TDI-L eNotes #2 of 2 - Action Alert 5/27/05 - Senate Bill 786 (The National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005) Would Limit Weather Service Information

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TDI-L eNotes #2 of 2 - Action Alert: 5/27/05

- Senate Bill 786 (The National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005) Would

Limit Weather Service Info

Many of the nation's most prominent disability organizations and advocates,

including the National Organization on Disability's Emergency Preparedness

Initiative, the Progressive Center for Independent Living,

Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc., the Northern Virginia Resource Center

for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Persons, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer

Advocacy Network, and Emergency Management & Special Needs consulting firm

EAD & Associates, LLC, have united in opposition to Senate Bill 786 (The

National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005) which, if passed, could have a

disproportionate, detrimental impact on the health and safety of the

nation's

54 million people with disabilities.

The bill, introduced by Senator Rick Santorum on April 14, 2005, would limit

the information that the National Weather Service (NWS) can provide to the

public by barring it from providing any service that competes with private

companies.

Such companies, including The Weather Channel and AccuWeather, which is

based in Senator Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania, offer their own

forecasts through paid services and free ad-supported Web sites which

benefit from repackaging the data that the tax-funded NWS gives away.

" Aside from the folly of making the public pay for information that their

tax dollars have already helped collect, this proposed bill will result in

the elimination of many established technological systems that help ensure

the timely and complete dissemination of critical information to individuals

with disabilities, " says Claude Stout, Executive Director of

Telecommunications of the Deaf, Inc.

The NWS, which is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA), provides comprehensive weather information in

compliance with Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act, which

requires that individuals with disabilities, who are members of the public

seeking information or services from a Federal department or agency, have

access to and use of information and data that is comparable to that

provided to the public without disabilities.

Placing government-collected and accessibility-protected weather information

into private hands puts at risk these accessibility protections and

seriously compromises the rights and safety of citizens with disabilities.

" At a time when emergency preparedness planning is a vital exercise for all

Americans, limiting the ways that the NWS can distribute information is both

disturbing and dangerous, " says , Managing Director of EAD &

Associates, LLC.

Cheryl Heppner, Executive Director of the Northern Virginia Resource Center

for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Persons adds, " People with disabilities take

their safety preparedness seriously, and there is a large population of

people with disabilities who rely on the NWS to provide general and

emergency information in technologically accessible ways. "

" By taking away time-tested redundancies for the corporate and monetary

interests of a few, Senator Santorum is putting money ahead of the personal

safety of a large segment of the American population, " says Hilary Styron,

Acting Director of the National Organization on Disability's Emergency

Preparedness Initiative.

Organizations or individuals interested in helping defeat Senator Santorum's

bill are encouraged to call or write to their Senator, as well as express

their opposition directly to Senator Santorum at .

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Thank you,

Sincerely,

Claude L. Stout

Executive Director

TDI

8630 Fenton St. #604

Silver Spring, MD 20910

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Promoting Equal Access to Telecommunications and Media For People who are

Deaf, Late-Deafened, Hard of Hearing or Deaf-Blind

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