner should be a given and the weight of his "arguments" assigned a big fat zero. Sid Knox FlyBoy wrote: As a private pilot, I make frequent use of the NWS's Aviation Digital Data Service (see 1). I especially like their "Java Tools" graphic presentations of METAR, TAF, and AIR/SIGMET data. Senate Bill S. 786 (see 2) could well kill such NWS weather presentations in favor of private sector subscription or advertisement supported Internet weather services. AccuWeather.com has been a vocal proponent of this bill. The Senator sponsoring this bill is from AccuWeather's home state. I have been arguing the case against this bill with AccuWeather's Michael Steinberg in an online forum on ipetitions.com (see 3). If any of my fellow pilots wish to add their voice to the discussion, I would appreciate it. I must admit that I have reached the limit of my patience with Michael Steinberg, who characterizes my views as "a bunch of distortions at best". I believe that I have presented an accurate interpretation of the likely effects of this bill and I also believe that any "distortions" in the forum largely originate with AccuWeather's Michael Steinberg. I urge those who care about this issue to sign the online petition, join the online forum, and write their own senators with their opinions of this bill. 1: NWS ADDS: http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/ 2: S. 786: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786: 3: http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/SaveTheNWS/ FlyBoy |
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