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Suggested Citation:"GOVERNMENT AGENCY VIEWS." National Research Council. 2001. Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10237.
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Page 23
Suggested Citation:"GOVERNMENT AGENCY VIEWS." National Research Council. 2001. Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10237.
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Page 24

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STAKEHOLDER VIEWPOINTS 23 GOVERNMENT AGENCY VIEWS Government agencies (federal, state, local) implement public programs under the direction of policy makers. Their reward structure has two levels. For government as a whole, the reward is a populace that is better off because of a public program (e.g., the Clean Water Act) and is therefore supportive of the endeavor. For individual government agencies the reward comes from fulfilling their specific missions, the success of which is corroborated by continued funding from Congress. The U.S. government has three major roles in the environmental information enterprise: (1) it fulfills the public need for scientific understanding by funding basic research; (2) it collects and disseminates data through a network of observing systems, agency programs, libraries, and data centers; and (3) it creates information products related to health, safety, and human welfare. The relative importance of these tasks depends on the responsible agency, which sets priorities based on its specific mission. Thus, individual government agencies are likely to have a narrower view of priorities and choices in a particular situation than the government as a whole. Most government functions are carried out by the public sector either because of an overriding public interest in the outcome or because the potential for high risk or low payoff makes the task unattractive to the private sector. For example, federal agencies are responsible for collecting and disseminating information relevant to weather forecasting. Providing reliable data to the public requires long-term monitoring and the synthesis of current and retrospective data from around the world. The government is well placed to install and maintain the observing systems, negotiate data exchange agreements with other countries, and operate data centers that will hold the data in perpetuity.8 As a result, the general public can obtain a wide variety of environmental data, 8For example, Congress found that “it is in the best interest of the United States to maintain a permanent, comprehensive Government archive of global Landsat and other land remote sensing data for long-term monitoring and study of the changing global environment” (Public Law 102–555). Similarly, various statutes direct NOAA to “acquire, maintain and distribute long-term databases, and to process and archive space- based data” (NASA/NOAA Memorandum of Understanding for Earth Observations Remotely Sensed Data Processing, Distribution, Archiving, and Related Science Support, July 1989).

STAKEHOLDER VIEWPOINTS 24 sometimes going back 150 years and can be reasonably assured that this information will be available for future generations. Under U.S. policy most federal government data are in the public domain and cannot be copyrighted. By making data easy and inexpensive to obtain the U.S. government seeks to promote science, create a more informed public, and foster the development of a thriving commercial information industry. Governments in other countries have similar goals, but cultural differences and economic conditions have led to the development of different data policies.9 For example, the requirement that they recover part of their operating costs through data sales has led to the commercialization of environmental agencies in Europe and Canada. In addition, government agencies are transferring functions like environmental data collection to the private sector. As a result, data streams with economic potential (e.g., land cover, weather, geomagnetic field) are now likely to be sold rather than freely exchanged. Of greater concern, short-term private return rather than long-term social return may become the dominant criterion for selecting which observations to collect.10 Developing countries have yet a different perspective based upon their perceptions of the potential for economic domination by foreign monopolies.11 These different perspectives raise a potential conflict in international collaboration. 9P.N.Weiss and P.Backhand, 1997, International information policy in conflict: Open and unrestricted access versus government commercialization, in Borders in Cyberspace: Information Policy and the Global Information Infrastructure, B.Kahin and C.Nesson eds., MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 300–321; Toward an Integrated Data Policy Framework for Earth Observations, Report of a workshop, Ottrott, France, July 22–24, 1996, International Space University, ISU/REP/97/1, 39 pp. 10 A number of European government satellites have been launched with either commercial objectives (e.g., Systeme Probatoire pour l'Observation de la Terre [SPOT]) or with a mixture of commercial, scientific, and operational objectives (e.g., ENVIronment SATellite [ENVISAT]-1). See Earth Observation Data Policy and Europe, <http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/eopole/>. 11 G.W.Smith, 1999, Intellectual property rights, developing countries, and TRIPs—An Overview of Issues for Consideration during the Millennium Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, The Journal of World Intellectual Property, Vol. 2, Vo. 6, November 1999, p. 969–975.

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Reliable collections of science-based environmental information are vital for many groups of users and for a number of purposes. For example, electric utility companies predict demand during heat waves, structural engineers design buildings to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes, water managers monitor each winter's snow pack, and farmers plant and harvest crops based on daily weather predictions. Understanding the impact of human activities on climate, water, ecosystems, and species diversity, and assessing how natural systems may respond in the future are becoming increasingly important for public policy decisions.

Environmental information systems gather factual information, transform it into information products, and distribute the products to users. Typical uses of the information require long-term consistency; hence the operation of the information system requires a long-term commitment from an institution, agency, or corporation. The need to keep costs down provides a strong motivation for creating multipurpose information systems that satisfy scientific, commercial and operational requirements, rather than systems that address narrow objectives. Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data focuses on such shared systems.

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