You have to hand it to politicians, they can figure out more ways to fritter away money than a gambler in a Las Vegas casino.
A case in point: Asian carp. Nobody is disputing the fact that these Oriental invaders currently infesting rivers in the upper Midwest are bad business and they threaten the future of fishing in the Great Lakes. What is in question is why we have to spend $100 million in new money to stop them. That’s the cash that’s been set aside so far to keep the fish from getting in the Great Lakes, though nobody is really sure that the carp aren’t already there.
The czar-happy Obama administration appointed a Hoosier named John Goss as its “carp czar” and charged him with overseeing the effort to eradicate these piscatorial vermin. Goss, who has quite a pedigree in the conservation business, was also handed a $78 million budget to make it happen, though “it” is still being sorted out as far as what is supposed to be accomplished.
Then there’s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It recently announced that it was embarking on a $25 million carp campaign of its own. However, the Corps is spending the money merely to study “jumping carp” and possible ways to keep them from gaining access to the Great Lakes through the various shipping canals in the Chicago area. The Corp’s Phase II is getting rid of them, but that’s another budget, and not to be confused with Goss’ deal, the $9 million the Corps spent in 2009 to build a “permanent barrier” to Asian carp in one canal, nor the $13 million from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and other earmarks for more “permanent barriers.” For that kind of money, every Asian carp netted should be stamped with “Your Tax Dollars At Work” on its sides.
Before this is all over, Asian carp will be the most studied and targeted form of life on earth, and perhaps the most prevalent. What is so exasperating about the whole project is that the current powers-that-be treat Asian carp as if they’re something new, and pose an unprecedented problem to solve. What somebody should be studying is why the current Washington crowd thinks we need a carp czar and the Corps of Engineers involved.
What happened to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Commerce and the Agriculture Department? All of those agencies were charged with removing natural hazards such as Asian carp long ago, and each has spent billions of dollars in eradication programs targeting everything from boll weevils to Burmese pythons. Why do we need more layers of bureaucracy to do something that other agencies do routinely?
If the boys in Washington really wanted to wipe out Asian carp, they’d put a $5-per-fish bounty on them and turn loose a bunch of Louisiana alligator hunters in upstate Illinois. They’d clean out the carp, and then sell the meat for $10 a pound in fish markets up and down the Mississippi.