I think some people may have misread my stand on S786. While I think it is overly vague, as all recommendations to committee should be, I think it long overdue. Understand that it is a recommendation for committee study, not a final detailed bill for approval and it would be arrogant and wrong of a Senator to send a detailed bill to a committee that is to have the expertise and obligation to flesh out those details.
Having said that it is possible that I will oppose the final legislation to come out of committee because of some detail in the interpretation and implementation. Or we might find that the final bill gives us a more responsive and competitive NWS that works for the American people and not a politically popular special interest group.
Im interested in finding out the agenda of some of the groups opposing the review of NOAA procedures and mission. Ive discussed this with Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association after their President, Phil Boyer, was lead to make a statement in opposition and before he discovered that aviation weather was specifically excluded from the bill. AOPA was a little embarrassed to say the least when they found out theyd been made a tool by the opposition groups. Senator Santorum is upfront about why he has proposed this and what special interest has requested this bill, but the opposition has not been upfront about where their funding is coming from and after 40 years in politics that puts me on high alert.
The current situation discourages innovation in weather presentation, and draws federal money away from core forecasting technologies and methods. Markets can work with good or bad news, but unpredictability is an economic and innovative killer. I use a weather service that transmits detailed and custom weather products via satellite directly to the cockpit of my plane and overlays it over the GPS map presentation, but that weather is delayed by at least 5 minutes because of the way NWS operates. The company providing the service has spent millions of dollars developing the technology and discovering how to best present the information to make it worth more to me than just the NWS core data and Im willing to pay for that enhancement because it is not something useful to the majority of Americans. I pay more for that enhancement than I should because Im funding an unpredictable risk that my provider has to take, which is what if next month NWS decides to reverse engineer my providers product and start offering it to pilots free of charge and puts the innovators out of business.
From NOAA I can get tide data, sea condition buoy data, satellite ocean temp data, wind and temperature forecast data, and surface analysis prog data. If I spent enough money on computer modeling I could combine all of that information into one forecast product to predict the best time of day to go kite surfing or scuba diving, but is that a function of government to provide that specialized report or should something with that limited distribution be paid for by the users if they want it all put together for them? This is the question Senator Santorum is asking and why is Senator Nelson opposing asking of the question?
In 1991, the Public-Private Partnership Policy stated The NWS will not compete with the private sector when a service is currently provided or can be provided by commercial enterprises, unless otherwise directed by applicable law." In 2000, NOAA commissioned a study to determine their compliance with the 1991 act and to further define it given technological and marketplace changes and their own recommendation was The NWS should replace its 1991 public-private partnership policy with a policy that defines processes for making decisions on products, technologies, and services, rather than rigidly defining the roles of the NWS and the private sector. A key phrase in the 1991 act was when a service is currently provided as that set the tone to force NWS to innovate and be progressive in offering new technologies without discouraging private enterprise from innovating and then having NWS steal their customers before developmental costs had been amortized. The question I ask of opponents to S786 is why hasnt NWS been reprimanded for violating the 1991 Act, why havent they yet acted upon their own study of 2000, why hasnt NWS taken action on consolidating FAA AWOS and ASOS data into their prediction models, why is NWS allowed to force a 5 minute delay on dissemination of weather data to private firms when it doesnt do the same for its own products, why did NWS lag behind private weather services in implementing Doppler radar coverage, and basically why has NWS been allowed to be the 800 pound bully that doesnt have to play nice with all the other entities with a stake in timely and accurate weather forecasting? That is the question that Senator Santorum is asking on the Senate floor and in Commerce Committee because NOAA has refused to answer those questions for 4 years in any other forum.
One intent of the 1991 Act was to put the power of determining what products NWS offered in the hands of the people through their representatives and that is why it specifically states unless otherwise directed by applicable law. This Act has been ignored by NOAA and NWS and they have determined what products to offer through regulation rather than law making them immune to action by the legislature and without any public input. When a government entity is allowed to set its own agenda and priorities without oversight by the legislature for how federal monies are being spent, you have a financial black hole. One alternative to this legislation would be for Congress to sue NOAA for violating the 1991 Act, but I think that would be much less productive for all concerned than creating a law that removes the ambiguity of the original Act.
Its interesting that I saw this thread yesterday since I spent time Friday with Lt. Gov. Jennings and yesterday I met with a former astronaut to discuss the role NASA will play working with private space operations in the near future, and we used the NWS debate as a prime example of when a government agency forgets its mission to lead in scientific research and becomes a tax supported inefficient business operation keeping efficient private business from playing an important role in the overall economy.
BTW: The day Senator Santorum introduced S786, Senator Nelson was also on the floor introducing his pet project of the day to change the name of the Jacksonville court house on behalf of Congresswoman Corrine Brown and Nelson had no objections and didnt appear interested in what happened at NWS.
Rather than opposing this bill as something must be done to rein in NOAA, I prefer to take a more positive approach and be thinking about what the committees recommendation should be as to what constitutes core forecast information and how that definition will be allowed to evolve as new technologies become available. Everyone on all sides of this debate believe that severe weather forecasting and alerting is a core function to be continued as is aviation specific forecasting, satellite imagery consolidation, surface depiction charting, NOAA alert weather radio broadcasts, and many other NWS products. The debate and questions revolve around should the government fund a product to graphically display current radar in your car or is that something the user desiring it should pay for. Should NWS be allowed to continue imposing a 5 minute delay on weather dissemination to private firms as a means of maintaining control over the weather market?
As simbrooks points out, this is far from a Republican/Democrat debate, but it is a state versus state debate depending on how much a particular states economy or specific industries relies on NWS data. While Senator Nelson may want to continue seeing NWS subsidize the states citrus industry, he should be upfront about it and not misrepresent the issue as if it has anything to do with hurricane prediction and notification. Maybe if we all band together we can require NOAA to provide a custom scuba diving forecast showing visibility and water temperature probabilities hour by hour for each of our favorite dive sites.
