-----Original Message-----
From: Craigie, Kay (2nd Vice President)
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 9:30 AM
To: arrl-odv
Subject: [arrl-odv:12813] Re: NWS - Senate Bill 786

I'm confused. It sounds as if Chris is referring to the legislation that would force the national wildlife service to let DXpeditioners do their thing on those islands that are now off-limits. I can see why that proposal would create some bad karma for ham radio on the Hill and why its existence would annoy John Chwat.

However, I think Tom was talking about the Santorum legislation that would make the national weather service stop "competing" with the private sector weather outfits, the biggest of which is helping Santorum fund his re-election campaign. From the article Tom cited, it's not so clear to experts what the effects of this legislation would be, but one potential down-side would be hampering the Skywarn program that's an important part of ham radio public service in many areas of the country. Seems to me that hams do have a dog in this fight and that the ARRL might reasonably oppose the legislation because it could hinder amateurs from performing life-saving service to our communities during severe weather emergencies.

It's not jumping out at me why the Santorum legislation per se would be perceived on the Hill as showing ham radio in a negative light at the present time or how our taking a position against this unpopular proposal would have any harmful effect on our overall legislative effort.