Update: This was the latest post that Blogger munched on. While I was writing this last night, I worked myself up into a righteous fury by the time I got to the end. I don't think I can recapture that entirely, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Disclaimer: I have been trained by the National Weather Service to assist them in their duties as a Skywarn weather spotter, and volunteer in that role whenever severe weather hits the local area.

Disclaimer II: By the time you reach the end of this post, my calm, matter-of-fact, reportorial approach will have descended into raw emotion. [Well, it had a lot of raw emotion before Blogger ate that part. But that's another story. - Ed.] You're forewarned.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) wants the National Weather Service to get out of competition with commercial weather information providers.

Do you want a seven-day weather forecast for your ZIP code? Or hour-by-hour predictions of the temperature, wind speed, humidity and chance of rain? Or weather data beamed to your cellphone?

That information is available for free from the National Weather Service.

But under a bill pending in the U.S. Senate, it might all disappear.

The bill, introduced last week by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., would prohibit federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel, which offer their own forecasts through paid services and free ad-supported Web sites.

Apparently, the bill [PDF] specifically exempts forecasts which would protect "life and property," but critics say that it's worded so vaguely that there's no way to tell what NWS services would be banned.

"I believe I've paid for that data once. ... I don't want to have to pay for it again," said Scott Bradner, a technical consultant at Harvard University.

He says that as he reads the bill, a vast amount of federal weather data would be forced offline.

"The National Weather Service Web site would have to go away," Bradner said. "What would be permitted under this bill is not clear — it doesn't say. Even including hurricanes."

Naturally, not everyone interprets the bill that way.

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.'"

It's a bit tough to view Mr Myers response as objective, since he's the head of one of the handful of companies which would benefit from this bill. And is it a coincidence that his company is based in Pennsylvania and the bill was introduced by Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania?

Here's the key provision of the bill:

Section 2.(b) COMPETITION WITH PRIVATE SECTOR.—The National Weather Service shall not provide, or assist other entities in providing, a service or product (other than a service or product described in subsection (a)(1)(A)) [the preparation and issuance of severe weather warnings and forecasts designed for the protection of life and property of the general public.] that is or could be provided by the private sector...

So, the NWS isn't going to save any money. They're not going to close offices or stop forecasting (all to the good, mind you). They're just going to quit providing us with information that they already have.

So, the real purpose behind this bill is to benefit commercial weather services, who were established to duplicate work that the NWS was already doing. Work that NWS must continue to do just to support their governmental operations.

Senator Santorum, what are you thinking? This is clearly just blatant pandering to a very small industry, the major player of which is based in your state. All of us taxpayers are going to continue to pay for NWS operations, but we'll have to pay (directly or indirectly) to get the same information from AccuWeather.

This bill isn't intended to help America. It's going to take more money out of our pockets and give it to commercial interests who have tried to horn in on the NWS and turn a buck. If they can do that (and they've been doing that quite well for several decades now), fine. But don't make me pay for it.

Senator Santorum, you should be ashamed of yourself. Withdraw this lousy bill.