Your guide to the region's top events, mixed with some commentary about life, media, gossip and politics in Washington, DC.
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Mother Nature's Helpers
While the “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska is probably the most famous earmark of recent years, Congress’s latest half-trillion-dollar omnibus spending bill set a new record for lawmaker largess—some 9,000 earmarks slipped through with little scrutiny.
By
Jackie Kucinich
Match the lawmaker to his or her nature-related earmark: a. $1,540,000 for an Appalachian Fruit Lab 1. Senator Dick Durbin b. $223,000 for beaver management 2. Senator Elizabeth Dole c. $234,000 for olive-fruit-fly research 3. Senator Robert Byrd d. $244,000 for bee research 4. Senators Mike Crapo and Larry Craig e. $185,000 for asparagus technology and production 5. Senator Harry Reid f. $1,125,000 for Mormon-cricket research 6. Congressman Mike Thompson g. $113,000 for rodent control 7. Senator Ted Stevens h. $1,094,000 for rainbow-trout assistance 8. Senator Saxby Chambliss i. $353,000 to study the Asian long-horned beetle 9. Congressman Chet Edwards j. $132,000 for peanut research 10. Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray
Answers: 1-i; 2-b; 3-a; 4-h; 5-f; 6-c; 7-g; 8-j; 9-d; 10-e This article can be found in the February 2008 issue of The Washingtonian.
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Comments
I’m no fan of the government wasting tax dollars, but despite the sometimes obscure sounding names, these seem like projects that can help in the long term and that wouldn’t be taken up by private industry. So without funding like this, who is going to solve problems or provide innovation in the absence of promising profits for private businesses?
You probably wouldn’t be very happy living in a world overrun by beavers, flies, rodents, beetles and Mormon crickets while lacking any fruit, honey, asparagus, trout, or peanuts to eat. Well...OK, a world without asparagus might not be so bad.
Posted by: Max Brewer , Jan 31, 2008 08:41:25 PM
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