I think the article states that the equipment will continue to be operating; so its cost (and presumably those of its operators) isn't changing, and thus can be

I think the article states that the equipment will continue to be operating; so its cost (and presumably those of its operators) isn't changing, and thus can be ignored when evaluating this service cut. And yes, $10 is hyperbole, but we have AWOS (automatic weather observation systems) at airports all over the USA. I wonder how much it costs to transmit data from those.