An illustrated version of this piece—with a volcano video!—also appears at LeveesNotWar.org under the same title. ]
laflaur's diary :: ::
“
legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes . . . $140 million for something called ‘volcano monitoring.’ Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.” —Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, Feb. 24, 2009
Remember Bobby Jindal’s celebrated response to President Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress in February 2009? It included some, uh, noteworthy moments, not the least of which was his sneer at such “wasteful spending” as “something called ‘volcano monitoring.’” Some speechwriter was probably pleased with that line, but this was a contemptuous display of ignorance on the level of Rudy Giuliani’s ridiculing “community organizer—what’s that?” (6:08) at the 2008 Republican National Convention, and just as deserving of a reality-based comeuppance. The $140 million for the U.S. Geological Survey was partly intended to provide warnings of impending volcanic eruptions in the U.S. and around the world where American military bases are located. The Americans at Ramstein Air Base in Germany probably appreciate that monitoring equipment right about now.
With international air traffic to Europe disrupted for a second straight day following a massive volcano eruption in Iceland (some 17,000 flights were canceled Friday), we have to use the occasion to poke this over-ambitious governor in the eye and say: “Now do you get it?” Jindal the boy genius used to be respected for his intelligence and precocious grasp of complex policy, but those days are over. He is not serving his state or the nation—and not his own career, either—by his know-nothing, anti-science statements and decisions. (See our earlier posts “Mr. Jindal, Tear Down This Ambition” and “From Rising Star to Black Hole.”)
Suffering under an Ambitious, Anti-Science Governor
This mocker of investments in volcano monitoring is the same governor who (along with senators Mary Landrieu and David Vitter) filed objections with EPA administrator Lisa Jackson against proposed regulations to limit greenhouse gases, claiming that the Supreme Court–mandated standards “will certainly have profound negative economic impacts on the state of Louisiana, as well as the entire country.” Not true. Actually, an analysis by the Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Institute found that Louisiana stands to gain billions in revenue and tens of thousands of new jobs. As reported at ThinkProgress:
Louisiana could see a net increase of about $2.2 billion in investment revenue and 29,000 jobs based on its share of a total of $150 billion in clean-energy investments annually across the country. This is even after assuming a reduction in fossil fuel spending equivalent to the increase in clean-energy investments.
This is the same governor who also, to his shame, signed into law the Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008 (SB733) that opened the door for teaching creationism and intelligent design alongside the theory of natural selection (Darwinian evolution). Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education made adjustments strengthening the pro-creationist provisions. Back to the pre–Scopes “Monkey” Trial era with Bobby. The CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science wrote to Jindal urging him to veto SB733 and reminding him that in 1987 the U.S. Supreme Court in declared unconstitutional a Louisiana “creation science” law.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/17/858218/-Something-Called-Volcano-Monitoring-
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