I was unable to watch Jindal's speech last night, but LiveScience.com has an item that I hadn't seen mentioned in any of the other diaries, and which is simply astounding to me. They point out that Jindal held out as an example of waste in the stimulus bill, "$140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring."
Even by the usual standards of proud Republican Know-Nothingism, this is stunning. The excellent article points out what this is really all about:
The $140 million to which Jindal referred is actually for a number of projects conducted by the United States Geological Survey, including volcano monitoring. This monitoring is aimed at helping geologists understand the inner workings of volcanoes as well as providing warnings of impending eruptions, in the United States and in active areas around the world where U.S. military bases are located, such as the Philippines.
Among the scenarios in which the USGS's monitoring can assist - the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, which killed 57 people (including a geologist monitoring the mountain) and was the deadliest and costliest volcanic eruption in U.S. history ($2.74 billion in 2007 dollars). This event was preceded by thousands of earthquakes in the two months before the volcano blew its top; some of these prompted the Governor of Washington to declare a state of emergency and many residents were evacuated from a designated danger zone.
The entire article is well worth reading, and includes several examples of the cost-effectiveness of such monitoring, such as predicting the 1992 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, and thereby enabling the saving of thousands of lives and movement of moveable property worth at least $250 million out of the eruption zone (including U.S. military property at the base near Mount Pinatubo) -- all at a cost of $1.5 million.
I wonder if Governor Palin thinks volcano monitoring is such a waste of money, given that the USGS is currently monitoring a possible major eruption of Alaska's Mount Redoubt. Of course, Sarah Palin probably thinks the National Hurricane Center is a waste of government money, since there'll have to be a LOT of global warming for one of them to hit Alaska.
I've got a modest suggestion: President Obama should invite Governors Jindal and Palin to debate whether the federal government should stop paying for (1) volcano monitoring, or (2) hurricane monitoring, or (3) both, or (4) neither, put the entire thing on pay-per-view, and use the proceeds to reduce the federal deficit. I don't know about anybody else, but I'd pay for a ticket to see that one!