A National Academy of Sciences report released Thursday concluded that Americans still need the U.S. government's National Weather Service, even though it operates in a field where there is private competition that provides similar service. We agree.
The general argument for privatization runs as follows. If private, commercial bodies can provide the public a service -- charging for it, of course -- thus permitting the elimination of a taxpayer-funded governmental service, then the government service should cede its place to private enterprise and go away.
There is in there somewhere also the idea that the government, because of its nature, is probably not providing the service in question as well or as economically as might a private provider, imbued with the profit motive.
There are probably a few flaws in that concept in general. One is that it undervalues the sense of duty and public service that most government employees bring to their work. The second is the assumption that private providers are consistently reliable. That may or may not be true. (The Post-Gazette taps both government and private sources, using a map and information from AccuWeather but frequently calling the National Weather Service for comment when doing stories.)
As Joe DiNardo, the veteran WTAE meteorologist, observed in a Post-Gazette story yesterday, the National Weather Service's current information and research provide a valuable benchmark for private services, of which there are about 400. Air and marine travelers rely on the service's forecasting. The reliability of that information can have life-or-death implications.
We don't think the responsibility for collecting and making available that information should be left exclusively to "severe weather centers" and other private providers.
Of course, in addition to the National Weather Service, there is always -- or at least for the next six weeks -- the prognostication that Phil the Punxsutawney groundhog provides us tomorrow morning.
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