This came along from Hal Handley through the bodysurfers group:
According to StormSurf, the Mavericks website, a new senate bill is in committee considering to commercialize the current weather and swell data collected by the public agencies, NOAA et al.
According to stormsurf:
Proposed Senate Bill SB 786 to Restrict Free Weather Data Giving it Only to Private Companies for Re-Sale to the Public. If you view the free info from buoys, wind, weather and wave models currently provided on this and many other sites, prepare to see it end if this bill gets passed. Please write your State Senator to oppose this bill. California Senators are Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. You can voice your opinion via the online forms here:http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm for Barbara Boxer and http://feinstein.senate.gov/email.html for Dianne Feinstein. Refernce SB 786 and state your desire to see this bill not be made into law. The bill itself can be seen here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786: Specifically read section 2(b) which states:
COMPETITION WITH PRIVATE SECTOR- The Secretary of Commerce shall not provide, or assist other entities in providing, a product or service (other than a product or service described in subsection (a)(1)) that is or could be provided by the private sector unless–
(1) the Secretary determines that the private sector is unwilling or unable to provide such product or service; or
(2) the United States Government is obligated to provide such product or service under international aviation agreements to provide meteorological services and exchange meteorological information.
Our interpretation of the bill indicates that NOAA will only be allowed to issue severe weather alerts and all other forecast and weather data will be given to the private sector (commercial companies) for redistribution. It is unclear whether the data will be freely available to all commercial organizations and exactly who will have access and whether a price will be affixed. This ambiguity will likely make for a poor law, and hence the concern about equal access to everyone.
In writing to your senator, one of our readers has provided some text that we feel represents the concerns of many citizens. You can cut and paste this text into your correspondence. Of course you’re always free to write your own opinion (we’re just trying to save you some time):
I’m writing you because I’m strongly opposed to Senate Bill SB 786, which has been referred to committee. This bill would prohibit NOAA from publicly distributing climatic and oceanographic data it currently publishes on its website. Under this bill, this and other data would still have to be collected by NOAA, but it would have to be disseminated by “commercial providers of products or services.” Presumably, these commercial providers would charge citizens for the service, and it is unclear if the commercial providers would have to remunerate NOAA. If the Government funds collection of data, that data should be available to citizens, and not exclusively to commercial entities. Because so many of your constituents use or could potentially use the services NOAA currently provides, I urge you to make your strong disapproval of this bill readily apparent.
A few minutes of your time could make a big difference. Once the bill passes, there’s no going back. Thanks in advance for your concern.