April 29, 2005

Santorum / Accuweather

I already covered the Senator Rick Santorum connection with commercial weather provider AccuWeather earlier here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Now, those great folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have put up a handy web-based email server so you can send mail to your senators asking them not to support this bill. The form asks for your address but it uses this to direct the email to the correct Senator. Posted by DaveH at April 29, 2005 3:39 PM
Comments

There is an angle on this story which I have not seen covered. The Myers have a side business speculating in futures markets. This bill would protect that business.

According to subsection(c) paragraph(2) of S. 786 the NWS must filter NWS data and forcasts "through a set of data portals designed for volume access by commercial providers of products or services..", e.g. AccuWeather. Paragraph (1) of subsection (c) has nice words about disseminating the the information to the general public, but there is no mechanism specified for this, other than through private companies such as AccuWeather. This will ensure that the Myers have advanced knowlegde of weather conditions which may impact agricultural future markets. Subsection (d) paragraph (1) would prevent the NWS from providing this information to the general public, prior to providing it to the Myers, should it impact futures markets. Subsection (d) paragraph (2) would prevent the NWS from notifying the public about changes to forcast, if such changes would impact futures markets, without first notifying the Myers.

In short, Santorum has introduced a bill which would disable the the NWS's lifesaving services, in order that the Myers may make a killing in agricultural futures.

Posted by: WeatherWonk at May 10, 2005 12:48 PM
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