Free weather reports in the United States are a miracle of the modern administrative state.
Will it rain that day?
Government run weather satellites are pretty good at predicting if it will.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Conservatives, of course, would like to change all that.
This industrys mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable.
Project 2025 is an881-page productof the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.
Its a plan for the first 180 days of Republican rule should Donald Trump win the presidency.
They all process the data using proprietary systems, but many of the inputs are free.
Thats always bothered the peoplewho run AccuWeather.
The privatization of weather reports is a conservative project that long predates Trump and Project 2025.
AccuWeather, which was headquartered in Santorums home state,lobbied hard for the bill.
It died in committee.
AccuWeather tried again during Trumps first presidency.
Trump nominated AccuWeather CEO Barry Lee Myers to head the NOAA.
Smelling a fox in the henhouse, the Senaterefused to confirm him.
AccuWeather is all over Project 2025.
The NWS provides data the private companies use and should focus on its data-gathering services.
Because private companies rely on these data, the NWS should fully commercialize its forecasting operations.
Its a bizarre assertion.
When costs go up, corporations dont eat it.
They push it onto the end user.
Under Project 2025s plan, free weather reports would end and the cost of the third-party apps would increase.
Project 2025 argued that most Americans use AccuWeather instead of the NWS.
Strangely, it didnt mention other third-party sources for weather reports.
It links to the study: anAccuWeather-authored press release.
AccuWeathers current leadership, like Trump, is putting distance between itself and Project 2025.
Update 7/17/2024 at 1:05pm:This story has been updated with a comment from AccuWeather.
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