Maeve Reston, Storm over weather service initiatives, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 26, 2005. Excerpt: 'Sen. Rick Santorum has introduced legislation that would limit the information that the National Weather Service can provide to the public....Some have criticized the legislation as a giveaway primarily intended to help Pennsylvania-based AccuWeather, whose employees have contributed to Santorum's campaign fund. But a spokeswoman for the senator dismissed that assertion as being without merit. Foes of the legislation view the bill as a major change to the role the National Weather Service plays, one that could drastically restrict free information for the public as well as airplane pilots and farmers, who are among some 6 million people who each day access weather service data on the Web pages of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA...."The legislation appears to be aimed at restricting or closing off a free information service for consumers and, in turn, benefiting one or two big companies that sell weather forecasts and other information," said [Dan McLaughlin, spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson]. "For Pete's sake, no one suggests shutting down the post office because FedEx has a system of delivery," McLaughlin said. But private weather companies have argued that the legislation is necessary to protect their rights in the marketplace. One of the companies advocating for the bill is AccuWeather in State College, Pa., whose employees have contributed at least $5,500 to Santorum since 1999, according to Federal Election Commission reports.' (PS: Note that this story appears in a major paper in the home state of Sen. Rick Santorum.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/01/2005 09:29:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
