National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005
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The National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005 was a legislative proposal forwarded in April of 2005 by United States Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) to curtail government competition with commercial weather services from the National Weather Service. Though the wording of the bill was generally considered unclear, the general consensus among observers was that its effect would be to eliminate public dissemination of National Weather Service data and forecasts except in case of severe weather alerts. The bill attracted no cosponsors in the Senate and eventually died in committee, and was roundly criticized by the general public for threatening to force taxpayer-funded data made available for free through commercial, for-profit channels. The bill had very few supporters outside the commercial weather industry.
In the wake of the bill's introduction, Santorum, who had already gained notoriety for his activism against gay rights and the recent Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas that struck down sodomy laws in the United States, was accused of political impropriety and influence peddling due to the fact that Joel Myers, the head of Pennsylvania-based AccuWeather and one of Santorum's constituents, was also a Santorum campaign contributor. Though no action was taken by the Senate on the accusations, Santorum has become the most significant target of the Democratic National Committee's campaign effort for the 2006 U.S. Senate Election.
In September 2005, while the bill was still in committee, Santorum criticized the National Weather Service's forecasting of Hurricane Katrina, claiming that more lives could have been saved if the NWS's operation focused on severe weather. However, both public and professional opinion held that the NWS's forecasting had in fact been substantially better than most other sources, and Santorum's comment was largely ignored.
External links
- [Text of the NWS Duties Act of 2005]
- [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article on Santorum's Katrina comments]
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