Accu-Weather Cronyism

Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum's bill is the worst kind of protectionism! Private weather companies have to add value to their products in order to be worth the bother, but now they're insisting on getting paid without bothering to innovate. The trouble is that the Weather Service is the only organization that performs its particular core function, and if that effort is hobbled, everyone, including the private companies, will suffer.

"The weather service proved so instrumental and popular and helpful in the wake of the hurricanes. How can you make an argument that we should pull it off the Net now?" said (Florida Senator Ben) Nelson's spokesman, Dan McLaughlin. "What are you going to do, charge hurricane victims to go online, or give them a pop-up ad?"

But Barry Myers, AccuWeather's executive vice president, said the bill would improve public safety by making the weather service devote its efforts to hurricanes, tsunamis and other dangers, rather than duplicating products already available from the private sector.

"The National Weather Service has not focused on what its core mission should be, which is protecting other people's lives and property," said Myers, whose company is based in State College, Pa. Instead, he said, "It spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year, every day, producing forecasts of 'warm and sunny.'"

One trouble with the weather is that it is absolutely everywhere. In order to be able to focus on its core mission of storm forecasts, the National Weather Service (NWS) ALSO has to know where it is 'warm and sunny'. In weather forecasting, if you don't know a little bit about what the weather is everywhere, you'll have a poor idea of what the weather is in any one particular spot.

...NOAA has taken no position on (Senator Santorum's) bill. But Ed Johnson, the weather service's director of strategic planning and policy, said his agency is expanding its online offerings to serve the public.

"If someone claims that our core mission is just warning the public of hazardous conditions, that's really impossible unless we forecast the weather all the time," Johnson said. "You don't just plug in your clock when you want to know what time it is."

Myers argued that nearly all consumers get their weather information for free through commercial providers, including the news media, so there's little reason for the federal agency to duplicate their efforts.

"Do you really need that from the NOAA Web site?" he asked.

This Myers is a slimy bastard. He's got the process backwards, and he knows it perfectly well. Commercial providers duplicate federal agency efforts, and try to add value. For example, your radio station meteorologist usually just parrots NWS forecasts, but provides it more conveniently, through your radio, so you can more easily access the information.

Another supporter of the weather service's efforts, Tallahassee database analyst John Simpson, said the plethora of free data becoming available could eventually fuel a new industry of small and emerging companies that would repackage the information for public consumption. He said a similar explosion occurred in the 1990s, when corporations' federal securities filings became freely available on the Web. Shutting off the information flow would stifle that innovation and solidify the major weather companies' hold on the market, Simpson said.

Accu-weather is part of that information explosion. Now they are trying to consolidate monopoly-like control to keep competitors out.

Santorum's bill also would require the weather service to provide "simultaneous and equal access" to its information.

That would prevent weather service employees from favoring some news outlets over others, which Santorum and Myers said has happened in some markets. But it also could end the common practice of giving one-on-one interviews to individual reporters who have questions about storms, droughts or other weather patterns.

"What we want is to make sure that whatever information is provided to one source is provided to all," Myers said.

But Johnson said it's important to answer reporters' questions so the public receives accurate information — especially when lives are at stake.

"We are not interested in turning off our telephones," Johnson said. "I would be concerned that that would actually be dangerous."

Me-thinks this flawed Accu-Weather business model of repackaging data already generated at taxpayer expense is what really needs looking at. Protectionist toadies exploiting political access! Republican hypocrisy in action! Gag!