[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 44 (Thursday, April 14, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S3658]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. SANTORUM:
  S. 786. A bill to clarify the duties and responsibilities of the 
National Weather Service, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the National Weather 
Services Duties Act of 2005 to clarify the responsibilities of the 
National Weather Service (NWS) within the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Association, NOAA. This legislation modernizes the 
statutory description of NWS roles in the national weather enterprise 
so that it reflects today's reality in which the NWS and the commercial 
weather industry both play important parts in providing weather 
products and services to the Nation.
  Back in 1890 when the current NWS organic statute was enacted, and 
all the way through World War II, the public received its weather 
forecasts and warnings almost exclusively from the Weather Bureau, the 
NWS's predecessor. In the late 1940s, a fledging weather service 
industry began to develop. From then until December 2004, the NWS has 
had policies sensitive to the importance of fostering the industry's 
expansion, and since 1948 has had formal policies discouraging its 
competition with industry. Fourteen years ago the NWS took the extra 
step of carefully delineating the respective roles of the NWS and the 
commercial weather industry, in addition to pledging its intention not 
to provide products or services that were or could be provided by the 
commercial weather industry. This longstanding non-competition and non-
duplication policy has had the effect of facilitating the growth of the 
industry into a billion dollar sector and of strengthening and 
extending the national weather enterprise, now the best in the world.
  Regrettably, the parent agency of the NWS, NOAA, repealed the 1991 
non-competition and non-duplication policy in December 2004. Its new 
policy only promises to ``give due consideration'' to the abilities of 
private sector entities. The new policy appears to signal the intention 
of NOAA and the NWS to expand their activities into areas that are 
already well served by the commercial weather industry. This detracts 
from NWS's core missions of maintaining a modem and effective 
meteorological infrastructure, collecting comprehensive observational 
data, and issuing warnings and forecasts of severe weather that 
imperils life and property.
  Additionally, NOAA's action threatens the continued success of the 
commercial weather industry. 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. This bill restores 
the NWS non-competition policy. However, the legislation leaves NWS 
with complete and unfettered freedom to carry out its critical role of 
preparing and issuing severe weather warnings and forecasts designed 
for the protection of life and property of the general public. I 
believe it is in the best interest of both the government and NWS to 
concentrate on this critical role and its other core missions. The 
beauty of a highly competent private sector is that services that are 
not inherently involved in public safety and security can be carried 
out with little or no expenditure of taxpayer dollars. At a time of 
tight agency budgets, the commercial weather industry's increasing 
capabilities offer the Federal Government the opportunity to focus its 
resources on the governmental functions of collecring and distributing 
weather data, research and development of atmospheric models and core 
forecasts, and on ensuring that NWS meteorologists provide the most 
timely and accurate warnings and forecasts of life-threatening weather.
  The National Weather Service Duties Act also addresses the potential 
misuse of insider information. Currently, NOAA and the NWS are doing 
little to safeguard the NWS information that could be used by 
opportunistic investors to gain unfair profits in the weather futures 
markets, in the agriculture and energy markets, and in other business 
segments influenced by government weather outlooks, forecasts, and 
warnings. No one knows who may be taking advantage of this information. 
In recent years there have been various examples of NWS personnel 
providing such information to specific TV stations and others that 
enable those businesses to secure an advantage over their competitors. 
The best way to address this problem is to require that NWS data, 
information, guidance, forecasts and warnings be issued in real time 
and simultaneously to all members of the public, the media and the 
commercial weather industry. This bill imposes just such a requirement, 
which is common to other Federal agencies. The responsibilities of the 
commercial weather industry as the only private sector producer of 
weather information, services and systems deserve this definition to 
ensure continued growth and investment in the private sector and to 
properly focus the government's activities.
  We have every right to expect these agencies to minimize unnecessary, 
competitive, and commercial-type activities, and to do the best 
possible job of warning the public about impending flash floods, 
hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, and other potentially catastrophic 
events. I encourage my colleagues to support this important piece of 
legislation.
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