[Skywarn] Senate Bill Could Cut Number Of Weather Service Offices

[Jay Cafasso]

Never for a minute think a bill will never gain traction especially when
the committee chair is the sponsor ...

The bill number is  S. 1573. (http://www.commerce.senate.gov. - goto press
room) I confirmed this with the committee.

The bill was introduced on June,16th. It's an assault on the employee union
no doubt. But IMHO, it's a destructive bill and it needs to be squashed. If
there was one part of Commerce and NOAA that is thrifty, it's NWS. That
entire organization has only 3 lawyers on staff to handle it's affairs. In
DC that is unheard of.

Again IMO this needs to be passed to all in SKYWARN members to call their
US Senator and tell them not to back this bill.

With kind regards...

Jay Cafasso
12559 N400E
Wheatfield, IN 46392 USA
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On Jun 19, 2015 9:26 AM, "Kevin Heyboer" <k.heyboer at verizon.net> wrote:

> Good morning Lloyd and the group.  I did a little bit of research on the
> information provided in this e-mail.
>
> 1. Senator John Thune (R) of South Dakota is the Chairman of the Senate
> Commerce committee, and would thus monitor the activities of the Department
> of Commerce, of which NOAA and NWS are a part.
>
> 2. The Senate Bill draft linked on the news article has no bill number
> attached, so it has not passed the committee, and is, in fact being
> "floated" as an idea.
>
> 3.  The link provided by Lloyd is to House of Representatives Bill #2413
> called the "Weather Service Forecasting Improvement Act of 2013" and it
> allocates 100 million dollars to improving weather modeling and space
> platforms for weather forecasting.  There is no mention of any downsizing
> of
> the NWS.
>
> 4.  If there is a matching bill floating in the House of Representatives, I
> cannot find it.
>
> 5.  There are already 6 Regional Headquarters for the NWS.  They are the
> Southern, Eastern, Central, Western, Alaskan, and Pacific Headquarters.
>
> 6.  The language in the draft of the bill is equally suggestive that
> Republican John Thune would like to replace employees of the federal
> government who are covered by the Federal Civil Service Act and have
> retirement and health benefits with private contractors who would not be
> covered by the Federal Civil Service Act, thus saving lots of money in paid
> benefits.
>
> 7.  There would still have to be personnel at the 122 NWS Offices to run
> and
> maintain the WSR-88D and the NOAA Weather Radio systems.
>
> 8.  Since the NOAA Weather Radio/SAME system is the entry point for ALL
> Emergency Alert System messages, I don't find it likely that this bill will
> gain much footing.
>
> This is just my opinion, based upon of few facts, and others may come to a
> different conclusion.
>
> Kevin Heyboer KD4UYR
> AEC Cherokee County NCARES
> Southwest Carolina SKYWARN Net Manager
> http://www.cherokee-ares.net
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Skywarn [mailto:skywarn-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Lloyd
> Colston
> Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 7:15 PM
> To: skywarn at mailman.qth.net; Email Lists; texomaem at yahoogroups.com;
> AltusEM
> Lists
> Subject: [Skywarn] Senate Bill Could Cut Number Of Weather Service Offices
>
> "There are 122 National Weather Service offices nationwide, but there's a
> plan being floated in the U.S. Senate to reduce the number of those offices
> to just six, meaning many jobs could be lost." http://bit.ly/1GTwFO4
>
> "Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2014" http://bit.ly/1TyYwZb is the
> text of the bill.
>
> Lloyd
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