The Governor and the Volcano, Part 1
Following President Obama's Feb 24th not-technically-State-of-the-Union speech before a Congress, the Republican response was given by up-and-coming Lousiana governor Bobby Jindal. Unfortunately for Jindal, his cringe worthy response was widely mocked by people of all political persuasions.
Besides the Kenneth-the-Page delivery, one part of Jindal's speech made me sit up and take notice. At about the 4:30 minute mark, Jindal begins to criticize the recently passed stimulus bill:
"While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation's
larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million dollars to buy new
cars for the government, $8 billion dollars for high speed rail projects
such as a magnetic levitation line from Las Vegas to Disneyland... and
$140 million dollars for something called volcano monitoring".
Volcano monitoring... maybe it's just me but this sounds like it could be important. I don't think anyone could dispute that monitoring the formation of hurricanes isn't important (though someone living in North Dakota might not think so). It turns out that you can download and read the stimulus bill for yourself, so I searched for the word "volcano" to get the real skippy (and despite what Rush Limbaugh claims, the PDF is searchable). Here's the item dealing with volcanoes:
SURVEYS, INVESTIGATIONS, AND RESEARCH
For an additional amount for ‘‘Surveys, Investigations, and
Research’’, $140,000,000, for repair, construction and restoration
of facilities; equipment replacement and upgrades including stream
gages, and seismic and volcano monitoring systems; national map
activities; and other critical deferred maintenance and improvement
projects.
So it turns out that the good governor was being a little disingenuous. Only a part of the money will go for volcano monitoring. The $140 million is going to the US Geological Survey, which not only monitors volcanoes, but earthquakes and floods, avian flu outbreaks, and a great deal more. USGS's 2009 budget had been cut by $38 million dollars from 2008 levels, so the stimulus bill's provision will surely help out the agency make up that shortfall and more.
Oh yeah-- about the train to Disneyland? It's not in the stimulus bill.
In the next couple of days I hope to have another post up that focuses on the USGS and volcanoes (if you live in Alaska, Hawaii, California, Orgeon, Washington or Wyoming-- then you have volcanoes to worry about!).
Besides the Kenneth-the-Page delivery, one part of Jindal's speech made me sit up and take notice. At about the 4:30 minute mark, Jindal begins to criticize the recently passed stimulus bill:
Click to view"While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation's
larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million dollars to buy new
cars for the government, $8 billion dollars for high speed rail projects
such as a magnetic levitation line from Las Vegas to Disneyland... and
$140 million dollars for something called volcano monitoring".
Volcano monitoring... maybe it's just me but this sounds like it could be important. I don't think anyone could dispute that monitoring the formation of hurricanes isn't important (though someone living in North Dakota might not think so). It turns out that you can download and read the stimulus bill for yourself, so I searched for the word "volcano" to get the real skippy (and despite what Rush Limbaugh claims, the PDF is searchable). Here's the item dealing with volcanoes:
SURVEYS, INVESTIGATIONS, AND RESEARCH
For an additional amount for ‘‘Surveys, Investigations, and
Research’’, $140,000,000, for repair, construction and restoration
of facilities; equipment replacement and upgrades including stream
gages, and seismic and volcano monitoring systems; national map
activities; and other critical deferred maintenance and improvement
projects.
So it turns out that the good governor was being a little disingenuous. Only a part of the money will go for volcano monitoring. The $140 million is going to the US Geological Survey, which not only monitors volcanoes, but earthquakes and floods, avian flu outbreaks, and a great deal more. USGS's 2009 budget had been cut by $38 million dollars from 2008 levels, so the stimulus bill's provision will surely help out the agency make up that shortfall and more.
Oh yeah-- about the train to Disneyland? It's not in the stimulus bill.
In the next couple of days I hope to have another post up that focuses on the USGS and volcanoes (if you live in Alaska, Hawaii, California, Orgeon, Washington or Wyoming-- then you have volcanoes to worry about!).