In today’s economic environment, it is becoming apparent that the federal government will not be able to fund the development, deployment and operation of the high-resolution observational networks that are increasingly being called for by the users of the weather, water, and climate community products and services. This panel will look at the possibilities of the private sector owning and operating the required networks and the likelihood of the federal agencies paying for the information. Panelists will address the following questions: 1) Are the federal agencies willing to buy data? 2) Does the private sector believe selling the data to feds economically feasible; i.e., does they see a possible ROI with commercialization of weather and climate data? 3) Will OMB support long-term funding for commercial contracts for data?