Fight Santorum bill banning NOAA data
Okay, I must admit that I am a weather junkie. I love the fact that NOAA has been making weather information available in XML format, which is much, much easier to re-purpose in programs or web sites.
So now it is just unbelievable that Sen. Rick Santorum introduced a bill that would ban NOAA from publishing it’s data online, because it competes with a company (Accuweather) based in Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania.
I was so irritated that I wrote a letter to Sen. Santorum using his website’s form:
I want to discourage you from pursuing your bill (S. 786) banning NOAA from publishing weather data that "competes" with one of your constituents, namely Pennsylvania-based Accuweather. This is a bad bill driven by, I suspect, bad motives.
First of all, I have already paid for this information by paying my taxes. Free delivery through the Internet is a wonderful example of how a government agency can be open, innovative and efficient.
Secondly, as a software engineer, I have written numerous pieces of software that rely on this NOAA information.
You want to deny access to this information unless I get it by enriching one of your constituents for it?
That is just not right.
If this source of information goes away, then I suspect you will kill MANY "private companies," the very people you claim to be protecting with this bill.
Please reconsider your stance on this bad bill.
Thank you.
Toby Simmons
https://www.simmonsconsulting.com
If you agree, please let the Senator know how you feel. Hopefully he will come to his senses.
That really upset me too. The bill erroneously asserts that there is competition between NOAA and Accuweather when in fact the competition is between thousands of programmers, other commercial companies and Accuweather. Didn’t Accuweather get where they are because of the data feeds from NOAA?
Here is what Accuweather has to say about it: http://wwwa.accuweather.com/promotion.asp?partner=accuweather&myadc=0&traveler=0&dir=aw&page=wxinfoaccess
and here http://wwwa.accuweather.com/promotion.asp?dir=aw&page=cwsapr
I still think it stinks big time.
Regards
Matti