Actually the thousands of dollars AccuBlunder has donated to Santorum's campaign is documented and public.
I'm talking about the undocumented perks, like Corrine Brown's Mercedes.
It seems to me that the information in this article is seriously lacking balance. I have little knowledge of the bill's specifics, but then, nobody else seems to either. As I said before, this tidbit seems tailor made for lefties trying to unseat Santorum and gain popular traction. Doing a quick Google search, the most prominent hits were from the kook-left and this Pennsylvania paper story that provides more information. Note that the donations were from employees or AccuWeather, that AccuWeather's position seems reasonable under the light of their remarks (i.e., eliminating unjust competition from the government in in new roles) and - most importantly - that nobody is talking about eliminating the weather services we are used to from NOAA. It looks to me like no lives will be in any more danger from lack of weather information than they have ever been before. The issue, so it appears, is specialized and tailored information feeds - not part of traditional NOAA functions.
THE VIEW FROM THE LEFT:
“Do you think you have a right to get free weather information from the government's weather service? Rick doesn't think so - he thinks his constituents who own AccuWeather in State College should control online access to weather information. He's filed legislation (S. 786 - National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005) that would, essentially, force much government meteorological information off-line. Thanks to The Daily Kos for picking up on this - no one in the Pittsburgh media seems to have yet. Like many other politicians, particularly Republican politicians, Rick proves to be in the pocket of big business at the expense of the general tax-paying public. The local media finally picked up this story on April 26, after WDUQ mentioned it on the air on April 25. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Given the Trib's lust for Republican politicians, it's interesting that the Trib's article sounds even more against the AccuWeather sweetheart bill than the PG is!”
http://www.dpsinfo.com/dumprick/
ANOTHER VIEW WITH REMARKS FROM ACCUWEATHER:
“One of the companies advocating for the bill is AccuWeather in State College, Pa., whose employees have contributed at least $5,500 to Santorum since 1999, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
The private companies saw that stance as a sign that the National Weather Service might endanger their businesses by expanding into new areas with competing products or offerings.
"What we see [the National Weather Service] doing is providing specialized information for business and industry, commercial users within society, products and services that the public, really, itself doesn't need," said AccuWeather Executive Vice President Barry Myers.
Providing generalized public information that parallels the private firms' services is "not the function of our government," Myers said, "and I don't think you'll find any other agency in the U.S. government that does that kind of thing."
The pre-2004 weather service policies on competition led to "the entire explosion of weather information in the United States and gives us probably the best weather available to the public anywhere in the world," Myers contended. He argued that Santorum's bill was a necessary measure to put back in place a firm anti-competition policy for the federal agency. “
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05116/494329.stm