[Congressional Bills 104th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 383 Introduced in House (IH)]







104th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 383

 To amend the National Agricultural Weather Information System Act of 
1990 to improve the collection and distribution of weather information 
                   to assist agricultural producers.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 4, 1995

Mr. Traficant introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                        Committee on Agriculture

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend the National Agricultural Weather Information System Act of 
1990 to improve the collection and distribution of weather information 
                   to assist agricultural producers.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. WEATHER INFORMATION COLLECTION AND DISTRIBUTION TO 
              AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS THROUGH THE NATIONAL WEATHER 
              SERVICE.

    (a) Collection and Distribution.--Section 1638 of the National 
Agricultural Weather Information System Act of 1990 (7 U.S.C. 5852) is 
amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
    ``(e) Collection and Distribution of Information to Producers.--
            ``(1) Cooperative project.--As one of the cooperative 
        projects authorized by subsection (b)(1), the Secretary of 
        Agriculture shall enter into an agreement with the Secretary of 
        Commerce to use Weather Service Offices and Weather Service 
        Forecast Offices to collect, organize, and distribute 
        information aimed at meeting the short-term and long-term 
        weather and climate information needs of agricultural 
        producers.
            ``(2) Information collection.--The Secretaries shall 
        develop a system for the collection by the National Weather 
        Service of weather and climate information that is relevant to 
        agricultural producers and available through the Agricultural 
        Weather Office and other Federal agencies, State agricultural 
        weather information systems and other State programs, colleges 
        and universities, and the private weather consulting sector.
            ``(3) Methods of distribution.--Weather and climate 
        information collected under this subsection shall be 
        distributed to agricultural producers through the use of--
                    ``(A) weekly publications containing weather 
                forecasts and other information regarding anticipated 
                temperatures and precipitation levels;
                    ``(B) toll-free and local telephone numbers that 
                agricultural producers can call to obtain immediate 
                information to assist with specific day-to-day 
                production activities; and
                    ``(C) such other methods as the Secretaries 
                consider to be appropriate to distribute such weather 
                and climate information to agricultural producers in a 
                timely manner.''.
    (b) Report.--Not later than one year after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary 
of Commerce shall jointly submit a report to the Congress analyzing the 
effectiveness of the cooperative project required by section 1638(e) of 
the National Agricultural Weather Information System Act of 1990, as 
added by subsection (a), in providing relevant weather and climate 
information to agricultural producers. The report shall include a 
description of the number of agricultural producers who obtained 
weather information through the project and an estimate of whether the 
project improved farm profitability for participating producers.
    (c) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be 
appropriated to carry out section 1638(e) of the National Agricultural 
Weather Information System Act of 1990, as added by subsection (a), 
$2,000,000 for fiscal year 1996.
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