Trump’s pick to lead Weather Agency spent 30 years fighting it
by Devin Leonard and Brian K Sullivan 16 Jun 2018 21:10 BST
In 2005 a representative of AccuWeather, the commercial forecasting company, visited the office of then-U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. It might have been Joel Myers, AccuWeather's founder, or his brother Barry Lee Myers, the company's general counsel. Santorum can't remember, even though they look nothing alike: Joel is thin, with wavy black hair and Clark Kent glasses; Barry, stocky with thinning brown hair, is the sharper dresser. Still, neither brother would have been a stranger.
AccuWeather Inc. is based in State College, Pa., and Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, had known the two for years through politics and Penn State University's alumni network. "If you're a Penn Stater, you know Joel and Barry Myers," Santorum says.
What Santorum does recall about the meeting is that his visitor had a gripe about the National Weather Service. The NWS was giving away forecasts on its website, radio stations, and elsewhere, when businesses such as AccuWeather charged its clients for theirs—never mind that AccuWeather relied on the service’s free data to formulate its own predictions. Santorum agreed that commercial weather companies deserved protection.
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