NOAA calls the end of paper nautical charts

Every Gov agency has a budget.

With this budget you can give away free stuff or you can hire a dozen more research scientist and build a few more vessels .

Its a tough call ?

 

the coast guard and military need those maps anyway, which is one of the reason NOAA created the maps. Invariably the US coast gaurd and militar end up going to the rescue of ships, and even sometimes having to clear them off of reefs and canals, also at taxpayer expense. It does not take very many avoided emergencies to make giving the maps away a net gain for the taxpayers, let alone for the owners of those ships that need to be rescued.

It might cost the government more money to print and sell the maps than they could get for them. who would pay $1000 for a map? Since they have the data anyway, and would save the taxpayers money to just make them available for free, even if some foreign agencies benefit from it, so what? It was a net benefit to the tax payers.

In other word, they would create the maps for government use anyway, even if they sold no maps. So why not make them available, someone else can print and sell them if they want. The military and US coast guard would spend as much money recusing a foreign vessel as much as a US one, US taxpayers pay for both. Giving the maps away is no different than the Weather service giving away weather data, or the US Geological Survey giving away resource maps (which they also do).

If it saves the tax payers money to give them away rather than sell them, I am for it. If it keeps sailors out of trouble, be they US or foreign, I am for it.