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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 Executive Summary THE NEED FOR RELIABLE INFORMATION 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. This report focuses on such shared systems. The five stakeholder groups in shared environmental information systems âresearch scientists, private-sector organizations, government agencies, policy makers, and the general publicâhave different goals and modes of operation. In particular, public-sector users (scientists, government agencies, and policy makers) generally rely on full and open access to data (i.e., data are made available without restriction for any use for no more than the marginal cost of filling a user request). On the other hand, in order to generate a financial return most private-sector organizations (for-profit producers and distributors of data and products) must restrict access to data. If the price of data increases without a
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2 commensurate increase in scientific value, then scientific and technical progress will decline. Nevertheless, some private-sector entities and Congress are urging government agencies to increase the involvement of the private sector in collecting and disseminating data and creating data products for public purposes. A number of government-developed satellite technologies are sufficiently mature to permit private-sector companies to enter the remote- sensing industry. Once established, however, private-sector organizations often do not want the government to compete with them by continuing to collect observations or to produce and disseminate information products. This view has been echoed by Congress in bills authorizing funding for federal agencies and in legislation forbidding agencies from competing with the private sector. These and other stakeholder viewpoints must be reconciled for the system to work. Underlying such a reconciliation should be the principle that the public welfare is best served by information systems that establish the relevant facts and enable the widest distribution to the public of facts and knowledge derived from them. Establishing the facts and distributing information are distinct functions that warrant separate consideration. Recommendation. Environmental information systems that are created by the U.S. government to serve a public purpose should continue to establish facts that are accessible to all. To facilitate further distribution these facts should be made available at no more than the marginal cost of reproduction and should be useable without restriction for all purposes. This recommendation extends the current practice of supplying most environmental data free or at marginal cost. U.S. policy (OMB Circular A-130) specifies that data should be made available at no more than incremental cost, which is slightly higher. Given the above recommendation, the question is what roles can the private sector play effectively in shared-use, public-purpose environmental information systems?
