Fair Weather Effective Partnership in Weather and Climate Services (2003) / Chapter Skim
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4 Legal, Social, Policy, and Economic Framework
4 Legal, Social, Policy, and Economic Framework
Pages 57-74
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This chapter describes legal, social, economic, and data policy issues that affect the public, private, and academic sectors and their implications for creating partnerships. LEGAL OVERVIEW National Weather Service The law governing the National Weather Service (NWS)
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The act requires that the Secretary certify that no degradation in weather service will result from closing, consolidating, automating, or relocating any NWS field office. Regulations promulgated under the Weather Service Modernization Act list the basic weather services provided by local field offices: "(a)
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encouraging a diversity of public and private sources for information based on government public information; (B) in cases in which the agency provides public information maintained in electronic format, providing timely and equitable access to the underlying data (in whole or in part)
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Finally, the latest agency policy or executive order takes precedence over earlier policies. Thus, any interpretation of the partnership policy that obliges the NWS to cease providing weather services if private businesses wish to offer them would be inconsistent with the NWS's responsibilities under the Organic Act and its obligations under the Paperwork Reduction Act, OMB Circu~r A-130, and the Government Paperwork Elimination Act.
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Most weather companies carry general liability insurance, which covers injuries on company property, and many also carry errors and omissions insurance, which covers actual and alleged defects in the work of the meteorological staff.9 Insurance is needed regardless of whose information is being delivered the federal government's or the company's. Because the amount and terms of insurance are adjusted to the types of claims one would expect given the market and customer using the information, liability is not a barrier to private sector provision of weather services.
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A 1998 General Accounting Office report found that the 10 major research universities examined had all established policies and procedures for meeting federal requirements on avoiding conflicts of interest.l7 ECONOMIC CONTEXT In seeking to define public versus private roles, economists tend to think in terms of which outcome would be most efficient. In many cases, it is more efficient for private sector companies than government agencies to 14Presentation to the committee by James Severson, president, Cornell Research Foundation, Inc., February 20, 2002.
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By definition, a public good is both nonexclusionary and nonrivairous; thus, weather information is a public good. The public-good aspect of weather information makes it difficult, if not impossible, for commercial companies to provide the information efficiently.20 The second reason the NWS must continue to collect weather data concerns the cost structure of weather data.
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, the public may be best served if the public sector provides the value-added service. In 2000 a team of economists writing for the Computer & Communications Industry Association proposed criteria for determining which online and informational activities should be undertaken by the government and which should be undertaken by the private sector (Box 4.1~.
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Their 26The report generated several news stories and can be found on the web sites of numerous government agencies, scientific organizations, information societies, and economics departments.
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According to these principles, the practice of collecting and analyzing weather data using taxpayer funds makes sense because weather observationsparticularly satellite observations are expensive to collect, but inexpensive to disseminate, especially over the Internet (items 1 and 2~. Second, it is essential that the core analysis products (e.g., models, forecasts, warnings)
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The market for such products is large and differentiated, thus permitting competition among several organizations (item 7~. The markets for forecasts on broadcast news hours or for agriculture forecasts are examples of differentiated products markets.
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The widespread availability of NWS weather data and forecasts ensures their widest use in warning systems that are vital to the public's safety and well-being (see Box 1.1~. The open data policy is also essential for the health of the academic sector, which must be able to scrutinize the data and methods by which they were collected, test the models, and contribute its own improvements to the weather enterprise.28 Value-added providers in all sectors, who rely on low-cost data as a basis for their information products, also benefit from full and open access to government data.
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Although national governments collect and disseminate most weather and climate data, value-added products are created by the public, private, and academic sectors. Most data products generated with private money are intended to be sold, and access is controlled to permit the company to earn a return on its investment.
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The NRC report Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data outlines conditions under which the federal government could purchase environmental data from commercial vendors and privatize data collection and product development, while continuing to meet its public obligations (Box 4.3~. Discontinuing government services in favor of private sector provision is commonly in the public interest, provided that competition leads to better products and services at lower prices.
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In the weather and climate enterprise, the criteria could be used to decide, for example, whether the NWS should provide weather services to a particular industry (e.g., agriculture) or for a specific application (e.g., fire hazard)
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A common notion is that one is entitled to something simply by virtue of having enjoyed it in the past. Status quo property rights are clearly in the minds of private sector weather service providers when they assert that the NWS should not provide any services that the private sector is already providing.
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It is economically efficient for the private sector to create value-added products from low-cost government data, but social benefits also arise from having universal access to certain valueadded products created by the academic and public sectors (e.g., educational products, models, emergency preparedness tools)
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