Privatizing the Weather

Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa) has introduced a bill, S.786 called the National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005, that would limit direct public access to information that is now available for free from the National Weather Service. Critics say he did on behalf of AccuWeather, whose founder has donated $4,000 to Santorum since 2000.
I think the issue runs deeper. Some conservatives want to limit the extent to which the government provides public benefits to the citizenry at large. Senator Santorum evidently believes it is more important to protect private business than to allow us the benefit of weather information that we have already paid for.