4/22/2005

 

Special interests versus NOAA

You gotta pay for that weather report, punk! Sen. Rick Santorum, R-AccuWeather, wants to close down the National Weather Service's Web site and forbid it from from offering weather reports for free.

A spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said the bill threatens to push the weather service back to a "pre-Internet era" — a questionable move in light of the four hurricanes that struck the state last year. Nelson serves on the Senate Commerce Committee, which has been assigned to consider the bill.

"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 Nelson's spokesman, Dan McLaughlin. "What are you going to do, charge hurricane victims to go online, or give them a pop-up ad?"


Bill text here (PDF)

See the NOAA site while you still can.

(Thanks to Hidden City.)

# posted by Lane @ 4/22/2005
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